MacPro Mod -No Tray, No Cutting, All PCI solutions for I/O

[eelhead]

Maybe Stork will chime in here on this soon but he had found a replacement fan that was the same size and rated as very quiet lol. At least I hope that was him I was talking with about that fan.

 

[powerpcg5]

I measure and they are 120mm x 120mm x 25mm fans.

Found a Noctua fan with same dimensions.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835608004

I'd probably just use this one instead.

 

[eelhead]

I measure and they are 120mm x 120mm x 25mm fans.

Found a Noctua fan with same dimensions.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835608004

I'd probably just use this one instead.

I do believe that is the fan, the color look familiar lol

 

[phillipegf]

Hey dude, just loved the solution for no cutting, but how do you use this solution for the audio jacks?

 

[powerpcg5]

I have a MOTU interface, connected via FW port. (which will be hooked up to the Firewire card).

Another solution is use a USB plugin,

or a USB audio interface (smaller than the 19" rack above).

or use an audio card.

Another solution is use a small jack, connect to the back IO ports of the mobo, then wire it to the front panel jacks of the MacPro case.

 

[powerpcg5]

Replaced the original MacPro PSU fan with something quieter.
Highly recommended... so much more quieter. Noctua fans.

It's a pain getting this fan installed because the rubber fasteners included with the Noctua fans are short and don't have any extra length you can use to pull it through the mounting holes. So I just used some double-sided tape. I don't know how long that's going to last though - definitely not a long term solution.
psufan.png
In the course of working, I broke the SATA power jack on my PCB.
So I had to desolder it, remove the pins, clean the holes, and off to Mouser to buy some replacement jacks.
satapower.png

 

[eelhead]

You know if you open an account with Molex directly you can get some of those bits for "testing" for free
I did this and got 4 of the Sata/Power plugs for the HDDs with the rear open pins so I can create my own set up.

 

[subaro0o]

Really cool, gonna start mine soon.. My macpro 1,1 geekbenches like 5k.. pathetic

 

[powerpcg5]

I'm so pleased with my new Noctua PSU fans, that I also replaced the front cooling fans. I'm going to run this front fan super slow to keep further noise down.

I'm only using (1) fan for the front (bottom fan, see photo). The upper fan conflicts with my SATA backplane PCB so I had to do some cutting of the fan assembly housing... even grinded/sanded all my cuts to be smooth

Now, there's enough clearance for the SATA jacks to plugin to the PCB backplane, and I can also use that space in front of the fans to hide wires, i.e. wire management to keep everything clean looking.

The hard drive fits perfectly in the spot too... no problem.

I've ordered some M3 (with 0.5 pitch) screws at McMaster so I can mount the stands on my motherboard, before I start gluing them on the case.

eel: Good idea on opening an account at Molex I looked at the board, and the wiring of my PSU and I think I'll just jumper the 2 SATA power receptacles together. So only (1) SATA power will need to be plugged in, powering (4) hard drives.
frontfan.jpg

Another view...
frontfan2.jpg

 

[Craigrox]

Very impressed and interesting read!

Bookmarked for sure