Jafingi's simple PowerMac G5 to mATX mod

I have been lurking around in here for many years, and after I got my hands on a fully working G5 earlier this year, I have been thinking about turning it into a Hackintosh.

But it has been hard, since it worked, but lately it started crashing, being unable to boot etc. so now I thought it was time to make som surgery.

The hardware itself will be simple, but useful, as I mainly use it on my office for e-mail, surf, printing invoices etc. The hardcore work is still done on my retina Macbook Pro. So I have ordered the following hardware (will arrive in a few days):

Motherboard: Asrock Z97M Pro4 mATX
CPU: CORE I3-4330 3.50GHZ
PSU: Corsair CS-M Series CS550M Modular
RAM: Kingston Fury 8GB 1600 MHz (Blue)
SSD: Kingston 60GB SSDNOW V300
CPU cooler: ARCTIC Freezer i30
Intake+Exhaust: 2x Antec TrueQuiet Pro 120mm

Motherboard and backplate is by David from The Laser Hive. Absolutely amazing quality stuff!

The idea is that I will do minimal modifications on the case and hardware. I will not put the PSU in the old G5 PSU, but instead mount it in the lower left of the case. However, I will try re-wiring the power connector from the old G5 power-supply to use the original placement.

HDD cage will be kept in the stock position. Will have one 120mm intake fan in the front and one 120mm exhaust in the back.

Here's the beauty - not a single scratch:


And still pretty on the inside:


But let the teardown begin I don't want to go into depth with this, as it has been done 100s of times.

Apple might be the only ones who ever thought about integrating a speaker into a fan


Had to bend the CPU cooler cover a little to get that ****** security pin out.


Everything is out, and everything is a mess:


I decided to keep the HDD cage and top fan, because I simply didn't want to spend so much time taking the top shelf apart. Seemed unnecessarily complicated : The fan will not be activate at all, but I think that HDD's can still be placed in the cage. But if you have any objections against that, I can reconsider it.


Motherboard tray in place. Removed all the unnecessary nuts with tongue-and-groove pliers.


Backplate is mounted to figure out how much I need to cut away. I'd like to preserve as much of the original aluminium as possible.



Will update soon with the cutting work! I'm off for today

A little update from me. Been very busy the last week, but got time for some cutting action with my Dremel

Hardware is arriving tomorrow! Looking so much forward to setting it up.

Tried to keep as much of the back as possible, but still need a little more (marked in black). But I ran out of wheels for my Dremel, so going to buy more tomorrow to get the last cutting done!




The motherboard tray is also mounted nicely, just waiting for the motherboard:


Also took this out from the original PSU - going to use it and rewire it for my PSU. I'm not going to disassemble the new PSU, but instead just rewiring the cable to the new PSU:


Over and out!

Keep us posted!

I just got my hands on a G5 case, mod still in planning stage, and clearing some initial doubts with David from Laser Hive, he's an absolute star

Feel free to ask here too, sffsipete, as I use the same kit!
However, David usually replies promptly - he's really a great support!

Received the hardware today - will update the post with more progress tomorrow.



I have ordered the BlackCH front panel I/O cable, which should be delivered early next week. So until that, I'll have to wire up my own to get it powered up! I think it's going to be really great!

How much space do you reckon there is between the CPU and the G5 cpu cover once the mb is mounted? really not sure which cooler to get (closed loops have too short tubes for my project unfortunately)

Cheers

sffsipete said:

How much space do you reckon there is between the CPU and the G5 cpu cover once the mb is mounted? really not sure which cooler to get (closed loops have too short tubes for my project unfortunately)

Cheers

Click to expand...

There's about 17cm when the motherboard is mounted on the standoffs from The Laser Hive's kit.

My cooler is an Arctic Freezer i30 120mm, and it's HUGE! My setup only uses an i3, but I think it'll work fine for even an overclocked i7.

Motherboard in place:




Backplate looks great! Not a big fan of those rubber screws for the fan, as it cannot hold the grill so well - so I'm probably going to replace them with some old-school metallic fan-screws:




PSU placement location (not mounted yet):


AND the CPU cooler is HUGE! Not much clearance for the RAM blocks on this tiny mATX board - so going to detach the fan if I need to replace them - but that's just clicked on, so no worries there:


Just got OS X installed with Clover, and it works perfectly! Going to update the thread with more info tomorrow

Since last time, I have fine tuned the Clover configuration, and now the Hackintosh boots directly to OS X without showing the Clover boot screen or UEFI boot screen. So it's just like a real Mac (except for the missing chime): Press the power button, and the Apple logo is instantly shown. Pretty neat!

Also wake from sleep etc. works just as you would expect. Clover is really really great!

Trying to keep everything as native as possible.

Got the front cable from BlackCH, and it's a nice job! Audio, LED and USB just works!



Also got the PSU mounted in the bottom of the case, so it now sits there nicely:




Still need to rewire the original power plug from the G5 to the PSU - so it currently is a temporary solution:



The WiFi card from the original G5 I had, that worked on 10.5 didn't work in the Mackintosh on 10.10, so I bought the one that Tony recommends, and that worked out of the box:



So what's left for me to do right now:

• Cable management
• Rewire PSU power plug
• Put real screws in the exhaust fan instead of those silly rubber screws - they doesn't hold the fan grill really well..

Future stuff:

• Improve HDD mounting (for example by installing a HDD cage)

I really like how clean your mod is, well done! If you have the wiring and cable management done, will you share a picture or two?

Thij said:

I really like how clean your mod is, well done! If you have the wiring and cable management done, will you share a picture or two?

Click to expand...

Thanks! I have not done the cable management yet, as I have been a little busy, but will do it in the next few days. The power coord will be wired to I can use the native G5 plug, and I have a little idea of making an aluminium plate to hide the cables.

The plate will be raised 3cm or so from the backplate, so I can have all the cables behind that. Then there will be holes where the cable connectors need to come through. Here's a quick sketch of the layout from my head:



The aluminium plate should be mounted on standoffs, so I can easily take it off when I need to change cables etc. Have to draw a CAD-drawing and get someone to laser-cut the plate for me.

Also, I will probably move the hard drive cage from the original spot on the right in the case, to be where the DVD-drive previously was. This is because I can then hide the power and SATA cable for the hard drive behind the aluminium plate. It's a little difficult when the hard drive is on the right, because the cables needs to be stretches from left to right in the case.

If you have more questions, feel free to ask!

Looking great! I did something similar for hiding cables in my build as well, it works really well to do that and looks clean - can't wait to see how yours turns out!