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Bought Mac Pro Case from Uk ebay..


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Ok cool. Looks nice your modded Mac Pro cases. There one thing I just don't understand. How did you mount you mainboard?! Too bad that none of you has posted pics.

 

I know that I will have to remove the original standoffs but what then? I would really appreciate a small tutorial ;)

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Yup, I know, didn't have a camera available at that stage, but heres a link to the same way that I made the standoffs:

 

http://zapro.dk/blog/?p=11

 

glueingstandoffs7.jpg

 

glueingstandoffs3.jpg

 

Just love this one:

 

glueingstandoffs.jpg

 

Basically, I found some longer standoffs from another case, cut some small aluminium squares as Zapro did, drilled these in the centre & cut a thread in them, then glued these with Liquid Metal to the case. Boy, that liqiud metal is stronger than the original standoffs.

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Ok i've got another plan before but I can not test it until my enclosure arrives:

 

1. Get a large aluminium sheet and cut it almost to the size of a µATX mainboard.

2. Rip out all the original standoffs

3. drill the holes for the µATX mainboard in the aluminium and drill holes for fixing it into the case

4. use some really small standoffs between the case and the aluminium and some large ones between the aluminium and the mainboard.

 

Will this work too? That would be like an adaptor. Apple Standard -> µATX.

 

Btw. I will order my Mac Pro enclosure when scrumpymacs opens again at 2nd Jan ;) *happy*

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Ok i've got another plan before but I can not test it until my enclosure arrives:

 

1. Get a large aluminium sheet and cut it almost to the size of a µATX mainboard.

2. Rip out all the original standoffs

3. drill the holes for the µATX mainboard in the aluminium and drill holes for fixing it into the case

4. use some really small standoffs between the case and the aluminium and some large ones between the aluminium and the mainboard.

 

Will this work too? That would be like an adaptor. Apple Standard -> µATX.

 

Btw. I will order my Mac Pro enclosure when scrumpymacs opens again at 2nd Jan ;) *happy*

Drill and Tap i would say.

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Ok when you say its good then it must be good :censored2: No I'm serious I've never done something like that before so I want to be shure what I do and how long it will take, and so on ... How did you manage the powersupply and the sata conectors of the harddrive bays? Can I just plug in my standard cable or will I have to mod a cable to fit there? Can I just connect the mainboard on/off cable to the on/off switch of the case?

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You can just plug in the sata cables into the back of the hard drives, but I rewired the original Apple loom and soldered on some sata leads to plug in the motherboard. I have a picture somewhere of the loom in progress, I will put it up.

 

All in all this is not the quickest project around, but if you take your time it is pretty rewarding.

 

loom2.jpeg

 

macproloom.jpeg

 

There is a related thread here.

 

Here is the pinout for the Mac Pro front panel, courtesy of Zapro again.

 

frontpanel3.jpg

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Yeah, you should be able to do it in a week I guess. If you get the stuff all together before hand then it should not take too long. I have done it a bit at a time, which is the way I prefer to work, as sometimes I will think of a better way of doing something if I don't rush.

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Hi Aqua,

 

First I'd like to say you've done an amazing job in making your Hackintosh. Second, I was wondering why you didn't install a motherboard tray like you did with your G5 case. My only guess is because you used all four hard drive trays, but I'm wondering if you could use a motherboard tray. If possible and I could provide a case, would you consider installing the motherboard tray for me and for what price? I could probably do it myself, but I'm just so damn impressed with how your G5 came out, that I'd be upset if it didn't look as good as that. PM me and let me know what you think.

 

Thanks.

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Hi Black Knight,

 

It is very difficult to fit a tray in the Mac Pro case, as the extra HDD bays make fitting of a full ATX impossible unless you are prepared to sacrifice those HDD's. As it is, I lost HDD 1 to the front radiator & fan, but as there is a rear e-sata plate with power, it is really easy to attach another HDD.

 

Not many (if any) trays exist at all for Micro ATX - although, I'm sure everyone will now prove me wrong. I did not want to lose 2 Hard drives, but also wanted to use the Mac Pro original card slots at the back. The G5 was different from the point of view that you can fit a full ATX in and the cooler master tray, being aluminium, visually matched the case. I am still working on the mac pro case and want to keep the original rear ports as they look so good. What I really need is an old broken mac pro logic board that I can remove the rear ports from and mount them on a small circuit board with fly leads to the GA 33M-DS2R.

 

Project so far:

 

shot4.jpeg

 

With regards to your proposed mod, it is not that difficult to mount the Wave master separate tray into the G5, here is the rear view of the cooler master case:

 

341full.jpg

 

340full.jpg.

 

It is really a case of measuring then measuring again, also, the tray is inverted when it goes into the G5 case. I will have a think, then PM you.

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Yes, not seen that one before!

 

You will have to relocate the power supply down to the bottom of the case I would think, as the motherboard is going to interfere with the top back area, but that is not a huge problem. Nice to keep the 120 mm fan at the back too. Also good that this is available without buying a whole case then throwing the most expensive part away!!! Site looks interesting, will investigate further.

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You'll need to find it on a different site. I think they're out of stock on those. I thought that a full size Bad Axe 2 board fit without having to go into the power supply area. I'm going with a Black Ice Pro II radiator rather than the PA120.2 since it's not as long, which will probably be in the way of mounting the PSU in the bottom. I'm afraid that if I mount it in front of the CPU like you did that it will not have much clearance for the tubing off of the CPU.

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You won't get a Dual rad in if you are using a full ATX, unless you are prepared to lose 3 HDD's, one at the front and 2 at the back.

 

Here is Zapro's full size ATX in a Mac Pro case so you can see what you are up against.

 

testfitcut.jpg

 

He did manage to get a PS into the top section of the case, but it needs fixing/suspending from the back. Note that the top PCI slots cannot be used with a full ATX.

 

img_4619.JPG

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The Black Ice II radiator is 10.9 inches long where the PA120.2 is a full inch longer. I figured that's about the same as one of those HDD bays. Didn't you use a PA120.2? I'm starting to consider going with the G5 case anyways. I still think that the tray I sent you a link to will be a better option than the coolermaster one since it has a rear 120mm fan.

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Yeah, I would say if you are set on a full size ATX the G5 is a fairly straightforward mod with lots more internal space. If you can get that tray, it could be good as well. I did not look to see if the tray was aluminium or steel, but Lian Li are usually aluminium.

 

I used this radiator

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Looking at the dimensions of both the tray I last showed you and the dimensions of the Mac Pro (same width as the PowerMac G5), I'd have to remove a lot of aluminum off the tray since the tray is 8.75" wide and the Mac is 8.1" wide. I may have to go with a Lian-Li PC-6X tray and have the rear whole cut to fit a 92mm fan instead of the stock 80mm. I believe that's the only way to get something larger than 80mm.

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