- Joined
- Mar 23, 2011
- Messages
- 18
- Motherboard
- Z87MX D3H
- CPU
- i5 4670
- Graphics
- GT 610
- Mac
- Mobile Phone
Hello all
This is my second post about my now oldish PowerMac which has gone through various stages over the last 5 years of so. I've tried different configurations before settling for this one, which I'm very pleased about and that I thought I would share.
I wanted it to be all black inside and therefore chose a black motherboard, black RAM modules and covered the metallic parts with a black foam (Lian Li PT-SI01 Noise Reduction Foam Kit - Mid Tower). In order to cover all parts, I had to remove the middle tray (a bit tedious, but easy to do).
I have tried to hide the cables as much as possible and bought a black ATX extension cable to conceal the colorful ATX cable coming out of the PSU. The rest is hidden behind the motherboard and underneath the bottom plate that also hides the PSU. The PSU is facing downwards - I therefore dremelled the bottom of the Powermac for the air to circulate properly. You'll notice that the bottom opening is way too big- this is because I had placed the PSU face down further to the left some time ago and there already was an opening! I have kept the front panel to a minimum (no audio, no firewire) and hidden it.
The front panel cable is made with the Milligrid connector and terminals and a specific crimping tool.
The ventilation system is all from BeQuiet, a brand that I love for its aesthetics and its performance. The system is REALLY silent.
The two 120mm fans are held in place by a custom-made fan bracket covered with the black foam.
I have used the Laser Hive mATX 120mm Conversion Kit at the back for a clean result and made my own Plexiglas trim piece that goes between the Laser Hive Backplate and the I/O plate of the MB. I have also spraypainted the I/O plate for an all-black look.
In the top section, the DVD player was taken away as I never ever use it and I also removed the HD caddy. Instead, I placed a 4-slots Icy Dock HD rack which contains 2 SSDs and a one 750gb HD (the noisiest element of my rig which is very discreet anyway). I can now easily swap my HDs without having to remove the Sata and Power cables. I then cut out a piece of Plexiglas covered with my black foam and I placed it around Icy Dock rack to complete the all-black look. The 40mm stock fans of the Icy Dock were so loud that I replaced them with some ultra silent ones.
I have a Z87MX DH3 motherboard with an i5 processor, 8 GB of RAM (I once had 16GB but populating the 4 slots gave me lots of freezes), the PSU is also from BeQuiet and delivers 550W which is more than enough as I only use a small Graphics Card (GT 610, 2GB). I was using the internal HD4600 graphics card, but for some reason, I could not make it work properly with Yosemite, I had some troubles with the second monitor, so I bought myself a basic silent GPU. The GPU does not appear on the pictures.
Thanks!
This is my second post about my now oldish PowerMac which has gone through various stages over the last 5 years of so. I've tried different configurations before settling for this one, which I'm very pleased about and that I thought I would share.
I wanted it to be all black inside and therefore chose a black motherboard, black RAM modules and covered the metallic parts with a black foam (Lian Li PT-SI01 Noise Reduction Foam Kit - Mid Tower). In order to cover all parts, I had to remove the middle tray (a bit tedious, but easy to do).
I have tried to hide the cables as much as possible and bought a black ATX extension cable to conceal the colorful ATX cable coming out of the PSU. The rest is hidden behind the motherboard and underneath the bottom plate that also hides the PSU. The PSU is facing downwards - I therefore dremelled the bottom of the Powermac for the air to circulate properly. You'll notice that the bottom opening is way too big- this is because I had placed the PSU face down further to the left some time ago and there already was an opening! I have kept the front panel to a minimum (no audio, no firewire) and hidden it.
The front panel cable is made with the Milligrid connector and terminals and a specific crimping tool.
The ventilation system is all from BeQuiet, a brand that I love for its aesthetics and its performance. The system is REALLY silent.
The two 120mm fans are held in place by a custom-made fan bracket covered with the black foam.
I have used the Laser Hive mATX 120mm Conversion Kit at the back for a clean result and made my own Plexiglas trim piece that goes between the Laser Hive Backplate and the I/O plate of the MB. I have also spraypainted the I/O plate for an all-black look.
In the top section, the DVD player was taken away as I never ever use it and I also removed the HD caddy. Instead, I placed a 4-slots Icy Dock HD rack which contains 2 SSDs and a one 750gb HD (the noisiest element of my rig which is very discreet anyway). I can now easily swap my HDs without having to remove the Sata and Power cables. I then cut out a piece of Plexiglas covered with my black foam and I placed it around Icy Dock rack to complete the all-black look. The 40mm stock fans of the Icy Dock were so loud that I replaced them with some ultra silent ones.
I have a Z87MX DH3 motherboard with an i5 processor, 8 GB of RAM (I once had 16GB but populating the 4 slots gave me lots of freezes), the PSU is also from BeQuiet and delivers 550W which is more than enough as I only use a small Graphics Card (GT 610, 2GB). I was using the internal HD4600 graphics card, but for some reason, I could not make it work properly with Yosemite, I had some troubles with the second monitor, so I bought myself a basic silent GPU. The GPU does not appear on the pictures.
Thanks!
