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Emission
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2005
- Messages
- 4,420
I get a bit impatient with doing mods and just get right to work, so I don't usually stop to take pictures of any of the processes. I wasn't going to post this mod originally but I got a request to do so from another member, in my for sale thread for the old G5 parts. I'll document as much as I can and provide the pictures that I have, if you guys have any questions, critiques, etc, feel free to discuss in the thread.
I got the inspiration for this mod when I found out that a friend of mine had an Apple PowerMac G5 2.3 GHz Dualie system that they just had laying around and were trying to get rid of. They offered me the system for $20 and I took it in a heartbeat. Having known of the existence of these Mac to PC case mods, I was eager to give it a shot and see how it came out. It turned out extremely nice and I've received a lot of positive commments from everyone that I've shown the system to.
The power supply, radiator, 120mm top fan, 92mm rear fans, and SSDs are all mounted with 3M Industrial Strength double-sided tape. It is incredibly strong, and I find that it makes attaching things where screws are ugly or cumbersome very easy, making discreet mods possible with not too much effort. The pump is also held up with two mounting pads that use this same tape, sitting directly on a layer of foam to help reduce vibrations and noise, and this works very well.
The 92mm rear fans are originals that came with the G5 computer. I had to re-wire them with standard 3-pin fan plugs because the original header was a one piece 2x4 deal that won't fit anywhere on a normal PC board, that and they're technically PWM fans that require custom wiring to work properly. I run them at 5V and they push a very decent breeze and make minimal noise, no motor hum to speak of.
The 80mm fan sitting over the VRMs was also one of these fancy PWM jobs with a weird header connection that I had to re-wire. I was able to do that without soldering though, just moving the pins around in the 4-pin header connector.
The original motherboard stand-offs were hammered out, and I re-used some of them with gorilla glue brand super-glue, which holds extremely well. I screwed 6 of them to the board, placed a graphics card in the board, applied the super glue to the flat side of the stand-offs that contact the case, mounted the graphics card with the board beneath it to line up the expansion slots and get proper spacing, and pressed down on the board in the stand-off locations to get a proper hold. The board is rooted in place very nicely.
The custom wiring for the front-panel button, lights, and ports required some work. The firewire port is not used so I left it un-wired. I looked up the pin-out for the front panel board and just spliced the proprietary connector to wires leading to a 2x5 header connector for a standard ATX board. It took a bit of time to figure this out and I still have to make some adjustments for the audio port to work properly. I may disassemble that board in the future and do the wiring directly to the components on the board instead.
The 120mm fan on top is to get some air flowing at the top of the case and help out the cooling of the graphics card components that are not directly water cooled, works well and the air flows directly out of the case holes at the back.
Speaking of ventilation and temperatures, even with the radiator in a pull configuration pushing warm air into the case, the GPU and CPU run at very good temps. I have to do some tests and measure ambient temperatures, but the CPU rarely sees > 43C (as read from the APU's GPU sensor), and the HD 6950 runs at no hotter than 45C which is awesome.
The whole system is also incredibly silent, the radiator fans, the 92mm rear fans, and the top 120mm fan all run at 5v. The pump is arguably the loudest thing in there.
The front panel/audio cables are custom blue sleeved, the 92mm rear fan cables are custom blue sleeved, the radiator fans are custom black sleeved (radiator fan sleeving courtesy of Gary @ Sidewinder Computers).
The system configuration is as follows:
ASRock FM2A85X Extreme-4M FM2 Motherboard
AMD A10-5800K 3.8 GHz Quad-Core FM2 APU
G.Skill Ares 16GB (2x8) DDR3 1866 RAM
XFX Radeon HD 6950 1GB GPU
Intel 320 Series 160GB SSDs x2 (320GB Total in RAID 0)
Creative Audigy SB-0570 PCI Sound Card
Seasonic M12 700W Modular Power Supply
2x 92mm Delta EFB0912HHE Rear Fans
1x 80mm Delta EFB0812HHE VRM Cooling Fan
1x 120mm Scythe DFS123812L-2000 Top Fan
Water Cooling System Configuration is as follows:
XSPC EX240 Radiator w/ 2x Bitspower Chrome 1/2" OD Fittings
2x Panaflo FBA12G12M1BX 120x38mm Medium Speed Fans in Pull configuration
Swiftech MCW82 GPU Block w/ 1/2" Fittings and HD 6950/6970 VRM/RAM Heatsink
DangerDen TDX CPU Block w/ 2x Bitspower Brass 1/2" OD Fittings
Swiftech MCP-600 12v Pump w/ 1/2" Fitting Housing
Durelene 7/16" ID x 5/8" OD Tubing
75/25 Distilled Water + 70% Isopropyl Alcohol Fluid Mix
Running a brass T-Line instead of a Reservoir
May need to change over to anti-freeze + distilled water because I think the alcohol is evaporating and the tubes are going green on me as a result of having nothing to stop growth in the loop, as far as I can tell.
Pictures taken with an iPhone 5 because I don't have a good digital camera, so please excuse the not-so-great quality.
The double-stick tape on the radiator is harder to see in dimmer lighting, I was at a LAN Party when I took these and there was really bright lighting so it shows way more.
