15 years I've been waiting to mod a G5

[JWalk9000]

I have been a VERY LONG-TIME lurker around here, but I finally managed to get my hands on a G5 to mod. The very first time I ever saw the beauty that is the cheese grater, I was in love. No chassis has stood the test of time in the looks department to me as this has. Found, discarded by a pile a pallets, with only a few months worth of dust inside I lovingly RIPPED out its guts, briefly considered rehoming the CPU cooler back in this but thought better, and got to work.


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The first thing to solve was PSU. I took the guts from my wife's old EVGA Supernova NEX750 and nested it inside the original PSU chassis, unfortunately I took the original PSU Fans to the recycler with a bunch of other stuff.. so I'm on the look out for some new ones. I cut off the back side of the original mac plug (since I didn't have the cord) and JB'd in the socket from the Supernova. Viola, from a 494W to a modular 750W.




Now came the time to make a big hole where the back used to be, and cut a piece of aluminum to cover it back up. The tool of choice for this was a Jigsaw, and then lots of filling...
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It was a few days over Xmas between that point and the next stage, But I'm making some pretty good progress in the last couple days. I'm missing a few pics, but the MoBo Tray and back plane I'm using is from a random case from the E-Recycler. I drilled out the rivets.. added some of my own, and got everything all fitted up. I've gotten the mid-plate and the attic plate cut to fit, and then installed the MoBo to get a fitment and had to do some extra bends to make the mid plate work with the cooler I'm using. then I had to make a small support/filler piece because of new height of that plate at the back.

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Next steps are HDD/SSD locations, cable management, pwr button and front IO.

 

[cpufreak]

Beautiful build!

 

[JWalk9000]

Thanks, its been a great "creative outlet," and I really appreciate having somewhere that I can share with others.

Today and yesterday I solved, for the time being anyway, the challenge of where to put the SSDs & HDD. I also made a cover plate to hide the attic.


Also I'm not sure why some of my pics are embedding as the thumbnail and others are not...

 

[appleman19]

Looking really nice. Keep up the good work!

 

[JWalk9000]

Well things have been at a stand-still for the last week. I'm waiting for ASUS to send me new M.2 screws since they didn't send any back with the new MOBO on an RMA. I'm deciding whether to tear it all down to paint it in my basement, or wait till spring to do it out in the garage. Haven't even decided if I'm keeping the space gray or maybe going with something else.. Its a bit banged up, but I kinda like the "Experience" showing.. I also need to get some nice screws for the back panel, right now I'm holding it together with screws I took out of it when I gutted it. I'm also trying to find a local maker with a laser cutter to make me a front IO panel for the audio, USB 3/C, & card reader I picked up to replace original.

 

[JWalk9000]

Ugh... I feel like an idiot. lol

I just figured out what screws I'm going to use for my back panel... thanks to this thread:

Another G5 Case Mod, with some useful resources

Hi All, I am not an Apple fanboi, or a Mac Expert by any stretch of the imagination. I have a MacBook Pro which is undoubtedly the best laptop I have ever owned, but I am a massive Linux fan and find OSX too restrictive for me. That said, I consider OSX to be the best commercial operating...

www.tonymacx86.com

I'm didn't Realize that those weird cap screws were a screw and a spacer. SCORE. that means I can use only Mac Screws for every part of this build.

 

[appleman19]

You could also use rivets instead. They look pretty good imho. Can be picked up at walmart or your local auto parts store.

 

[JWalk9000]

Yeah, I'm no stranger to rivets. I want to be able to disassemble it later if need be without drilling out rivets.

And I'm making it kind of a personal challenge to only use fasteners that came out of the Power Mac in the first place.

 

[appleman19]

That seems like a pretty cool little endeavour there. Please keep us posted.

 

[alffx]

great work!