Fleischs cube project with GA-H77TN

[fleisch]

It has begun...
Slowly but surely...
Going to install the os and the hardware before squeezing it in. Realized that I need an ATX 24 pin extension that i just ordered. Still have to decide on the CPU cooler...any suggestions?
Excited!
Fleisch

 

[minihack]

So did you buy the Zotac board? Hope so as you will benefit now under the latest bios from Zotac with native power management. I still haven't tried the new bios on my board yet (as the water cooled cube is not yet finished) but Coderush did a great job of getting the Zotac developers to produce an OS X friendly bios out of the box.

Good luck and.....what internal configuration have you decided on for the build?

 

[MacTester57]

Hmm, test run in a carton box?? Be careful with electrostatic sensitive electronic parts! Your MOBO etc. could be damaged.

MacTester

 

[fleisch]

So did you buy the Zotac board? Hope so as you will benefit now under the latest bios from Zotac with native power management. I still haven't tried the new bios on my board yet (as the water cooled cube is not yet finished) but Coderush did a great job of getting the Zotac developers to produce an OS X friendly bios out of the box.

Good luck and.....what internal configuration have you decided on for the build?

Hi minihack...Yep, i bought the zotac board. i only spent my lunch break with the new hardware today, so i haven't gotten that far. i installed osx without issues, didn't do any of the post install modifications.
So far I'm using:
zotac z77itx wifi
8gb crucial ballistix tactical low profile (the other 8gb don't fit because the pico psu is too wide, already ordered the atx extension cable)
256gb crucial m4 msata SSD
cheap Alpine 11 Pro Rev. 2 Cooler for the CPU (i haven't decided on the "real" cooler yet)
Powered by pico psu 160xt and 192w AC

I'm using my flatscreen tv as monitor right now since the cinema display doesn't work on the zotac board.

Still have to connect the Radeon 7750 low profile and then the cinema display, DVD Drive (don't need Blu Ray yet), bluetooth and maybe infra red.

My Plan is: Put everything together outside the cube, do all the postinstall moves (hope i'll manage), test the power consumption under stress of the whole built...

For the cube: I spent the last couple weeks reading pretty much through every post of a cube mod. I also stumbled upon the french mod, which in my opinion shows incredible skill but is just overdone. (http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=227181) I don't want to change the outside of the Cube.
But I did like what he did to the bottom of the case: he cut out everything leaving only the outlines of the bottom plate. I think this could help getting a much better airflow through the tiny case. I hope to align motherboard and gpu like sleppek did in his build. I want all the fins pointing into the up-downwards direction and being "open", so i can put a fan at the bottom of the case (or maybe two small ones) that suck the air in from the bottom an move it upwards. I will surely need more than that to keep it from burning...

For the VGA i was thinking about the Accelero L2 PLUS cooler. It is small enough to fit between the bars of the closing mechanism.
I know that the Heatsinks i chose right now are rather cheap, i do like the more expensive ones better...but i think they might fit.
By the way: TDP for the CPU is 45w, GPU 55w...


Hope to get some things done tomorrow when i'm off after the 24h shift.
wish me luck!
Always thankful for advice!
Cheers, Fleisch

PS: Is it possible to change the threat topic? Since I ended up using the zotac board?

 

[fleisch]

Small progress... I know, there's got to be a million of similar images. Still, it was an hour of work

 

[minihack]

Hi Fleisch,
Looking good. In case it helps I will post on here later today a pdf and the CAD file I am using for the backplate for my Zotac water Cube. You may be able to use some of it as I have digitised the pattern of the IO so if you wanted to use that you could then modify the design to put the openings wherever you like.

Edit: Okay here is the link to my thread where I have uploaded the CAD files etc. http://www.tonymacx86.com/powermac-g4-cube/98231-water-cooled-cube-4.html#post618483

 

[fleisch]

Very cool! Thank you! I made some progress today. The hardware is running osx very well now. I discovered that my motherboard has a unsupported ralink chipset for wifi and bluetooth. So i threw ir out, still looking into alternatives...

Got the 7750 to work with my cinema display, running well with booting over hd 4000. even dual display through the two gpus is possible. To monitor my temps i install fakesmc and hwmonitor but the system crashes when launching hwmonitor any ideas on that? Still need to do some stress test to monitor power consumption.

Couple more days and i should be ready to enter the cube.
Cpu cooler and case fans need to arrive...

 

[minihack]

System crash could be caused by one of the plugins for fakesmc. A common culprit I think is the GPUsensor plugin. So I would focus troubleshooting around that area......

 

[fleisch]

Right you are... the 7750 doesn't play nice with that plugin. After deleting it it works...bad news: I can't get a temp from my gpu...
Thanks again for your help!

 

[fleisch]

Hi all! Not at home right now, so I can't post a lot... I have made a lot of progress, only waiting on a fan and an adapter for my bluray drive and i'll be able to finish the hardware part.. Will need windows for testing, cause i cant read out my gpu temp in mac os ...
I already want to thank everybody for helping me this far! Especially sleppek who helped a whole lot!!!!!
We'll be back and post more detailes (and possibly mor problems )