G5 White Swan!

[Divine_Evil]

Hello, guys I decided to build myself a G5 mod. It's my first mod of... anything. So this thread will be both for questions I have and for displaying my progress .



As you can see from the pictures above, I've completely gutted my G5, and test fitted an old Mobo and thelaserhive's 120mm mATX conversion kit. It will be used as a template to epoxy the standoffs. Speaking of which there are 2 type of standoffs with different heights 15.90mm and 13.90mm. So that makes a difference of 2mm or almost 0.1". Which standoffs should I use?


When I decided that I'd build a G5 hackintosh I wanted to be keep it as original as possible, but when I got the case there were 3 deep scuffs like this one... So a repaint and possibly filling them with a filler is necessary.



This Saturday or Sunday I'll prep it for sandblasting and powder coating and it's going to be almost time to start buying the components .


UPDATE March 13 2013: Hey, guys finally an update! I took my baby to be powdercoted the other day and today I'm showing you the results!

First front view: The power button and CD cover are painted matte black like the PCI brackets and door lock and latch. I'm digging this White with a hint of Black.


Insides: I haven't put the gazillion T10 screws in yet, because I'm going to spraypaint them black


Backside and me holding the 120mm fan plate from thelaserhive ...


And I've temporary put the PCI brackets and installed the door lock .


Update March 15th 2013: Well guys for the last couple of days I've been spray painting all the silver bolts black... And this is the result:
First the side panel is whole again:


And this is the insides taking shape


This weekend I'm planning of putting the mobo standoffs, but... I have to finish spraypainting...

Update March 18th: I'm done with the spraypainting and if it wasn't for a single standoff to break I would have been done with the gluing the standoffs... And with that I need less than 30 minutes to put the case together and be ready for the PC parts .

I painted the plastic PCI frame black ... NIIICE result


The backside with the thelaserhive's kit installed. Powdercoted aluminum plate and spaypainted IO bracket plate...


Original HDD cage spraypainted black and ORICO 2x2.5" to 3.5" mounting bracket that fits perfectly between the Superdrive and the HDD cage . A total of 4 drives...


And last but not least... Frontside with the Superdrive door Black and the frontpanel bezel and powerbutton

 

[Divine_Evil]

reserved for future updates...

 

[Dschijn]

Keep it up!

 

[ersterhernd]

I recently constructed my own tray to line up with the G5 pci slots.

Perfect standoff height was 14.2mm, so the 13.9's you mentioned should be your choice. Your pci-e cards should seat just right.

 

[Divine_Evil]

I recently constructed my own tray to line up with the G5 pci slots.

Perfect standoff height was 14.2mm, so the 13.9's you mentioned should be your choice. Your pci-e cards should seat just right.

Thanks for the info...

Just to make sure. My template mobo, has standoff holes on positions B,C,F,J,H,R. I think this is used in 99% of the mATX boards...

My concern is if I glue a standoff on R position, but my future mobo has a hole on the S position... though I think they don't do them like that, because it is right smack in the middle of the chipset.

 

[ersterhernd]

I know my MSI mATX board has all the same standoff positions you mentioned. No 'S' position.

If you're concerned about it, you can always use an old MB tray from a retired case and simply glue it to your G5 case at the right height. That way you have the threaded holes to mount brass standoffs into. Thats what I did on my most recent build, mainly because it provided a more secure attachement to the G5 Case wall than just a few standoffs. Here's how I did it...

I adjusted the height off the back of the G5 with numerous small wafers of aluminum plating (less than 1/16" thick). This allowed me to test by installing PCI-E cards for proper height fitment. Then when I had the right height, I JB Welded several stacks of the pieces to the rear of the motherboard tray and let it harden for a day.

When installing the tray into the case, I attached the motherboard to the tray, then JB Welded the wafers to the case, installing the PCI-E cards at the same time for an absolutely guaranteed fit while the JB hardened. With MB and PCI-E cards in place, I place heavy weights onto the assembly while it hardened to the case wall. I left it for 24 hours.

After it hardened and I removed the hardware, the result was a perfectly aligned motherboard tray at exactly the correct height to match up with the PCI slots. Its not elegant, but would later be completely concealed by other plating and the MB. You can see in the pic the 8 required brass standoffs in perfect and permanent position for my micro atx board. Oh, and the best part was it was free!

This pic is of the standoff height measurement after everything was JB Welded in. I placed a piece of aluminum bar across the top of two standoffs to measure the height off the G5 case wall. You can see its just a hair over 14mm, which seats the PCI-E cards perfectly into the slots on the G5 and Motherboard. (The bottom edge of the bar will be the bottom edge of the motherboard).

View with Motherboard and PCI-E cards intsalled...

 

[Divine_Evil]

Thanks for the info... The old mobo that I have is has just PCI(no-E) slots, but has no IO shield... and I'm a little concern of the alignment.

 

[Divine_Evil]

Hey guys just a quick update. I haven't got any progress on the case, because I need a torx T7 screwdriver (i think) to disassemble the case in 3 parts and get those to be powdercoated. Will get my torx set this weekend .

But I bought the internals! Which are:
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H
CPU: i7 3770k + CM Hyper 212 Evo
GPU: Galaxy GeForce GTX 660 Ti GC 3 GB
RAM: G.Skill ARES 2x8GB 1866MHz
SSD: Crucial M4 256 GB
HDD: 2TB WD Green
PSU: Seasonic SS-520FL 520W Fanless PSU

I can't wait for another month or so till I get my hands on them

 

[pinkmouse]

There's a few pop rivets you'll need to drill out as well.

When you come to re-assembly, put some masking tape on all the edges and corners, it's very easy to scratch things up with all the studding whilst you put it back together

 

[ersterhernd]

You need the T8 and T10.