- Joined
- Jun 10, 2011
- Messages
- 94
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte EX58-UD5
- CPU
- Intel i7 920
- Graphics
- Nvidia 9800GT
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
I had a lot of fun building this G5 and I wanted to share with you all what I did.
I wanted to accomplish 3 things for this:
But I had a load of fun doing it.
To see the parts and performance of the machine you can look at this thread here.
Unfortunately the case isn't perfect. There is definitely a bit of cosmetic damage, but I figured I'd have fun with it anyway.
I tore it apart and began work on the PSU (These pics are before I realized I needed to route the power wires more exact. I got that part in the final build but the pics don't show it.) Also, The yellow/black wires are the power from a molex connection to make the apples glow. I couldn't get grey 60mm Noctua fans, so I painted them black with flat black spray paint. I figured they'd be hidden, but I didn't want them to be visible at all.
Also, the PSU is not NEARLY as pretty as all of you have done, but I just dremmeled off the top of the PSU and angled the front panel to fit. By jamming all the air through produced with the 2 fans I hoped that even with the big blockage of the front panel I could keep it cool enough... and based on my observations, it worked out.
By the way... the green tape was going to be the mask for making my contacts for the door panel glowing apple power. That didn't work out. I ended up using the telephone wire and jack, but it was a good idea. Someone like Neil would have made it work nice... but I'm no Jedi at this point.
Then I tested my LED's using the molex from my X79 hackintosh... it worked:
Oh... And here's proof that the contact idea with copper tape didn't work:
See the fried wires? Yeah that was bad.
I got my motherboard tray kit from Laserhive and mounted it up. I was surprised how it left virtually no room for my apple on that side of the case... Oh well. I'll figure it out!
Then the nerve wracking part... Drilling into the case. That was an adventure I had to take care of both sides:
Then I had a friend CNC out some apples out of 50% translucent plexiglass:
I still had plenty of filing and sanding to do to get them to fit, but once I did, I just wrapped the LEDs around the apple plate and then covered the apples in aluminum foil. I figured if Apple was doing this, they wouldn't want the glow to be throughout the entire case so I tried to minimize it even though I did end up puncturing the foil in a couple places. I will probably go back and fix it in the coming days:
I wanted the door to come off without having any wires attached, so I used a telephone jack as my coupler and just ground off the shoulders that would normally click it into place. It worked out reasonablly nice:
Then as the computer got built I just tried to get the wiring right. It certainly isn't perfect, but I suppose it's going to be pretty good. That little 4 drive SSD bay uses LOTS of cables:
I'm using modern fans (Noctua), but I was able to keep all of them grey (except the PSU ones I showed earlier), and I was able to use all of the old housings. I think it was true to the original design including the speaker that beeps at each boot up. The temperatures have stayed really low so I think the wind tunnels are working quite well.
I wish I didn't have to cut the clear plastic where the graphics card power goes in, but I was absolutely not going to finish the job without it... so it was a compromise I was willing to make.
It looks cool when it's on and off. If I could get the sleep to consistently work.. That's a whole other thread... It would be nice because the glowing apple turns off during sleep, but overall I'm really happy.
I wanted to accomplish 3 things for this:
- Internally l wanted the layout to look as much like a G5 as possible, but the hardware of course modernized to be as current as possible.
- Externally I didn’t want the build to look like it was modified. I wanted it to look like something Apple shipped.
- I wanted the Apple logos to glow like on an apple laptop, plus when the door came off I didn’t want a cord to be connected.
But I had a load of fun doing it.To see the parts and performance of the machine you can look at this thread here.
Unfortunately the case isn't perfect. There is definitely a bit of cosmetic damage, but I figured I'd have fun with it anyway.
I tore it apart and began work on the PSU (These pics are before I realized I needed to route the power wires more exact. I got that part in the final build but the pics don't show it.) Also, The yellow/black wires are the power from a molex connection to make the apples glow. I couldn't get grey 60mm Noctua fans, so I painted them black with flat black spray paint. I figured they'd be hidden, but I didn't want them to be visible at all.
Also, the PSU is not NEARLY as pretty as all of you have done, but I just dremmeled off the top of the PSU and angled the front panel to fit. By jamming all the air through produced with the 2 fans I hoped that even with the big blockage of the front panel I could keep it cool enough... and based on my observations, it worked out.
By the way... the green tape was going to be the mask for making my contacts for the door panel glowing apple power. That didn't work out. I ended up using the telephone wire and jack, but it was a good idea. Someone like Neil would have made it work nice... but I'm no Jedi at this point.
Then I tested my LED's using the molex from my X79 hackintosh... it worked:
Oh... And here's proof that the contact idea with copper tape didn't work:
See the fried wires? Yeah that was bad.
I got my motherboard tray kit from Laserhive and mounted it up. I was surprised how it left virtually no room for my apple on that side of the case... Oh well. I'll figure it out!
Then the nerve wracking part... Drilling into the case. That was an adventure I had to take care of both sides:
Then I had a friend CNC out some apples out of 50% translucent plexiglass:
I still had plenty of filing and sanding to do to get them to fit, but once I did, I just wrapped the LEDs around the apple plate and then covered the apples in aluminum foil. I figured if Apple was doing this, they wouldn't want the glow to be throughout the entire case so I tried to minimize it even though I did end up puncturing the foil in a couple places. I will probably go back and fix it in the coming days:
I wanted the door to come off without having any wires attached, so I used a telephone jack as my coupler and just ground off the shoulders that would normally click it into place. It worked out reasonablly nice:
Then as the computer got built I just tried to get the wiring right. It certainly isn't perfect, but I suppose it's going to be pretty good. That little 4 drive SSD bay uses LOTS of cables:
I'm using modern fans (Noctua), but I was able to keep all of them grey (except the PSU ones I showed earlier), and I was able to use all of the old housings. I think it was true to the original design including the speaker that beeps at each boot up. The temperatures have stayed really low so I think the wind tunnels are working quite well.
I wish I didn't have to cut the clear plastic where the graphics card power goes in, but I was absolutely not going to finish the job without it... so it was a compromise I was willing to make.
It looks cool when it's on and off. If I could get the sleep to consistently work.. That's a whole other thread... It would be nice because the glowing apple turns off during sleep, but overall I'm really happy.
Last edited:
