G4 Quicksilver switch

[minihack]

Following the guides to the Cube switch and the Sawtooth switch, here is a how-to for the Quicksilver.

This is the switch board unmodified:

This is the pinout that I will be referring to in what follows:

If you have the original lead and plug for this then the red wire on that cable corresponds to "Pin 1" and the rest go in sequence from 2 to 10.

This board is more complicated than some of the G4 switch boards as it has a microcontroller on the board that is permanently connected to 5v standby and regulates the signals to the diode according to system state. In case you are interested this is the pinout before modifying:

1.S3+ programming switch;
2. No connection.
3.S2+ Reset switch.
4. This goes to the Anode (+) of the LED but also to the + power terminal of the microcontroller;
5. This is one of the input connections to the microcontroller.
6. No connection.
7. Ground
8. Also GROUND;
9. Not connected
10. This is connected to one of the pins on the microcontroller.

So as you can see, while there are direct connections to the reset switch (S2), the programming switch (S3) and ground, the rest are more complicated: the diode + side is also connected to the microcontroller; there is no direct connection to the main on switch S1; the diode - side is not actually connected to ground. If you just connect wires between the main switch S1 and the LED then the rest of the board components can end up causing shorts/interference.

So below is how I have modified the board and used the original connector block.

Step 1 - remove the microcontroller. Basically insert a small flat head screwdriver underneath the microcontroller chip and lever it off! It will tear off from the board.

Step 2 - Grounding the LED -ve side:
You need to bridge the LED - side to the outer grounding plane so it looks like this:

Note that to do that, you need (on the underside of the PCB) to scratch the green covering surface of the large outer plate to reveal some copper underneath it and then just apply solder and heat from a soldering iron to make your circuit look like the photo above.
Next, because this outer connection is not electrically connected to the main circuit ground you need to turn over the PCB and do this on the top surface:

What that photo shows is the bottom, ground terminal of S3 being bridged to the outer plate - all this does is make sure that all grounds are connected to one another. You do that again by scratching the outerplate near to where you want to make your solder bridge and then apply heat and solder. You can also see from this photo where I have torn off the chip for the microcontroller.

You now have made your LED connections - the plus side is available on pin 4 of the connector and the negative side can connect to pin 7 or 8 (doesn't matter which as they are both ground).

Step 3: To get your S1 (power switch) connection you need to run a wire from it to a free terminal on the connector. You can do that with a simple single wire soldered from the top connection on S1 to your pin of choice on the connector. Note pins 2, 6 and 9 do not seem to have any other connection, so you could run your wire to one of those. I actually chose pin 5 (just because I had a cable already made up with that as a connection) and did it like this:

and then because this pin had been used before by the microcontroller and may have had other internal connections I also cut the PCB trace from pin 5 like this on the underside of the board:

So that's it. If you did the mod the same way as me then you can put connectors onto your ribbon cable as follows:

Cable 4: LED +
Cable 5: Power Switch +[or if you made your wire go to pin 2, 6 or 9 then of course use that cable]
Cable 7 (or : LED -
Cable 8 (or 7): Power Switch -

If you have any use for the Reset switch and the Programming switch then the + sides from these are cables 3 (reset) and 1 (programming).

Please note that on the power switch it is important not to reverse the connections as that would be like continually having you power switch pressed.....

Also note there are other write ups on this board on the net that of course may work brilliantly, on mine though I wanted to recycle the connector and make it look less "hot-wired" than usual.

 

[JRDN]

This is fantastic, I appreciate the time that it took to make this write-up. Though I have one question. I started a G4 Mod adventure (M7641LL/A, AGP Graphics) and I've been wondering how to utilize this board to keep the original buttons and housing. I've been putting it off because my tech prowess is not the best. Going back and looking at the parts they are definitely different boards but similar as well. My question is, would these same steps apply to the board that I have from my G4?

 

[minihack]

This is fantastic, I appreciate the time that it took to make this write-up. Though I have one question. I started a G4 Mod adventure (M7641LL/A, AGP Graphics) and I've been wondering how to utilize this board to keep the original buttons and housing. I've been putting it off because my tech prowess is not the best. Going back and looking at the parts they are definitely different boards but similar as well. My question is, would these same steps apply to the board that I have from my G4?

Hi, can you post a picture of your board pls. and check out the thread for the sawtooth switch here:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=57663&start=0

 

[JRDN]

This is fantastic, I appreciate the time that it took to make this write-up. Though I have one question. I started a G4 Mod adventure (M7641LL/A, AGP Graphics) and I've been wondering how to utilize this board to keep the original buttons and housing. I've been putting it off because my tech prowess is not the best. Going back and looking at the parts they are definitely different boards but similar as well. My question is, would these same steps apply to the board that I have from my G4?

Hi, can you post a picture of your board pls. and check out the thread for the sawtooth switch here:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=57663&start=0

mine is that exact switch, thanks for the link to your guide. I'm debating keeping the original ribbon cable and splicing atx compatible ends to the wires you indicated. Maybe in the future I'd like to solder the wires to the board. My main source of inspiration is the Macbane G4 mod. He has a picture of his modified board but in his work log he said his camera ran out of batteries and it wasn't documented. I understand the board a bit more now and was wondering if using his picture as a template would work.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47388109@N07/4458360637/in/set-72157623298191439/ Here's his board.
Would soldering to these points and breaking the connections where he did work? I've been hesitant to try for fear of ruining the board all together.
Again, your info is very much appreciated!

