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Franken-Mac - Macbook Pro conversion

H

hainer36

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 1, 2005
Messages
260
So the story goes; someone comes into my work (Apple Authorized Service Centre) and has a problem with their mid-09 15" Macbook Pro, the fans wont slow down. So the technician opens it up after doing some diagnostics and finds spill damage all over the logic board. Needless to say, the 3 year Applecare this guy purchased is void. He ends up buying a new logic board for around $1000 (hahaha, Apple's pricing on this stuff is ridiculous by the way, never buy the parts, pay the extra and get a new machine if its around 1/2 the price of the machine).

So he doesn't want the old logic board back and it sits in a anti-static bag for a week or so, then I realize, HEY! I could do something fun with that. So I grab it, get a heatsink for it from Apple ($40) and the magsafe connector for it ($40) and then start parting out what I would need for a Franken-Mac rig. It is not a Hackintosh because it is actual Mac parts.

So I figure what I need to make this thing work is:
Logic Board (Free)
Magsage power connector ($40)
Heatsink ($40)
Hard Drive (Have a few lying around)
SATA-USB converter (Using a spare 2.5" enclosure)
Mini Displayport to DVI adapter ($8)
Apple Magsafe power supply ($21)
Ram, 2x2GB ($80)
Case, with some modding (Unknown case right now)

and finally with some modding and careful soldering, I can have this baby humming as if it were supposed to work this way.


The main problems with this build (before you tell me what I know):
No Bluetooth
No Wireless Network
Have to use USB to connect everything (HDD, DVD, Keyboard/Mouse etc)

My remedies are as follows:
Bluetooth, who the f**k cares, I hate Apple's this is just a neat project for me, that I can turn around and sell for a good penny most likely if done right (you Mac users are morons when it comes to re-sale value).
Wireless, theres a wired ethernet port onboard, I'll be fine.
USB, I will get a compact USB hub, plug the HDD into one of the USB ports and run it from that, while anything else is run off the hub.

I/O Backplate design. Im thinking of modding this so that the actual ports on the board are closer to the middle of the case so I get some room for adapters and whatnot. I will be making a customer backplane for this so that it looks good and no adapters are dangling off the back of the case. It will be all flush.

I do not have many pictures or anything for you to see at the moment, but Ill give you pictures of the Logic Board at least. It's a P8700 with a 9400M gpu.

DSCF3031.jpg

DSCF3033.jpg
 
great stuf cant wait to see some more of it
P.S. damn that gpu and cpu are held very week on the board
 
Sweet. I am working on a similar project.

I got my whole bundle free including the motherboard SATA cables for the hard drive and DVD.

You don't need a case, these boards will fit inside a standard DVD drive as seen below.

macboard.jpg
 
@ Brom
mine definitely wont fit in a dvd drive, my ram slots are not in the same location as yours. and I would have tried to get the hd cables and anything else to make it easier, but I think the hard route should be more fun

everything should be showing up this week hopefully, and then I just need to figure out what case I want to use.
 
So wait. You told this guy his logic board was liquid damaged, and you're building a machine out of it? Doesn't sound damaged to me...
 
I'll show you pictures of the water damage. And it was, it ran fine minus the fact the fans plugged into it would spin at 100% constantly. I'm not the Apple Technician, so it wasnt me that told him it's damaged, and he went out and paid apple (not our store) for the parts. Just paid us for the labour.
 
Seriously, get the SATA cables -- throughput via USB for a HDD is going to really slow that thing down and make it a much weaker machine over all.
 
i may have to. its only about 25 bucks for the hdd cable (ir sensor and sleep sensor are all on the cable)
 
nothing new, just got the following parts in:
2x2GB DDR3 Sodimm
Heatsink
Magsafe power adapter
Magsafe power brick
HDD/IR/Sleep sensor cable

And I'm waiting on the Mini-Displayport to DVI adapter and the case I picked out, the Antec P180 Mini White...i think it's gonna look NICE!
 
i hate the looks, and prices, of M-ITX cases, they are either all the same, or expensive as hell for something that is terrible looking. The p180 mini is damn nice, and i got it for a good price....plus if i dont like it...it may just end up being modded onto the back of a monitor and shut the gf up about trying a mac :p
 
hainer36 said:
i hate the looks, and prices, of M-ITX cases, they are either all the same, or expensive as hell for something that is terrible looking. The p180 mini is damn nice, and i got it for a good price....plus if i dont like it...it may just end up being modded onto the back of a monitor and shut the gf up about trying a mac :p
Click to expand...

Macs are evil, although they are slightly less evil since they moved from power pc, to intel. But she's right to give you crap, I couldn't live with myself if I began to dabble in the darkside, but I am watching this closely to see what you do here.
 
She's not buggin me to get rid of it, she wants to use it. Im upset I even have a mac in my house. I keep telling her to learn about something before she blindly tells me it's better....but alas, she does certain things to sway me to do what she wants :p
 
sigh...I used to hate macs and mac users as much as everyone on these forums, if not more. And yet lately I've come to really appreciate their software/hardware. Yeah, their marketing/pricing sucks, but honestly they're not bad machines. Best of luck with your project.
 
The machines themselves are quality, at least their mobile machines -- if Apple's prices weren't so horrible I'd happily run Windows or Linux on a 13" Mac Book Pro.

Their desktops on the other hand are nothing special, and horribly, horribly overpriced.

I really don't enjoy OS X, though. No desire to mess around with it.
 
silent-circuit said:
The machines themselves are quality, at least their mobile machines -- if Apple's prices weren't so horrible I'd happily run Windows or Linux on a 13" Mac Book Pro.

Their desktops on the other hand are nothing special, and horribly, horribly overpriced.

I really don't enjoy OS X, though. No desire to mess around with it.
Click to expand...

I agree about the desktops...if I were apple I would discontinue the mac pro altogether. Such a stupid machine. The laptops are nearly perfect as far as I'm concerned (for my needs anyway) and now with steam coming to mac, they're even better. I really do like OS X though...I used to think there'd be no way to replace windows, but honestly haven't found a single thing besides gaming that made dual-boot necessary. But again, with steam on mac, even that isn't necessary anymore. Plus for anything else there's vmware.

Sorry to hijack the thread!! back on topic :)
 
not really hijacking, more side-jacking.........sounds so dirty

got my mini displayport to dvi adapter....waiting on the damned case
 
fork in the road. waiting on NCIX to do something because this is how my case arrived. Looked fine, box was perfect and then I open the case to find this

DSCF3186.jpg

DSCF3185.jpg
 
Looks like someone dropped the box, and it didn't LOOK damaged but that is most likely due to high downward G forces. So why are you putting something so small in a such a "huge" case (relative)? Nice case, but for something like that I just think it'd be so much more satisfying (to me anyway) to building it into something custom and unique...
 
hainer36 said:
i hate the looks, and prices, of M-ITX cases, they are either all the same, or expensive as hell for something that is terrible looking. The p180 mini is damn nice, and i got it for a good price....plus if i dont like it...it may just end up being modded onto the back of a monitor and shut the gf up about trying a mac :p
Click to expand...

Oh, I was just wondering because the last time I saw someone do this they put it into a 5.25 external case. It looked awesome. :)
 
the board is too big for an 5.25 external case...this is a 15" MBP board, so its bigger than most. I honestly love the case and although it is much bigger than I'd like, it's the only thing I can see myself using.
 
actually cannot do this without the top case, no contact points to turn it on, so because i need cash, this project is done :( its on sale in the classies if you want to finish it
 
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