robin chou Posted August 6, 2006 Share Posted August 6, 2006 Yay... very cool tribesman. Could you breifly explain how you got the LED front panel PWR button/USB to work? I am having trouble finding the right sized pin connectors/wires for it. Thanks alot. Nice job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TribesMan Posted August 6, 2006 Author Share Posted August 6, 2006 You can find the connection digram of the front panel conectors, light and button in the Apples PowerMac G5 service manual... There was a link posted few pages back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CZ*DarkLight Posted August 6, 2006 Share Posted August 6, 2006 Guys, got photos from disassembling case to get out top floor. Do you want to make a "post" tutorial, pdf, ZIP containing html site with comments and photos, or.....? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ Posted August 6, 2006 Share Posted August 6, 2006 Guys, got photos from disassembling case to get out top floor. Do you want to make a "post" tutorial, pdf, ZIP containing html site with comments and photos, or.....? I'd say posting the guide would be best, easier for people to see and follow . Thanks for doing this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CZ*DarkLight Posted August 6, 2006 Share Posted August 6, 2006 Fine. Here is that tutorial I talked about, describing and showing how to remove top floor. All what you will need is: Crossed screwdriver, normal size, nothing special Torx screwdriver, size no. 8 (for those Apple screws) Small imbus (imbus = socket head) wrench G5 case ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What do we have here? Torx and crossed screwdrivers in that case Remove screw catching those chassis fans We have to remove locking mechanism including that ledge to remove top floor. First, remove these small black flexible metal laminas, use just nail on finger. Remove all three along the ledge Fine. Take imbus (socket head) wrench and unscrew these screws holding sliding ledge Unscrewed one Put out all three doorlocks One is out, two left Now we have to remove small metal circle holding axis of ledge on lever. Use knife with sharp spike. But be careful, dont lose that circle, you will need it back then. Removed! Remove axis, dont lose transparent underlays. Fine, all gone. Now we will move out that ledge. Put it to this position to put it out. Normally you cant do that beucase it is hold by lever. Out! Now unscrew the rest of torx screws holding top floor. Ah, forgot for cables. Remove them from plastic "shaper" Time to unscrew rest of screws... Floor locks in opened position, close them. Closed! Now put floor by hand down. It will not go smoothly, but it will go. Just a little bit. Now catch it and pull it up, just like on next pic. Pull it up to get holes out of bases for screws. Pull it up above that bases and then pull to right, in direction of hole for optical drive tray. Bases in zoom. As you can see, you can't put it out smoothly beucase of no space on other side... You have to a.) pull it to left as much as you can b.) bend a little bit backside with PCI cards holes to make space for top floor to remove Finally, it is out. Just pull it up out of case And thats it! Result, without top floor. Now is easy to remove hdd tray and those fans, if needed. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ Posted August 7, 2006 Share Posted August 7, 2006 Great guide Dark Light, thanks very much. Ill post a project log here when i get mine done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asap18 Posted August 7, 2006 Share Posted August 7, 2006 i think itll be much easier to use the mac pro case now. I hope they are up on ebay soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
INFNITE Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 i doubt it will be that much easier because Mac Pro logicboards are still custom designed and custom fitted instead of using generic PC specifications. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin chou Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 You can find the connection digram of the front panel conectors, light and button in the Apples PowerMac G5 service manual... There was a link posted few pages back. Ahh I see, which type of connector pins did you use though? Can you find them at a local radioshack for instance? Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CZ*DarkLight Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 First, I think it will be HARDER than old-G5 because there are much of improvements and added parts, so disassembling of every part will be long and difficult thing. And that is brand new PC, so I think there will NOT be any case for sell for months. Because, why? For spare parts it is too new and apple started with shipping of mac pro yesterday, so, possibility that mac pro die in home of some customer is 0%.... thats my opinion. And, I love old-style G5, dont want that new one with two optical drive bays etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swad Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 The new hard drive bays look like they could make getting around in there a little more difficult. Great thread, btw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 I think the Mac Pro case looks better for this too. It looks like it will take a normal PSU and has a decent number of harddrive bays. While I am likely to mod. a PowerMac G5 case, I think might want to rip the internal drive bay chasis out of an another case and use it here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TribesMan Posted August 10, 2006 Author Share Posted August 10, 2006 Dark Light great guide there... thank you! As for Mac Pro. I tkink it is quite easier to mod it. But there could be a problem with drive bays. I don't know how exactly is it made but it look like that there is an raiser card that those drives connect to. There is no cables... so this could be a problem. You can look here... http://www.powermax.com/articles_reviews/article.php?id=32 But there is something else what could be much more of a problem. Is there enough space to fit full size ATX mobo in there? because the dual optical units and new PSU eats up mach more space than in the old Powermac. It could happen that the ATX mobos will be to high to fit in... But we will have to wait and see when first cases will be available on the ebay... I'm first in line Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conroe Mac Posted August 11, 2006 Share Posted August 11, 2006 Wow. I didn't realize people were so talented at computer fabrication. