G5ive
- Thread starter Shawy
- Start date
looks encouraging
weve had a lot of apple build cases lately havent we
Lets sub this one as well
Sexy case man
I'm gutted I wasn't able to grab the spare G5 case we had at work before the manager decided to send it away for 'recycling'..
Hopefully I'll show you something a little different to the builds you've seen before. Here's a render of how things should look when complete.
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I built my rig in a G5 case in December, I didn't log any of it though. Now that I'm improving some things and upgrading some things I thought I'd share my work.
Just got an order delivered from OCUK and my tubing's in 2 pieces. I hope I don't need a run of more than a meter, it's likely some of my tube's going to be unusable though.
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I'll be using the power button, power LED and USB from the front panel. I haven't used firewire for about 6 years and don't plan on using it any time soon. As for audio I'll have my speakers hooked up to a sound card and my headset plugged into onboard audio so I don't need the extra port.
I'm glad you guys like it. You can probably tell by my choice in cases that aesthetics are quite high up on my list of priorities with this build. I'm more than happy to potentially sacrifice a degree or two in order to keep the visible tubing down and to keep the build looking as clean as possible.
Having said that, a quick test on an open bench (without reapplying thermal paste from my previous build) the temperatures have been nothing to worry about: 28-30°C on the CPU and GPUs at idle. GPU temps stay under 50°C under load while 2 cores of the CPU stay between 55-60°C under IBT load and the other 2 cores peak at 60-65°C.
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PTC Prodesktop. It's not the most sophisticated or feature-packed software but I have a licence from high school and it's pretty easy to use.
I can't say the newer version is less frustrating, but it does the job.
It's been a busy weekend, which started off with this little guy..
Not much of an unboxing as I grabbed a B grade motherboard for £120, but here's a little teaser. I'm sure you know what's coming.
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Capacitors.
All nice and shiny.
The silver is to match my RAM:
And my fittings:
As well as the bracket for my CPU block:
The black and silver theme extends to my GPU blocks:
Bling bling.
A splash of colour will be added by some Gelid Wings:
Not all of them though, the 140's are from my previous build.
I tried to hide the cables the best I could and try to smooth out the lines on the backs of the fans which will be visible from inside the case.
What monster might these fans be mounted to? Well a Monsta, what else!?
I sorted out the cables the best I could without having to make custom length cables. Everything will be tucked away out of sight.
An update on how the case is looking should be online shortly.
Next big update: the case itself! I didn't take many photos while actually modding as I tend to just get stuck in until it's done. It was basically a case of measuring the motherboard tray, cutting a hole in the back of the case with a Dremel and test fitting the motherboard tray. It took 5 or 6 test fits to get it right, as I had to file grooves for the rivets to allow the back of the motherboard tray to sit flush with the back of the case.
I have tapped 4 of the ventilation holes on the back of the case so that I can secure the tray to the case using 4 M3 screws.
Here's the case all gutted out ready for modding:
But first I needed to mod the motherboard tray. I cut out a hole for 2 80mm fans instead of the original single fan mount, as well as cutting a slot for the back panel clasp and a hole for the SATA cable to be hidden below the motherboard tray where the SSD will be mounted. There's also some cable management slots cut into the sides for the front panel cables as well as the 8 pin.
Once the back of the motherboard tray was cut, I used it as a stencil to cut out the back panel of the case.
Here you can see the holes cut into the floor of the case. The 2 large circles towards the front of the case are for the radiator plugs to sit in so that I can use them to drain the loop. I'll also be using 10mm extension fittings to give the radiator a little more support. There's also two holes for mounting the pump and 2 more to mount the L bracket used to hold the radiator down.
I cut out the original harddrive tray to act as a PSU holder. The fan screws will be threaded through the bracket to secure it down, and then the bracket mounted to the case. There's also a hole for the tubing to pass through to the main compartment.
This is how the motherboard will sit inside the case when it's done.
And this is where the watercooling components will sit.
Here you can see the rad is as far forward as possible which will allow room for a set of fans, but unfortunately not enough space for some shrouds as I had originally planned.
The radiator takes up a huge amount of space when the fans are installed. 130mm thickness altogether!
I had to use a 10mm extension, a 45° fitting and a 90° fitting to be able to route tubing from the pump to the radiator
They align almost perfectly.
Once everything was in place and all of the cuts and holes were made to the case, I started to sound proof it. There's two reasons for the sound proofing, firstly to try and absorb some of the noise that echoes around the solid aluminium case, and secondly for aesthetics. I didn't want a fully aluminium interior and there were a lot of holes in the case from the original Apple hardware which I wanted to cover up some how. The back panel has 2 layers of 3mm closed cell foam, the first of which has holes so that the smaller screws line up with the surface, and a second layer to cover up the small screws. The larger standoffs have been left as they will be used to support the motherboard tray and used for cable management.
