MightyDood’s Mac Pro Mod (MacPro 1,1 2006)

[mightydood]

So I have some pictures that might be of interest to people.

The mod is nearly finished. I am just waiting for a stainless steel backplate just for the i/o section. This will be able to attach the faceplate that come with the mother board.

Other than that, I am please with the result. There have been some changes to the way I initially planned this to turn out.

1. Used Redline Mushkin ram (32gb). Amazon kept screwing up my order and so changed to the redline. They JUST fit with the NH-D14 cooler!!
2. I cut out the rear psu plate. Initially I was going to put it in the apple cage, but decided to getting a Lian Li psu plate that made the back look clean enough.

 

[mightydood]

To be able to use the NH-D14 cooler and fit in the cages that were in the mac pro, I removed the rear fan and stuck it in the front fan section. I also have another fan above that.

In the rear I attached another noctua fan to the rear plate. Air flow goes from the front to the back and the cpu is staying around 34C at idle. Which is a great temp.

The front io's are working fine and the hard drives are great with the SAS/SATA.
Thunderbolt is extremely stable BUT not hotpluggable (using a UAD Apollo for this).

Been using it with Pro tools 10, Logic 9 and Nuendo 5... all work beautifully! Extremely quiet and lightning fast... especially with 32gb of RAM!

I want to thank Mooner for his incredible thread and Neil Hart who has been extremely kind and generous with his time here.

Cheers

 

[MeticulousJason]

How much did this cost you?
Would you have any recommendations for someone looking to do the exact same process, except I would be doing this with my late 2011 mac pro? I also have the apollo, and would love to go thunderbolt but cannot with my mac pro obviously? Are they're any better motherboards you would go with now in comparison to then?
Thanks,
Jason

 

[mightydood]

I went with is board as it was literally the only TB matx board available at the time.

There were initially a few issues, but most of it was related to silly things like the digi driver that comes with pro tools. I just deleted the driver.

If you are doing a case mod, mAtx boards are easier... however, if not there are some full sized TB boards that I know work well with Apollo as well.

Thunderbolt is pretty easy and not complex. they just work! I have had some very intense sessions with the apollo, maxing out the uad and the cpu and seriously been stable. Can't be happier with this system!

Also helps I have 32g of ram.

 

[mightydood]

All the full sized gigabyte boards with TB work with the apollo btw.

 

[Phuge]

Where did you get the plate around the power supply opening?

 

[Jeffinslaw]

Where did you get the plate around the power supply opening?

http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...=23951&zenid=a9d545dfeaf255fc0e920e29c4740a6c

or in black from a different site

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7..._Black_PE-03B.html?tl=g43c241s628&id=Gr9v4WVn

Jeffinslaw

 

[mightydood]

Jeffinslaw got in there before me!

http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...=23951&zenid=a9d545dfeaf255fc0e920e29c4740a6c

or in black from a different site

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7..._Black_PE-03B.html?tl=g43c241s628&id=Gr9v4WVn

Jeffinslaw

 

[mightydood]

OMG did u actually kill a working Mac Pro 1,1? I run ML 10.8.4 on mine and runs quite fast. Poor Mac Pro

For audio, the 1,1 doesn't come close to my new system!

 

[neilhart]

Really? i just upgraded to to 2x Quad Core 3.0GHz Xeons fron the 2x Dual core 2.6GHz ones it had and added 16GB ECC RAM for around $120 total and have a pretty amazing machine, better then a lot of hacks tbh and runs ML and mav just fine. I understand why u did it but still sad to see it. You could have sold that Mac Pro for around $850 US and got a G5 case for like $100.

PJALM - I don't understand. I see the Quad Core X5365s are end of life, run about $150 each, are 150 watt heaters and Geekbench about 10 to 11 thousand when paired in a Mac Pro. I know it is personal preference and would do what MightDood has done rather then invest in the upgrade.



Good hacking,
neil