I found a really cheap G4 case on craigslist ($20) and so I decided I wanted to do a G4 case mod. I just got started today, but I've been reading a lot of people's mods on here to get some ideas. So far all I've done is take all the side panels off and start to take off the old mounting screws. Below are the pics. I'll add more as I go.
As you can see in the bottom picture I did break part of the plastic on the back part of the case. I'm going to just epoxy it or something to get it back together should be alright. I also need some advice on parts. The microcenter near me doesn't have any of the Gigabyte mATX boards for the Z77 chipset, so I was curious about everyones opinions of the ASUS P8Z77-M PRO
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131833&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA I know that I'll have to flash the bios if I go with that board, but I was just curious if I would run into any other issues. Obviously the reason I'm asking is to get the $50 off at Microcenter.
Exciting times, guy!
I can't really comment so far as the operation of the ASUS P8Z77-M PRO and having to flash the bios, but i can certainly comment on the structural issues of getting it to play nicely with your mod.
As far as the ASUS P8Z77-M PRO goes i see two issues...
1.) There is no gap between the first (blue) PCIe 16x slot and the Audio I/O panel at the back. This leave you with three options. One is to negate the first PCIe 16x slot and offset the mounting of your mobo to accommodate the the steel bar between the PCI slots and I/O Ports at the back of your case and use the second PCIe 16x slot for your GPU, which will probably block your last PCI slot too, leaving you with only one usable PCIe 1x slot. Option two is to cut out the bar that would normally block the second row of Audio I/O ports (ie. Pink, Green & Blue sound ports) and then re-fabricate or leave open that part of the rear chassis. DoctorEvil has a great example of this method here:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/case-mods/59694-doctorevil-30564s-powermac-g4-graphite-hackintosh.html
Option three is to find a motherboard with just the right gap between the PCIe 16x and Audio I/O block. These are rare enough on Sandy Bridge boards and probably impossible on the new Ivy Bridge designs – so far.
This was the route I eventually took on my Sandy Bridge setup, even after cutting out the steel bar. This allowed me to re-attach the original G4 plastic moulding to the back of my case and still keep my PCIe 16x slot and Audio I/O ports accessible. See my final build here:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/case-mods/54122-applemacidiots-g4-i5-rebirth-lots-pics.html
2.) The 4 RAM slot design is almost guaranteed to crash into your optical drive bay – and these look especially far back on the layout. You might just get away with only using the first one or two slots (probably only the first one) without hitting the optical drive, but I'm almost 100% sure that even if you choose to not have a DVD drive in there, that the second two slots WILL hit the drive or even the tray that holds the DVD drive when it's empty... Either way it's going to be tricky.
It's a really tough decision, though. One involves sacrificing your case or PCI/e slots, while the other means sacrificing your desire for certain motherboards and what they do and don't offer. I ended up sacrificing on motherboard functionality to suit my case design and keep it as vanilla as possible. So basically, i had to give up all hopes of 6GB/s SATA and the extra two RAM slots for my specific mobo (MSI H61M-E23 B3) to fit comfortably in my build. Luckily, I gained maximum PCI slot estate (ie. 4 slots), so I could alway re-gain 6GB/s SATA via an add-on card on one of my open PCI slots if i become desperate. As for the RAM? Oh, well! 8GB is going to have to do for now.
Good luck with your build! It's tough, but SO worth it in the end.