2013 Mac Pro - My variation

[JuanLobo]

Wow! Very profitable weekend. Great job, JuanLobo.
Regards and

Thanks Bamboreta!

 

[rehpotsirhc]

I can see the homestretch now! Cut the hole in the side of the bin for the IO panel. Made it a little too long, but it will do just fine. The bin fits over the IO without having to cut a slot! It is tight, but it slides over. The IO plate stays attached to the logic board.

The fan grill needs to be cut so it will fit inside, but that should be quick. Then it is time to paint. No idea yet what to do. I am tempted to just go all black. That will have to wait for another weekend.

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Looks really clean, too bad noctua doesn't make black fans.

 

[JuanLobo]

Looks really clean, too bad noctua doesn't make black fans.

Thanks! Yeh, I thought the same. Considered painting it, but the docs recommend against it, and I can understand why... could very likely mess up the balance of the fan.

 

[ccannon0]

It loos awesome! Great job! Would you be willing to take pics of all the sides with case off now that you have everything attached?

how did you cut the side out? Any pointers?

 

[Dschijn]

Wow, that's fast! Good geekbench results.

 

[JuanLobo]

It loos awesome! Great job! Would you be willing to take pics of all the sides with case off now that you have everything attached?

how did you cut the side out? Any pointers?

Drilled the corners, and then used a jigsaw to rough cut it. Protected the outside of the cut area with masking tape so the jigsaw base didn't scratch the bin. One bit of advice: Don't use a really fine tooth blade for these cuts. I used a blade for cutting metal the first try, and it cut the plastic, but the kerf right behind the blade filled in with melted plastic. A blade designed for wood removed the plastic rather than melt it.

After the rough cut, used a file to get it down to the line and square off the corners.

Planned on using the dremel with a cutoff wheel to make the cuts, but the plastic just melted and bogged down the dremel.

BTW, the plastic towards the top is really thick! It is nearly 8mm thick towards the top (formerly the bottom) of the bin.

 

[JuanLobo]

Wow, that's fast! Good geekbench results.

Now that the cover is on, need to run some more tests to see if stays reasonably cool. The GPU will hit 81c under heavy load with the cover on. I might try some baffles inside to make sure the GPU fan isn't eating warm air.

Problem I see is that GPU bound applications don't stress the CPU, so the main case fan isn't told to speed up as much as it should. Might be time to learn how PWM fans work, and possibly do a little microcontroller that combines the case fan and gpu pwm signals, and calculate a fan speed to keep the GPU cooler when needed.

 

[PencilNotPen]

Congratulations! Your build is looking great. Especially the I/O, which was the part I was expecting to be the most difficult to look good. You mentioned you are using internal antennae, where are they mounted inside and does it not affect their reception quite a lot? I have to decide whether to mount mine inside too, or whether to route them to the back somehow, which could be difficult, but might give the optimal reception...
Well done again!

 

[JuanLobo]

Congratulations! Your build is looking great. Especially the I/O, which was the part I was expecting to be the most difficult to look good. You mentioned you are using internal antennae, where are they mounted inside and does it not affect their reception quite a lot? I have to decide whether to mount mine inside too, or whether to route them to the back somehow, which could be difficult, but might give the optimal reception...
Well done again!

Thanks! The antennas have not arrived yet, but my guess is since the case is plastic, reception shouldn't be a problem. I'm going to mount them on either side of the top fan.

Even without the antennas attached, the wifi sees my base station.

 

[Dschijn]

81°C isn't a Problem for the GPU, it will protect itself and clock down. Of course that's not so good, but I don't think that a better / higher airflow of the big fan will give you much better improvements.

I have also thought about an Arduino to controll PWM fans from multiple PWM signals, but that could be tricky. Still looking forward on your next steps!

I really want to do an nMP Mod myself in 5 month.