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cnrtechhead's "PowerHac G5"

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Joined
Aug 27, 2011
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31
Motherboard
GA-P67X-UD3-B3
CPU
2700k
Graphics
760
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro
  2. Mac mini
Classic Mac
  1. iBook
  2. Power Mac
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
A few weeks ago, a coworker and I were discussing cases for the Hackintosh he's building later this month, and he mentioned the G5 case. We decided to go that route for his system, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do the same to my existing Hackintosh. I mean, it makes sense. My Hackintosh is the one computer I own that's not Apple hardware, so making it at least look like a real Mac seemed like a good idea.

So, here we go with my G5 build. I started today and will hopefully finish tomorrow. I spent over 6 hours on it tonight and plan to do the same tomorrow.

Well, time for the parts lists!
Case mod parts with approximate cost:

Dead G5: $60
Lian-Li Tray: $30
3x120MM fans: $25
5x Black 2' SATA cables - $12
18x24 sheet of acrylic - $10
2 36" Aluminum strips - $5
Front panel from Dell XPS - $11
Various bolts and such - $10
2 packs of 20 Dremel cutoff wheels - $12

Total: $175. Rather hefty, but hey, it's worth it. Also, I have the optical drive, mobo, and a CPU from the dead G5 to sell off, so I should be able to recoup some of what I spent.

Now the Hackintosh componets:

Intel Q6600 - $90
Gigabyte GA-EP45T-USB3P - $145
4x 2GB PNY DDR3 1333 - $60
2x nVidia GeForce 9600GT 512MB - $100
Antec TruePower (?) 480W dual 12V rail PSU - $40
BenQ DVD+-RW DL PATA - $0 (Free from a friend)
2x 80GB Samsung 7200RPM SATA - $32
1x 250GB WD 7200RPM SATA - $0 (Another freebie)
2x 400GB (1 WD, 1 Hitachi) 7200RM SATA - $50

Total: $517. Not bad considering it gives the early Mac Pros a run for their money. Everything is used except the mobo.

So, on to Day 1 of the build!

Front IO cable:
6154663592_7043833465_b_d.jpg

I decided to make my own front IO cable. Cut the wires on the G5's stubby cable and added ~3' of twisted pair I had laying around. Color coded using heatshrink. I got mobo headers from an old ATX case that goes in the can soon and from a Dell XPS front panel I bought on eBay for $11. Instead of cutting the headers and soldering wire to wire, I pulled the pins out and soldered my wire right to them. The connection seems secure enough, and is much cleaner than a second mess of heatshrink.
6154121087_4bb85e7ebb_b_d.jpg

Full cable. Notice the black USB cable and socket. That will be mounted somewhere in the case for a USB bluetooth dongle. I couldn't waste half a USB header when I had a socket I could use with it.

Extra external buttons:
6154121533_23d73e06a9_b_d.jpg

I bought a pair of submini pushbutton switches at Radioshack for like 3 bucks this afternoon after school. These will be mounted on the back, in the hole to the left of the motherboard tray's PCI slots that was left by the G5's rear fan grille. One will be for reset and the other for optical drive eject. I made a wire to solder into the optical, but hopefully I'll be able to disconnect the OD's audio out and rewire it internally to the eject button.

The G5, ready for modding:
6154664960_04710758ae_b_d.jpg


Empty except for top tray stuff:
6154122989_6b75b53228_b_d.jpg


Starting to cut for the new motherboard tray:
6154666432_dbf757c585_b_d.jpg

I went through 19 of 20 Dremel cutoff wheels tonight. I'll have to make a special trip to Lowes tomorrow morning in order to continue with the modding fun.

Didn't quite get this edge low enough the first time:
6154123931_7c183e66b5_b_d.jpg


Another snag...
6154124371_dbd5cdb954_b_d.jpg

I realized once I put the motherboard tray in that it would hit the screws that hold the top tray in place. So I marked where the screws would go on the top tray, slid the Lian Li mobo tray in, marked that, and dremeled out the edge of the tray where the screws would have hit.

Measuring for motherboard tray standoffs:
6154124819_dd6197933f_b_d.jpg

Wrote these down, then measured with the tray in the case and drilled my holes. They were a bit off, but were fixable. Using original G5 mobo screws here.

Rewiring HD fan/blower:
6154668536_96792f14dd_b_d.jpg

Rewired the HD fan and blower with 5 volts each per a diagram from InsanelyMac. It'll be nice having that fan up there, since the two drives that will go in the Apple cage are my RAID0'd boot drives. They hit about 127F right now, at the top of a stack of drives with no air blown on them.
The blower will hopefully help suck heat away from my top graphics card.