The original paint on the case is pretty scuffed up and I'm not sure what I want to do with it. I know I want to keep the original silver color but I'm not sure how to deal with the scratches.
Well, that's about it. Let me know what you guys think, and don't be too hard on me, I was on a seriously low budget (<$100).
I got the inspiration for this mod when I found out that a friend of mine had an Apple PowerMac G5 2.3 GHz Dualie system that they just had laying around and were trying to get rid of. They offered me the system for $20 and I took it in a heartbeat. Having known of the existence of these Mac to PC case mods, I was eager to give it a shot and see how it came out. It turned out extremely nice and I've received a lot of positive commments from everyone that I've shown the system to.
The power supply, radiator, 120mm top fan, 92mm rear fans, and SSDs are all mounted with 3M Industrial Strength double-sided tape. It is incredibly strong, and I find that it makes attaching things where screws are ugly or cumbersome very easy, making discreet mods possible with not too much effort. The pump is also held up with two mounting pads that use this same tape, sitting directly on a layer of foam to help reduce vibrations and noise, and this works very well.
The 92mm rear fans are originals that came with the G5 computer. I had to re-wire them with standard 3-pin fan plugs because the original header was a one piece 2x4 deal that won't fit anywhere on a normal PC board, that and they're technically PWM fans that require custom wiring to work properly. I run them at 5V and they push a very decent breeze and make minimal noise, no motor hum to speak of.
The 80mm fan sitting over the VRMs was also one of these fancy PWM jobs with a weird header connection that I had to re-wire. I was able to do that without soldering though, just moving the pins around in the 4-pin header connector.
The original motherboard stand-offs were hammered out, and I re-used some of them with gorilla glue brand super-glue, which holds extremely well. I screwed 6 of them to the board, placed a graphics card in the board, applied the super glue to the flat side of the stand-offs that contact the case, mounted the graphics card with the board beneath it to line up the expansion slots and get proper spacing, and pressed down on the board in the stand-off locations to get a proper hold. The board is rooted in place very nicely.
The custom wiring for the front-panel button, lights, and ports required some work. The firewire port is not used so I left it un-wired. I looked up the pin-out for the front panel board and just spliced the proprietary connector to wires leading to a 2x5 header connector for a standard ATX board. It took a bit of time to figure this out and I still have to make some adjustments for the audio port to work properly. I may disassemble that board in the future and do the wiring directly to the components on the board instead.
The 120mm fan on top is to get some air flowing at the top of the case and help out the cooling of the graphics card components that are not directly water cooled, works well and the air flows directly out of the case holes at the back.
Speaking of ventilation and temperatures, even with the radiator in a pull configuration pushing warm air into the case, the GPU and CPU run at very good temps. I have to do some tests and measure ambient temperatures, but the CPU rarely sees > 43C (as read from the APU's GPU sensor), and the HD 6950 runs at no hotter than 45C which is awesome.
The whole system is also incredibly silent, the radiator fans, the 92mm rear fans, and the top 120mm fan all run at 5v. The pump is arguably the loudest thing in there.
The front panel/audio cables are custom blue sleeved, the 92mm rear fan cables are custom blue sleeved, the radiator fans are custom black sleeved (radiator fan sleeving courtesy of Gary @ Sidewinder Computers).
The system configuration is as follows:
ASRock FM2A85X Extreme-4M FM2 Motherboard
AMD A10-5800K 3.8 GHz Quad-Core FM2 APU
G.Skill Ares 16GB (2x8) DDR3 1866 RAM
XFX Radeon HD 6950 1GB GPU
Intel 320 Series 160GB SSDs x2 (320GB Total in RAID 0)
Creative Audigy SB-0570 PCI Sound Card
Seasonic M12 700W Modular Power Supply
2x 92mm Delta EFB0912HHE Rear Fans
1x 80mm Delta EFB0812HHE VRM Cooling Fan
1x 120mm Scythe DFS123812L-2000 Top Fan
Water Cooling System Configuration is as follows:
XSPC EX240 Radiator w/ 2x Bitspower Chrome 1/2" OD Fittings
2x Panaflo FBA12G12M1BX 120x38mm Medium Speed Fans in Pull configuration
Swiftech MCW82 GPU Block w/ 1/2" Fittings and HD 6950/6970 VRM/RAM Heatsink
DangerDen TDX CPU Block w/ 2x Bitspower Brass 1/2" OD Fittings
Swiftech MCP-600 12v Pump w/ 1/2" Fitting Housing
Durelene 7/16" ID x 5/8" OD Tubing
75/25 Distilled Water + 70% Isopropyl Alcohol Fluid Mix
Running a brass T-Line instead of a Reservoir
May need to change over to anti-freeze + distilled water because I think the alcohol is evaporating and the tubes are going green on me as a result of having nothing to stop growth in the loop, as far as I can tell.
Pictures taken with an iPhone 5 because I don't have a good digital camera, so please excuse the not-so-great quality.
The double-stick tape on the radiator is harder to see in dimmer lighting, I was at a LAN Party when I took these and there was really bright lighting so it shows way more.
The original paint on the case is pretty scuffed up and I'm not sure what I want to do with it. I know I want to keep the original silver color but I'm not sure how to deal with the scratches.
Well, that's about it. Let me know what you guys think, and don't be too hard on me, I was on a seriously low budget (<$100).
.