The PSU in the top is such a tight fit that I had to cut out a gap in the roof sound proofing else it wouldn't fit.
And here's how it looks with the components back in. I'm thinking of adding some foam to the motherboard tray too so that it blends in with the rest of the case.
I'm awaiting a delivery of some small magnets that will be used to attach the dust filter to the front of the case, and then I think I'll be ready to install everything and start tubing her up!
I have tapped 4 of the ventilation holes on the back of the case so that I can secure the tray to the case using 4 M3 screws.
Here's the case all gutted out ready for modding:
But first I needed to mod the motherboard tray. I cut out a hole for 2 80mm fans instead of the original single fan mount, as well as cutting a slot for the back panel clasp and a hole for the SATA cable to be hidden below the motherboard tray where the SSD will be mounted. There's also some cable management slots cut into the sides for the front panel cables as well as the 8 pin.
Once the back of the motherboard tray was cut, I used it as a stencil to cut out the back panel of the case.
Here you can see the holes cut into the floor of the case. The 2 large circles towards the front of the case are for the radiator plugs to sit in so that I can use them to drain the loop. I'll also be using 10mm extension fittings to give the radiator a little more support. There's also two holes for mounting the pump and 2 more to mount the L bracket used to hold the radiator down.
I cut out the original harddrive tray to act as a PSU holder. The fan screws will be threaded through the bracket to secure it down, and then the bracket mounted to the case. There's also a hole for the tubing to pass through to the main compartment.
This is how the motherboard will sit inside the case when it's done.
And this is where the watercooling components will sit.
Here you can see the rad is as far forward as possible which will allow room for a set of fans, but unfortunately not enough space for some shrouds as I had originally planned.
The radiator takes up a huge amount of space when the fans are installed. 130mm thickness altogether!
I had to use a 10mm extension, a 45° fitting and a 90° fitting to be able to route tubing from the pump to the radiator
They align almost perfectly.
Once everything was in place and all of the cuts and holes were made to the case, I started to sound proof it. There's two reasons for the sound proofing, firstly to try and absorb some of the noise that echoes around the solid aluminium case, and secondly for aesthetics. I didn't want a fully aluminium interior and there were a lot of holes in the case from the original Apple hardware which I wanted to cover up some how. The back panel has 2 layers of 3mm closed cell foam, the first of which has holes so that the smaller screws line up with the surface, and a second layer to cover up the small screws. The larger standoffs have been left as they will be used to support the motherboard tray and used for cable management.
The PSU in the top is such a tight fit that I had to cut out a gap in the roof sound proofing else it wouldn't fit.
And here's how it looks with the components back in. I'm thinking of adding some foam to the motherboard tray too so that it blends in with the rest of the case.
I'm awaiting a delivery of some small magnets that will be used to attach the dust filter to the front of the case, and then I think I'll be ready to install everything and start tubing her up!
The whole bottom of the case has been lined with noise dampening foam, that and I'll be using silicone fan mounts to secure it down on top of running the pump at 8.7V should keep it silent.
The benefit of a parrallel loop is less restriction I guess. I'm really only doing it for the aesthetics though.
I've used a pin diagram to work out which cable goes where and then just soldered the cables to the corresponding motherboard headers. I used a motherboard tray to save time measuring the standoffs and hoping jb-weld holds, prettying opted for the easy option.
You know what you're doin. Keep going.
There's been a lot of trial and error trying to get everything to fit together. I originally planned on using some SLI fittings but figured tubing will give me that little bit of offset I'm likely to be facing. The dual rotaries allow for quite a large margin of error, I'll likely to have to warm the tubing up to make it flexible enough though.
I just cut the back of the case and slide the tray in. It can be a bit fiddley sliding the tray in at an angle and then having to wiggle it to flatten into position which is why my motherboard tray looks so knakered.
I'm not sure how much help it's going to be but this and this is what I used to link up the cables. Then it was just a case of soldering the cables from the front panel to the motherboard cables I had from my old case.
Thanks, hopefully I'll be able to piece everything together tomorrow ready to fill up!
I think I've set it up.
The dust filter has been installed. I used 6mmx1mm magnets attached to the steel screws which fasten the case together. You can sort of make them out along the edge of this next picture:
I also added soundproof foam to the motherboard tray. The bare aluminium had gotten quite scratched and grubby so I decided to add the foam to clean it up and blend it in with the back of the case.
The SSD is mounted to the back of the motherboard tray to hide the cable. I really hope I don't have to replace it because it'll require taking pretty much everything out of the case first..
And here's a shot of the motherboard ready to be installed inside the case - notice the right angled SATA cables tucked out of the way.
I'm pretty much ready to fit everything inside the case now! Not having a removable back panel makes it 10x harder to fit everything in. And everything needs to be installed in a certain order to make sure the next parts will be able to fit in. I also need to plan out all of the cables first and hope that I don't miss any and have to strip the case out and start again.
