G4/Hackintosh Case Mod

[Lord_Jeremy]

Hey. I've got essentially a spare G4 lying around now. It's a PowerMac G4 400 MHz Gigabit Ethernet. I absolutely love that thing's case design. Now I have a Mini ATX Quad Core Hackintosh and I just had the brilliant idea of putting the innards of my Hackintosh into the G4 case. Now normally I'd be reluctant to ruin such an amazing machine, but the payoff would just be so great. I'm itching to ditch this ugly black Gateway case, but if possible I'd like to put the G4's components into the old PC case. Has anyone done this before? I'm a little afraid to take the first step myself for a couple reasons: The Quad Core obviously has a pretty freaking big cooler with this wind tunnel thing that would probably get in the way inside the G4 case. I could always replace it with another less obtrusive (but equally powerful) cooler, but I'm worried about heat. I've got the Q6600 and a GeForce 9400 GT in this PC and the G4 doesn't have the most powerful cooling system. If I do this, I'm definitely replacing the lower inner case fan because that thing is nearly 10 years old now. Next chance I get I'll open up both machines side by side and do things like make sure the mobo screws line up and stuff. I'm praying that they do because I don't feel like fashioning new screw posts or anything like that.

[bonestonne]

if you have an OEM gateway, chances are they have a non-reference design cooling layout for the CPU.

 

In order to have a smaller cooler, you'd want to find something like the Stock Intel LGA775 cooler, and if you've got some oddball mounting setup, it wont work with the reference design coolers.

 

reference design is how it was originally setup, intel created LGA775 with a 70mm (closer to 75) square for the mounting holes for the pushpin coolers. a non-reference design would not have those mounting holes, such as Dell computers, which actually have the socket turned 45 degrees, for their own cooling setups.

 

but just for general knowledge, the quad with any decent cooler would be fine, and the G92 core that the 9400GT works with is not by any means a hot chip, so you don't need to worry about anything.

[SticMAC™]

Great Idea!!

 

I have a G3 that runs 10.6.2!!

I decided to use a G3 case for the fact that one can see the G3 logo underneath the Poly outer casing! Inside is enough space to mount ANY extra cooler! The only issue is that you are normally better off installing a short length DVD drive and you might need to cut a small piece of the internal housing that hold it away, to make room for the CPU cooler or memory!

 

SticMAC

 

Hey. I've got essentially a spare G4 lying around now. It's a PowerMac G4 400 MHz Gigabit Ethernet. I absolutely love that thing's case design. Now I have a Mini ATX Quad Core Hackintosh and I just had the brilliant idea of putting the innards of my Hackintosh into the G4 case. Now normally I'd be reluctant to ruin such an amazing machine, but the payoff would just be so great. I'm itching to ditch this ugly black Gateway case, but if possible I'd like to put the G4's components into the old PC case. Has anyone done this before? I'm a little afraid to take the first step myself for a couple reasons: The Quad Core obviously has a pretty freaking big cooler with this wind tunnel thing that would probably get in the way inside the G4 case. I could always replace it with another less obtrusive (but equally powerful) cooler, but I'm worried about heat. I've got the Q6600 and a GeForce 9400 GT in this PC and the G4 doesn't have the most powerful cooling system. If I do this, I'm definitely replacing the lower inner case fan because that thing is nearly 10 years old now. Next chance I get I'll open up both machines side by side and do things like make sure the mobo screws line up and stuff. I'm praying that they do because I don't feel like fashioning new screw posts or anything like that.