Power Mac G5 modders... Advice please :)

d_brennen

d_brennen

d_brennen

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Got me a mint Power Mac G5 for £50. The motherboard is faulty so it was sold as spares... But it is the case I'm interested in :)

I know there was an epic build thread on here, I will search that out in a mo but I wanted to ask anyone who has done one of these mods for any tips.

Got an MATX motherboard, PSU, couple of hard drives and a HD5850 to go in it. What kind of modding do I need to do to get a PC motherboard/GPU fitted?

Getting my hands on it tomorrow, pics to follow :)
 
Ptikobj said:
These threads proved useful.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18194230
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18126030&highlight=project+gattaca

and this

http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2008/10/28/apple-core-duo-by-cyprio/1

I bought one of these cases last month, just haven't had the time to work on it yet.
Click to expand...

Ta, had seen DeadMan's build. Will probably be doing something similar. Need hold of a motherboard tray... Theres one for sale from a competitor for £21 odd but they are out of stock :( May recycle an old HP SFF pc for its tray instead.

Will also be using SMD led tape (which is awesome) for lighting. Now, question is, white or red?
 
Finally got a look at the Mac, it isn't as mint as the seller described :( There is a few scratches on the case, not massively deep, but enough to put me off. My dilemma now is do I buy it (at less than £50) and get it powdercoated (black or gunmetal) for a total cost of about £100, or wait for a better one?

It seems you can't seem to get a G5 case for less than £70 so I may buy it anyway...
 
Powercoat it :D

Im considering powder coating the inner case white and polishing the outsiding to a mirror finish like the "apple core 2 duo" mod. I was considering black but everything else I have is black!
 
Had a change of heart - I'm powdercoating it mat black :) had a look on the bay and all the bits are fetching good money. If is sell the psu, dvdrw, CPU and hs, fan mounts/ speaker. Etc. This could be a very cheap mod :D

Oh and berated the guy for wasting my time with a broken Mac that isn't mint... Lifted it for 25 notes :D
 
Welcome to the slightly mad club of taking this on! :) (havnt gotten back to my thread yet with all this uni work)

Ebay is annoying as mine came with a big crunch but it is fixable (havnt bent mine back together yet though), also there is a brilliant thread on a forum that we cant really mention (does hackintosh stuff) I came across with a real G5 tear down guide! To get EVERYTHING out you need t10 t8 and t6 torx (maybe t5) which took me a bit to twig on (maybe more im just not near all the bits I used to get it apart).

Also recommend getting a motherboard tray (my £21 matx for random case looks like it'll fit very well)

Good luck! :)
 
Seen your thread pingwing ;) This is my first major mod project. Done loads of little bits over a decade or so. About time I pull the finger out!

Will get a tray from somewhere, I've seen the £21 one but its out of stock at the mo... Might have a HP SFF breaking which I can use - It's an LGA775 P4 machine, with a cross bracket for the HSF
 
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Some pics of the case as it is now

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My Advice to anybody buying one of these is to try and buy one that you can collect yourself. I bought a 2.3GHz Dual core G5 with 4GB RAM a couple of weeks ago and the feet were bent where it was probably dropped by the couriers which is a very common problem. Its no big deal to me as the company I bought it from have been very helpful thus far and I should get a lot of my money back from the insurance on the postage. Once I get this back I can then have it bent back into shape (by a former metalworking teacher I know who spends his free time repairing steam trains), give it a quick clean and polish and job will be a good'un. :D

Really Beautiful Cases.
 
Aye, I went and picked this one up. Seller described it as mint, which it wasn't. No bends or anything serious, just some scratching. That will be taken care of by the bodyshop doing the powder coating.

Fellow NI resident forum member vanandjuanunited has kindly offered me a motherboard tray from an old PC of his for use in this build. Should speed things up no end

On a side note, getting the CPUs out of this thing is really awkward. Ive had to order an extra long T10 driver to get at them :mad: damn over engineering is what it is! Can't get the PSU out till the CPUs are out either
 
Small update

FINALLY managed to get the CPUs/logic board and PSU out after much swearing and cut fingers!

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Of course the last bolt holding the two parts of the chassis together refused outright to come out. All of the (100 odd!) screws and bolts were really easy. Needless to say it quickly fell to Mr Dremel :cool:

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Here is the motherboard tray, kindly donated by vanandjuanunited. I was dreading having to fab one from scratch as my skills don't quite match my ambition :D

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Next job will be to remove all the old Mac stand offs from the outer part of the shell and sort out some kind of mounting system for the MATX tray. I want to put a plain section of aluminium on the back of the case to cover the rough parts where the stand offs will be cut out. After that I will be attacking the back of the case to fit the rear IO and PCI slots :eek: All of this is getting powder coated black in the end.
 
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Sold the front fan assembly, the PSU and graphics card. So far he's £80 into profit :) Still got 2 other fan parts, the DVDRW and HDD to go. This should cove the cost of the sheet aluminium and powder coating I have planned!

Ptikobj, have you done anything to yours yet?
 
I'd love to do a PC in the mac case, too much hard work for me though. Someone should pre-make them and put them on the bay :)
 
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