Cable notch:
6154126129_05117f15ab_b_d.jpg

Decided I didn't want my SATA cables going through the opening right below the HDs but rather through the optical drive cable's opening. Bit of dremeling and I have a nice notch for the power and SATA cables to fit through.

Done for the day:
6154669460_6eaf4ea6c2_b_d.jpg

This is where I was at at 10 tonight. Can't wait to get back to work on this tomorrow!
 
Thanks for the comments, guys! I'll be posting today's progress and pictures in the next 45 minutes or so. I'm actually using the PowerHac G5 right now, but it still needs a few things done to it to be completely "finished."
 
Let the pics from today begin.

Old system:
6157818468_862f4a2623_b.jpg

My Hackintosh in it's old Antec case. The Antec has not-so-great airflow, and is rather cramped.

Work area:
6157275837_691c0d1da3_b.jpg

I did most of the work on this on my dad's workbench in his garage. I made quite a mess...

DVD Eject:
6157276517_546c084471_b.jpg

Since the DVD drive's eject button is obscured by the front of the G5, so I opened it up and soldered the lead for that tiny switch I soldered up yesterday. Looks very nice, and works well.

Fan Cutout:
6157820750_00d979e3f8_b.jpg

Cut the opening for my 120MM rear fan. I have no choice but to use a 120, I am generating a lot of heat in this case. My Q6600 is overclocked, my power supply is almost at peak (I have like 30 watts to go, literally), and I have dual upper midrange GFX cards.

Fan Plate:
6157278785_f8b39ea867_b.jpg

Made a mounting plate for the fan out of sheet metal. Edges aren't perfectly even but it's ok.

Erm...
6157823254_7d739c6415_b.jpg

Not too thrilled with the way this part turned out, especially considering the amount of time I spent on it. I cut away part of the fan where my mounting screws would have gone on both lower corners. Also, I cut too much of the corners off on the metal sheet. At this point I knew I'd be redoing this plate.

Uh oh...
6157823738_ca7f77b3e8_b.jpg

I was drilling through the G5 mesh to mount the mini switches and the sheet metal caught and mangled pretty bad. Not an issue, as I was already going to replace the plate anyway.

Gutting the Antec
6157824364_35ddc5edc6_b.jpg

Started clearing components out of the old case.

PSU Mounting Brackets:
6157825094_3843c8537c_b.jpg

The way I chose to place my power supply meant that I had to come up with something other than simple screws to mount it. I ended up bending these strips of 1/16" aluminum into brackets which attach to machine screws drilled through the bottom of the G5.

Test fitting the PSU mounts"
6157825720_a11ef0351e_b.jpg


Molex to G5 Converter:
6157826260_f9107817bb_b.jpg

Had to convert from a standard molex connector to the special connector the G5 uses for the optical and upper hard drives. Cut the connector off the bad power supply from the G5 and soldered the wires onto pins from a GPU to molex converter's molex connector.

Second HD cage brackets:
6157283451_6146afcd00_b.jpg

These homemade L brackets hold the second HD cage against the bottom of the G5's top tray.

Upper HDs:
6157284131_b1ae997aba_b.jpg

Instailling my 2x 80GB Samsung RAID0 drives in the upper bay. These used to run at 125F+, now they sit under 105F. Big decrease.

Second HD cage:
6157828214_cc4ea4f5c1_b.jpg

Best place I could find for my second HD cage. I wish I only had 4 internal HDs so I could use another G5 HD cage, but I have 5. (2x80GB RAID, 2x400GB for video editing work, and 1x250GB for backing up the RAID and booting Windows if need be.)

Mobo installed:
6157828944_5c0cc633a4_b.jpg

Note the location of the USB port for a USB bluetooth dongle. I'm thinking about a Magic Mouse, or at least a wireless Mighty Mouse (have wired MM now)

PCI cards installed:
6157830300_d38f08cbf5_b.jpg

Here you can see the PCI cards and extra external port slots installed. From top to bottom we have 2xUSB2.0, 9600GT Secondary, blank, RTL8139 spare network, 9600GT Primary, 2xeSATA, and a blank.
(Only reason this picture is of me working is that my friend Derek stopped in to check out the G5 and picked up the camera.)

Empty Antec:
6157287695_f679e81dbe_b.jpg

Kinda sad. But, it gets filled with the guts of what was my Hackintosh in July 2010, so it's not going to the junk pile or anything.