 

[minihack]

This is fantastic, I appreciate the time that it took to make this write-up. Though I have one question. I started a G4 Mod adventure (M7641LL/A, AGP Graphics) and I've been wondering how to utilize this board to keep the original buttons and housing. I've been putting it off because my tech prowess is not the best. Going back and looking at the parts they are definitely different boards but similar as well. My question is, would these same steps apply to the board that I have from my G4?

Hi, can you post a picture of your board pls. and check out the thread for the sawtooth switch here:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=57663&start=0

mine is that exact switch, thanks for the link to your guide. I'm debating keeping the original ribbon cable and splicing atx compatible ends to the wires you indicated. Maybe in the future I'd like to solder the wires to the board. My main source of inspiration is the Macbane G4 mod. He has a picture of his modified board but in his work log he said his camera ran out of batteries and it wasn't documented. I understand the board a bit more now and was wondering if using his picture as a template would work.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47388109@N07/4458360637/in/set-72157623298191439/ Here's his board.
Would soldering to these points and breaking the connections where he did work? I've been hesitant to try for fear of ruining the board all together.
Again, your info is very much appreciated!

Yep, that'll work no problems. Mine is just a different way of doing it by identifying what is on the cables already.

 

[JRDN]

Yep, that'll work no problems. Mine is just a different way of doing it by identifying what is on the cables already.

Thought I'd give your How-to a try and it works wonderfully! No soldering and I can keep the original cable. I may opt to solder them on later for a 'cleaner' look.
Thanks so much for your help and insight

 

[roto31]

Yep, that'll work no problems. Mine is just a different way of doing it by identifying what is on the cables already.

Thought I'd give your How-to a try and it works wonderfully! No soldering and I can keep the original cable. I may opt to solder them on later for a 'cleaner' look.
Thanks so much for your help and insight

I did the same thing as first instructed in the "Sawtooth" switch board thread. It worked perfectly for the power switch. Right now I am content with the power working right now. I had a jerry rigged switch in the original metal case that the power button made contact with. Working with the original tact switch and splicing in the ATX cable from another PC switch worked great. I have to now get the LED and reset switch because holding down the power switch does not kill the power as it did in the original Sawtooth because that part of the circuit is not made that interrupted the power (just my theory, please correct me if I am wrong).

 

[minihack]

Yep, that'll work no problems. Mine is just a different way of doing it by identifying what is on the cables already.

Thought I'd give your How-to a try and it works wonderfully! No soldering and I can keep the original cable. I may opt to solder them on later for a 'cleaner' look.
Thanks so much for your help and insight

I did the same thing as first instructed in the "Sawtooth" switch board thread. It worked perfectly for the power switch. Right now I am content with the power working right now. I had a jerry rigged switch in the original metal case that the power button made contact with. Working with the original tact switch and splicing in the ATX cable from another PC switch worked great. I have to now get the LED and reset switch because holding down the power switch does not kill the power as it did in the original Sawtooth because that part of the circuit is not made that interrupted the power (just my theory, please correct me if I am wrong).

Hi Roto31,

When rigging the switch as in the sawtooth switch thread, for each of the switches, (S1, S2, S3 - power, reset, programming) the result is a simple short between switch + terminal and the ground track on the switch board as that is how the Mac board worked. For the LED it is similar, there is a LED + connection and that is actually connected to the Anode via an onboard 40 Ohm resistance (which does not affect its ability to light fine on my board) and the common cathode connection for that two colour LED is connected to the board ground. There is only one ground connection on the ribbon cable and assuming that on the board you are using all switch negative (-) connections (and the LED - connections) are internally connected to ground on the motherboard end then as long as there is a single ground connection linking the switch board to the mobo all functions should work correctly.

On my conversion I hooked up the power switch + and the common board - (ground) to the power switch + and - terminals respectively on my mobo (which is GA-P55M-UD4) and the LED + connection to the power LED + connection (leaving the LED - connection open/not connected) and the LED and Power switch functions work fine. Holding the power button pushed while the machine is running should have the same effect as holding a regular power switch pressed - i.e. if a normal PC momentary switch produces hard shutdown then doing that with the modded Mac switch will do the same - in the end it is just a regular momentary switch.

I have not hooked up the reset + or the programming switch +, but if my assumption that the mobo uses a "switch to ground" connection is correct then there is no reason why hooking those up would not work. You can verify if the mobo works that way by just doing a simple multimeter test (with power disconnected from the machine) to check if there is zero resistance between reset switch - connection and ground. If there is, then the mod will work, if there is not, then it won't......and in that case then it is better instead to do a full hot wire and to cut traces on the switch board to remove all of the common grounding between the switch connections. I'll do a multimeter check later on my boards just to verify what the status is of the negative sides of the various connections to see if they are indeed all connected to a common ground level.

 

[vince026]

..

 

[minihack]

I have a G4 quicksilver and its also my first casemod. After a few days of struggling to get my mATX motherboard in there (gigabyte h61m-d2-b3) everything is fitted in there. But since english isn't my native language this guide is kinda hard for me to understand.. I just want to turn my hackintosh on with the original power button, i don't need the led or anything else. Do i have to solder the board just to get that working?

Here's a picture of my hackjob still need to wire everything up and add the original 120mm fan casing back in there (with a new zalman zm-f3) and add the cpu and ram. I also added another fan on the bottom just to be safe.

Yes, if you want power switch you have to do a bit of soldering. That's because there is no direct connection on the cable to the positive (+) side of S1 (the switch on the board) - so you must solder a wire to there as a minimum. To be honest, this switch is a bit of a pain and it may be easier just to do a full hot wire to it ( I mean soldering wires directly to what you need on the board and forget about the ribbon cable).