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neilhart's Mac Pro Hack

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Neil,
I can't find in either your thread here or in Mooner's thread where you connect up the Firewire 400 ports.
I've read both yours and Mooner's threads many times, but I can't find the reference.

I have a 2008 Mac Pro case that came with all the wiring/cabling and the front panel. I will be using a GA-Z68MX-UD2H motherboard, which has an on-board FW400 connector, and I have a FW800/400 PCI-e card that has an internal FW800 connection which I will connect to the case's front panel using the FW800 cable that came with the front panel.

All the front panel diagrams talk to the USB connections (8 pin plug and the SATA plug wiring) and audio speaker connection. However, I haven't see any mention (or diagram) in this forum section to connecting up the FW400. (I did find one post that Apple used the FW800 cable to bring FW400 to the front panel.)

Please point me to the post or the location that discusses the wiring schematic that you used to connect up the front panel FW400. TIA.
 
hi I have a 2009 Mac Pro case and have a similar cage where the CPU will be located but did you have to cut any part of that cage?
mine may be a bit different because it appears I will have to cut some of the backside to make space for the mobo to fit.
 
hi I have a 2009 Mac Pro case and have a similar cage where the CPU will be located but did you have to cut any part of that cage?
mine may be a bit different because it appears I will have to cut some of the backside to make space for the mobo to fit.

Yes the cage is modified to form a fan tunnel with the front fan mounted in the tunnel. See the photos. I built up a pad in the bottom front chassis for the tunnel to sit on. I used 1/16 inch acrylic sheet for the window. See the photos.
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aa1.jpg

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aa3.jpg

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aa4.jpg

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I hope that this helps.
neil
 
Yes the cage is modified to form a fan tunnel with the front fan mounted in the tunnel. See the photos. I built up a pad in the bottom front chassis for the tunnel to sit on. I used 1/16 inch acrylic sheet for the window. See the photos.
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I hope that this helps.
neil


hi Neil, very nice mod adding that glass to it.

I wrote a separate thread exactly about that wind tunnel. How much rpm does your fans have? I am inclined also to replace those apple fans (deltas about 2900rpm) with Noctuas PWM 1300 rpm but I am not sure if they will be strong enough to push air through the wind tunnel. Thank you in advance for your reply.
 
Anathos - The two SiLenx 120 mm fans (front and rear) and the Scythe “Slip Stream” high airflow 120 mm fan are all being managed by the motherboard. At power on the fans spin up and are very noticeable, however as soon as the BIOS takes over they come under the motherboard control and usually are not noticeable. When I run stress test applications they do spin up and can be heard. At the time that I built this machine, the SiLenx fans were available at my local Fry's store and the specs are 18 dBa at 1400 RPM 90 CFM and they work well.

This machine is an X58 with an I7-950 CPU which is dated and is a 130 watt heater. Use any third generation CPU and you will not need this much cooling.

neil
 
Thanks for the reply Neil. What I know, those apple (delta) fans are quite loud - around 33 dba and 2900 rpm. I am going to use the i5 3570k cpu with this cooler:
http://www.xigmatek.com/product.php?productid=186

So probably I will replace them with Noctuas and as they are PWM, motherboard will take care of the rpm.

fan.JPG
 
Wondering if your using the raid card from the maxconnect or if your using a sas to 4x sata convert cord directly into the mobo?

It looks like you directly plugged the 4x sata into your mobo... did you buy the maxconnect female to female adapter+ mini sas to 4x sata cord without the raid card they sell it with? or are you just not using it for a reason?
 
Wondering if your using the raid card from the maxconnect or if your using a sas to 4x sata convert cord directly into the mobo?

It looks like you directly plugged the 4x sata into your mobo... did you buy the maxconnect female to female adapter+ mini sas to 4x sata cord without the raid card they sell it with? or are you just not using it for a reason?

Yes I used the adapter plus the 4x SATA cable set seen here. Then the 4 SATA cables are connected to the motherboard SATA connectors. This allows the re-use of the Apple SATA data harness.

9719d1342992404-neilharts-mac-pro-hack-early-cable-mess1.jpg


OBW I still have this MacPro hack setting off to the side. It is part of my current collection of 14 hacks and one that I intend to keep.

Good modding,
neil
 
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Yes I used the adapter plus the 4x SATA cable set seen here. Then the 4 SATA cables are connected to the motherboard SATA connectors. This allows the re-use of the Apple SATA data harness.

9719d1342992404-neilharts-mac-pro-hack-early-cable-mess1.jpg


OBW I still have this MacPro hack setting off to the side. It is part of my current collection of 14 hacks and one that I intend to keep.

Good modding,
neil

Anyway you have that picture still of the 8-pin mini-molex to power the harness for the sata drives? Its a 8 pin mini molex and I found a picture from you on someone else's thread but it would seem I didn't save it or I can't find it now..... I have the max-connect to hookup the sata and that part seems to be fine, however the drives obviously don't have power since I haven't converted the 8pin mini to work with my psu yet.
 
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Anyway you have that picture still of the 8-pin mini-molex to power the harness for the sata drives? Its a 8 pin mini molex and I found a picture from you on someone else's thread but it would seem I didn't save it or I can't find it now..... I have the max-connect to hookup the sata and that part seems to be fine, however the drives obviously don't have power since I haven't converted the 8pin mini to work with my psu yet.

No I do not have a photo of the power cable conversion of the 4 SATA drives. As I recall I cut off the Apple 8 pin connector and solder spliced in power (5VDC, 12VDC and Ground) from the ATX PSU using the 4 pin molex cables.

Good modding,
neil
 
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