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin chou Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 A couple of people have asked me how to make the front panel I/O board work. Since my case didn't come with that board I can't say how to make it work, but I can tell you how to make the power button/LED work. The power button/LED is on a 3 wire plug, meaning 2 wires provide power to the LED (a + current and a ground) and the third wire shorts to ground when the button is pressed. So you'll need to connect the following pins from the I/O panel header of your motherboard to the plug in the correct order: PLED+, GND, PWRBTN# (these names came straight out of the ASRock Instruction Manual - they may vary by manufacturer). The only problem is I don't remember what the correct order is so you might have to go through all 6 combinations to find the one that works. Some combinations will yeild strange results (i.e. the LED will be dim or the LED will only come on while the button is held in). If this happens it means it's the wrong combination. what pins/wires do you need? The female pins of the front panel are rather small. thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TribesMan Posted August 18, 2006 Author Share Posted August 18, 2006 robin chou: I modified original cable that connects G5 motherboard and front panel connectors (it came with case) and then cut it in half. After that I just soldered longer cables on and connected them on my motherboard. The front panel connector is smaller than standard connectors that are found on PC motherboards. And because I could not find the matching female connector I just used the original one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 Great thread, btw. Cheers Mash! Wow. I didn't realize people were so talented at computer fabrication. This is nothing, go and check out some sites like bit-tech or kustompc forums, and they are just a few! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XSMac Posted August 21, 2006 Share Posted August 21, 2006 Hi guys! Spectacular thread! Keep on it! I wonder if you can help me. I'm following on your footsteps and installed a new pc into a G5 enclosure. Everything is working smoothly... But I'm not being able to GET USB and FW in the front panel to work. Can you help me on this? Already have the layout for the Apple's Front Panel Connector... Thanks Mac OS X Leopard. Introducing Vista 2.0! Conroe 6400 Asus P5W DH 1GB Corsair 6400 160GB SATAII + 160GB IDE Asus DL DVD RW Noiseblocker aircooled + Enermax powered Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted August 21, 2006 Share Posted August 21, 2006 I'm following on your footsteps and installed a new pc into a G5 enclosure. With your Asus P5W DH motherboard? Could you post some pictures, in particular the back of the case? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ Posted August 22, 2006 Share Posted August 22, 2006 Conroe 6400Asus P5W DH 1GB Corsair 6400 160GB SATAII + 160GB IDE Asus DL DVD RW Noiseblocker aircooled + Enermax powered Nice, :D As for the front usb and firewire, im not sure. I havent got that far yet. However i do remember reading a few things on the internet about it. Have a google search, and trust me it wasnt on the first page, it took some finding. Shame i lost my bookmarks.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XSMac Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 Nice, :D As for the front usb and firewire, im not sure. I havent got that far yet. However i do remember reading a few things on the internet about it. Have a google search, and trust me it wasnt on the first page, it took some finding. Shame i lost my bookmarks.... I've done that but haven't been able to find it... do you know any detail of what you saw that might help? As to pics I don't have any since I'm somewhat embaraced... I didn't have the guts to cut my G5 case so I'm only using the mobo's LAN port through one of the available holes and I bluetoothed/ wirelessed the most of my peripherals as the keyboard/mouse... also added an additional two usb ports on the back connected to the mobo and my audigy2 - which unfortunately still doesn't work with OSX - provides for sound ports and firewire. I still have one usb and one firewire connection available on the mobo and I'm trying to connect them to the front panel... my first try with the usb and fat cable was a flop... though! Probably will add an additional SPDIF port at the back and also try to mod the MP3in feature also using the front pannel... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 I didn't have the guts to cut my G5 case... That was essentially my question. But I don't blame you, I wouldn't want to cut up a G5 case either. They are too nice and the way I have my computers set up, I see their back sides a lot more than their fronts. I just trying to figure out how best to deal with what seems to be the major issue here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 XSMac, you got any pics of your setup so far? Im having troubles with my motherboard fitment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XSMac Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 XSMac, you got any pics of your setup so far? Im having troubles with my motherboard fitment. What do you mean by troubles? I took some pics while I mounted the PC but haven't got the camera with me. When I manage to get it (weekend probably) I'll post some miserable pics to you guys. Meanwhile maybe this worklog might help... most of the work I did on fitting the mobo I adapted from this: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=...age=1&pp=20 Still have some work to do: mod a cable to fit the power exit - my case didn't bring power supply with it; mod the wireless card of the mobo to be able to fit in the antenna and theGod dammed USB & FW front connections... But it works like a charm already... silent and fast... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 I did on fitting the mobo I adapted from this: Wow, that "work log" is great: That looks easy for a four PCI slot board (microATX?). But I don't understand how you dealt with using a full size, seven PCI slot, ATX board: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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