Erm whats this lol?

[Fireskull]

Received some Mac Pro's at work today, never really looked on the bottom of one before untill today, one had some plastic underneath at the front so i peeled it off and looked underneath and saw this:

Any idea what it is lol?

Checked under the other mac pros in the office and they have a cover over it, just wondering if anyone knows what it is and if its a problem that it does not have the cover?

 

[Fireskull]

Take a picture of one with the cover on, for comparison

Lol will open the others and see if theyre the same, umm everything is tight and screwed down in the new ones so i will try n see whats on the inside of it in abit lol, its got the fan compartment in, and theyre screwed on now, and the damn ram compartment lol, old ones were so much easier to work in

 

[Fireskull]

Just did some searching on the internet (I'm really curious now), and I can't seem to find anything that says what it is. My housemate has a MacPro so I've looked briefly on her's, and it does look like there's some sort of space between the bottom of the inside of the case, and the base of the outside. Can't tell for sure though.

heh well once i got this one all setup will take it apart before i move it out

 

[Fireskull]

^^ LOL

Managed to take the case apart abit lol, bit fiddly but still no closer to knowing what it is, see pics below but its this shiny plastic black box but could not see exactly which wires went into it, but i need this machine and on timescale so didnt have much time to mess around with that it is :/

Quite abit smaller these heatsinks aswell considering they keep the 2 Dual core cpus really cool and quiet

 

[Fireskull]

There's an article where they take the MacPro apart on here:
http://www.powermax.com/articles_reviews/ (use the selection box at the bottom)

Doesn't show that mysterious area though.

Oh, and yes I suppose she's good looking. She's also going out with my other housemate.

Hehe nice link though ive basically just done what is on there anyway (hmmmm could make my own review ) what it dosent show is what bits to remove first before you can remove certain bits which i had to do lol, almost had to take the whole ram box off to make room to get the cpu fan off :/

My boss is off in 2 weeks ill take one fully apart them and find out what it is

 

[Fireskull]

The MysteryBox may be a power supply.
Nope -- ignore that..

Hehe nope theyve moved it up top now and its smaller

 

[Fireskull]

Airport and Bluetooth antenna's?

Hmmm dont think so, if you want airport its an extra option and has to come on a card, well according to apple site anyway, and bluetooth yes comes as standard but not sure they seems abit silly place to put it at the bottom if it is when i have a look again will see if i can see the bluetooth module.

 

[Fireskull]

Airport can be added quite easily even Apple won't sell you the parts. It's on a laptop stylee Mini-PCIe card. The usual laptop style wireless cards need an external antenna for decent reception so being mounted inside a solid chunk of aluminum can't do the signal any good whatsoever therefore why not a plastic covered doodah at the bottom? It's a better than fitting an Evil Edna style aerial on the top!

You can see the antenna connections quite clearly here : http://thinksecret.com/archives/macproairportexpress.jpg

Oh and here is the lovely Edna

Lol true, but i got a few of those mini laptop cards in a spares box and whats under there looks nothing like them, they look like the small pcb style strips that connect the dvd drives on the old titanium macbooks

 

[Fireskull]

No, I think you misunderstand me.

Been a while since I've seen a Mac Pro, but I think the airport card lives up at the top left of the motherboard. There's three small co-ax wires (2 for airport, the other for Bluetooth) which connect to to the antennas at the bottom of the case. The wires would probly pick up a poor signal because the aluminum of the case is a damn good RF shield, hence the large PCBs with copper tracks on the photo up top.

Ah kk understand you now, will see if i can see the co-ax wires tomorrow.