verdee Posted April 20, 2009 Share Posted April 20, 2009 So I just finished my G5 hackintosh. It has been running in another case for a while, but finally I got the case finished. The specs are: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS4P MB Core 2 Quad 9550 8 GB Ram Gforce 8800 GT EFI-X working front panel Most of the project paid for itself: I thought I bought a used G5 case for $50 on ebay, instead a got a nearly complete g5 system which I parted out way more money than I expected. For the case, I have always really liked having dual drives for dubbing slideshow disks, etc, but I didn't think a Mac pro case was worth the extra cash. So I got a really abused g5 for about $20, and swapped over the drive door (cut a hole) and the drive mounting plate. I am still shocked I got everything aligned so that it worked on the first try I used the lian li MB tray for an easily upgradable ATX solution. I drilled out the door-side apple logo and mounted a fan there for increased cooling. Finally, I really like cyprios polished look, and this case had definitely seen better days. I took a lifetime sanding down all the anodization (BIG PITA) and then tried to polish it. I wasn't too happy with my results, so I eventually found a local metal polisher who brought it to the nice mirror finish. I absolutely love how it came out. I only have one cell-phone pick right now. The inside is nowhere near as organized as the original G5 and the back of the case ended up kind of nasty looking due to epoxy-fingerprints, but I don't care. This is my first computer build, and I very happy with how it went (and my wife is happy our office is no longer littered with parts of computer cases and reeking of epoxy) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thath0r Posted April 20, 2009 Share Posted April 20, 2009 That mirror-look is really awesome. You made me think about doing this with my own G5 mod.... mmh. So you just had it sanded and polished? What did that cost? Great work. /Thath0r Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
verdee Posted April 20, 2009 Author Share Posted April 20, 2009 On my own I sanded, sanded and sanded - using an orbital sander with rough grit. I tried all sorts of tricks like drano, oven cleaner, etc. to help loosen up the anodization. Getting this stuff off really sucks. One thing that makes it tough is that it can appear that the coating is removed, but once you start trying to polish it, you see it and have to start all over. Wear a mask, you don't realize how much dust this makes until you're blowing out black boogers for a week. In terms of polishing, I wet sanded 200-2000 grit, then I used various aluminum polishes (which are dirty). The results were similar to Cyprio - it was shiny but kind of dirty looking. The guy I took it to charged me $80 (his minimum) to polish it. He just did the sides and the top (the front I got good enough on my own, and nobody will ever see the back). If I had to do it again, I would have just sanded it myself, and then taken it to the polisher. I spent a lot of money (and time) on sanding products and polishes, and I could have had this done a lot easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
booger_sniffer5000 Posted April 20, 2009 Share Posted April 20, 2009 That looks really sick, nice job! That is probably the best looking G5 mod I have seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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