All hooked up:
6157288451_030828f8ee_b.jpg

Everything is connected (except ATA cable to DVD-RW) and ready for a test.

And it boots!
6157289919_a1ee1a7a74_b.jpg


Front panel:
6157834506_f1447c1ddd_b.jpg

Front panel works almost. Power button and light are great, USB works, and so does FireWire, but no audio. It doesn't switch from the back. Not sure what do do there. It's not really an issue though since I run my output through a small mixer that always has a pair of headphones connected to it.

Stress testing:
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6209/615 ... af07_b.jpg
Monitoring temps at 100% usage across all 4 cores. Not bad at all, it'll be even better when I get my 2x120MM front fans installed. Have to make a bracket for them and get one RMAd through Newegg.

More cable ties & zip tie mounts:
6157836010_2a4aa06d7d_b.jpg

If you haven't noticed already, I am a neat freak and like my wires in order.

Zip Tying
6157836746_11e659d89e_b.jpg

Pulled the power supply out and ziptied all my power cables to 1" zip tie mounting squares from Lowes. Looks very nice, cleaner than almost any namebrand PC, but not as good as a real Mac.

Second HD cage:
6157838004_05cc112e01_b.jpg

Zip tied the power cables to the second HD cage.

Done for the day:
6157296219_4454c605c7_b.jpg

All wiring is done, ready to close 'er up for the day.

The back:
6157297589_43ec487192_b.jpg

Loads and loads of IO. Me likey!

Cleaned up:
6157298719_cedea311b7_b.jpg

I finished cleaning up and took the G5 inside around 11PM tonight. What a day.

So what's left?
-Remake rear 120MM fan mount
-Make 2x120MM front fan mount
-Make deflector for power supply exhaust
-Wire up power supply to original G5 input

Who knows when all that'll get done. Maybe next weekend, maybe not. but for now, I have a working, well built G5. It's not the best G5 mod out there, but it's very nice. I've seen some slapped together mods, and this is not one of them. I put time, effort, and thought into this and am very pleased with the result.

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome!
 
Excellent job...

So you resolve the connector for the dvd and hd like me with a old psu. I still want a old psu of g5 for convert m actual psu.

That allows me to get a better look of my system, because I'm using all the fans...
 
abelpinate said:
Excellent job...

So you resolve the connector for the dvd and hd like me with a old psu. I still want a old psu of g5 for convert m actual psu.

That allows me to get a better look of my system, because I'm using all the fans...
I have a g5 psu I am about to throw away. Where do you live? Mike
 
Congratulations for not being a hack with the mac design engineers (trophy)
well thought out,well planned,credit to you ; :headbang:

Another mac case made even better :!: . :headbang: :headbang:

like you i have seen that many [hacked] cases out there,it is wrong for people to play with things that they dont have the slightest knowledge about;ive seen so many trashed cases in the last year or so all over www and youtube .

there are a few really nice cases owned and built by members on this site of which im sure you have seen some of them.i have a case that i did a year ago,that i left on the coffee table for around three months,so i could let design juices flow while kickin back on the couch ..cant upload pics as yet got friends in canada with my photographic gear.

well i will stop ramblin and once again congrats on your build... :clap: :clap: :thumbup:
 
mikemelbrooks said:
abelpinate said:
Excellent job...

So you resolve the connector for the dvd and hd like me with a old psu. I still want a old psu of g5 for convert m actual psu.

That allows me to get a better look of my system, because I'm using all the fans...
I have a g5 psu I am about to throw away. Where do you live? Mike


I'm in Venezuela :(

There is any way to pay you the ship to my pobox in florida?
 
Thanks for all the compliments, glad to know others like my build!

Now I do have a question. I'd like to get my front audio working, or at least know why it won't work. I know my front panel cable is wired correctly, as I tested it against the pinout with a multimeter and all checks out. I am currently using all the ALC889 kexts from MultiBeast for my audio. Should it work as is, or is there something I need to do to get it working? Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: I just looked in the manual for my mobo, and I'm not sure that the pinout I used when I wired up my front harness matches what my mobo's manual has. I think I got some sort of mixes AC97/HDA header config. I notice that for my mobo there is no sense for AC97 at all, and the L/R pins for AC97 are the same pins I wired my L/R to. I hooked my sense into a ground, I think, and my ground into mic. (????)

See attached. I think I definitely screwed it up. Going to re-pin when I get home after work tonight and post my results.
 

Attachments

  • Frontx.tiff
    120.4 KB · Views: 845
  • Mobo Manual.tiff
    149.9 KB · Views: 824
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