The dust filter has been installed. I used 6mmx1mm magnets attached to the steel screws which fasten the case together. You can sort of make them out along the edge of this next picture:
I also added soundproof foam to the motherboard tray. The bare aluminium had gotten quite scratched and grubby so I decided to add the foam to clean it up and blend it in with the back of the case.
The SSD is mounted to the back of the motherboard tray to hide the cable. I really hope I don't have to replace it because it'll require taking pretty much everything out of the case first..
And here's a shot of the motherboard ready to be installed inside the case - notice the right angled SATA cables tucked out of the way.
I'm pretty much ready to fit everything inside the case now! Not having a removable back panel makes it 10x harder to fit everything in. And everything needs to be installed in a certain order to make sure the next parts will be able to fit in. I also need to plan out all of the cables first and hope that I don't miss any and have to strip the case out and start again.
Penultimate update is here!
Assembling the build starts with the power supply and the mechanism which locks the side panel when closed.
Next comes the motherboard tray, with the SSD attached and cables running underneath.
Next in is the Monsta rad - so big that I had to take the CPU block off to squeeze it in.. The tubing had to be attached to the rear of the rad before installing it which didn't make things any easier.
Then I cleaned up the TIM and remounted the CPU block.
Next was the most annoying part - the pump. It's mounted using silicone fan mounts which have some washers to keep them from slipping out. I had to feed the silicone through the hole in the case floor and pull it through the other side - it sounds a lot easier than it is, as it all has to be done pretty much blind.
Onto the second most annoying part was tubing the pump to the rad. Such a tight space made it a little difficult, but the silicone pump mount enabled me to wiggle the pump around to ease the tubing on.
Next the res was installed onto the pump and the GPUs slotted into place. Tubing had to be attached to the reservoir before installing it to save having to deal with the cramped space.
Then cut and fit the tubing to the GPU blocks.
And then route the tubing to the CPU block. It's quite a tight bend but the 11/16mm tubing handled it quite well.
That was pretty much it.. Time to fill her up and hope for the best..
Reservoir filled for the first time - no leaks is always a good thing.. Was not looking forward to turning it on for the first time just incase I'd forgotten to plug a hole or I'd missed an o-ring..
Thankfully everything went ok and I managed to fill the loop with just over 1 litre of fluid.
Now to let it run for a few hours to leak test and bleed the bubbles out of it. And due to how the loop is set up and the 3way parallelness it takes a fair amount of effort to bleed all of the bubbles out.
Hopefully I'll be able to take some shots of the finished build tomorrow, though I don't want to jinx myself by speaking too soon...
Assembling the build starts with the power supply and the mechanism which locks the side panel when closed.
Next comes the motherboard tray, with the SSD attached and cables running underneath.
Next in is the Monsta rad - so big that I had to take the CPU block off to squeeze it in.. The tubing had to be attached to the rear of the rad before installing it which didn't make things any easier.
Then I cleaned up the TIM and remounted the CPU block.
Next was the most annoying part - the pump. It's mounted using silicone fan mounts which have some washers to keep them from slipping out. I had to feed the silicone through the hole in the case floor and pull it through the other side - it sounds a lot easier than it is, as it all has to be done pretty much blind.
Onto the second most annoying part was tubing the pump to the rad. Such a tight space made it a little difficult, but the silicone pump mount enabled me to wiggle the pump around to ease the tubing on.
Next the res was installed onto the pump and the GPUs slotted into place. Tubing had to be attached to the reservoir before installing it to save having to deal with the cramped space.
Then cut and fit the tubing to the GPU blocks.
And then route the tubing to the CPU block. It's quite a tight bend but the 11/16mm tubing handled it quite well.
That was pretty much it.. Time to fill her up and hope for the best..
Reservoir filled for the first time - no leaks is always a good thing.. Was not looking forward to turning it on for the first time just incase I'd forgotten to plug a hole or I'd missed an o-ring..
Thankfully everything went ok and I managed to fill the loop with just over 1 litre of fluid.
Now to let it run for a few hours to leak test and bleed the bubbles out of it. And due to how the loop is set up and the 3way parallelness it takes a fair amount of effort to bleed all of the bubbles out.
Hopefully I'll be able to take some shots of the finished build tomorrow
, though I don't want to jinx myself by speaking too soon...Thanks.
About a third of the water does just that. I tried this configuration with my old EK supreme LTX and that worked ok, but it was too restrictive compared to the GPU blocks so not much water was getting though. Temps were still fine but it wasn't optimal. I switched to the MIPs Iceforce highflow block because it has one of the best flow rates among CPU blocks - perfect for a parallel loop.
Beautiful!
Looks fantastic!
So when are you doing mine?
Thanks guys! I'm going to enjoy my rig for a while before I get into any more modding.
