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Minihack G4 Cube - How I think Apple might have done it.....

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Joined
May 27, 2010
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Motherboard
Dell Optiplex 9030 All in One
CPU
i5-4690K
Graphics
HD 4600
Mac
  1. Mac mini
Classic Mac
  1. iMac
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
Okay, a bold title I know and almost certainly not true. However, my latest mod does share more with the original Cube than almost any other Cube mod I've seen.

The goals for this one were: No laser perspex trickery (just good old modding); use the Cube heatsink; Use the Cube handle; Use the Cube touch switch; Use the case and have things as close to their original purpose and placement as possible.

I think I have managed all (except one) of these.

First, the board:

z77itxaea229image6800x6.jpg

This board was got for several reasons:

(1) I have used Zotac ITX boards before and think I can trust them;

(2) Supported audio and ethernet;

(3) Integrated wifi (and useless BT but you can't have everything)

(4) m-sata on board

I wanted a Z77 instead of an H77 as I wanted to be able to set it up with my i5 2500k.

I had seen a successful report of a build with this board, but to be honest that was already after I had decided to buy. The board though just took so long to come into UK stock.

Apart from the CPU/Mobo other stuff used was re-cycled RAM from an earlier build (Corsair DDR3 WITHOUT and large heat sink - space is tight); a macbook pro slot loader I have in my parts bin, a 2TB 3.5 inch drive (WD), and a brand new 64GB Crucial m-Sata board.



The build



As you may know I am very keen to try out the latest hardware and see how it fits inside classic Mac cases or in cases of my own design. The Cube is the classic Mac design for being out on show and features some neat tricks - a removable inner core, a great touch button and a passive cooling system.

In a previous custo build I effectively designed my own case around the principles of the Cube - here is a link to that build. However, for this one I want to see if I could retain all the classic Cube look and features with newer tech.

My doubts on the new build were whether the Cube heatsink in the more restrictive standard Cube case could cope with an i5 2500k and if a 160w Pico PSU would be up to the task.

Because of my doubts on the Cube power requirements I decided to start off with getting everything working in a larger case with decent PSU and checking then on the power consumption under load. I figured that if the system could be got up and running without compromise then I could see if switching to a Pico PSU was a viable option. So my first step was just to whack the board into my converted MDD PowerMac G4 case with 600W PSU in place of my GA-Z68P-UD3P build.

In this case I did a full software shake down and got everything sorted from the software side (see "Software Installation" below). Once that was done I stress tested with all the power management features working and saw that it topped out at just under 100W max draw from the wall (with 8GB RAM, and 3 disks connected). All looked good, so I moved on to the Cube mod.s only then would I know if the heat could be coped with though…..

The case build up I had in mind for the Cube is actually not as complicated as it might have been. Being very familiar with the Cube case now I knew that just trying to put a standard I/O plate on the back would be difficult for two reasons: there is not much width across the back (or bottom if you prefer) and the little flimsy I/O plate is not easy to wedge in there neatly and, when the I/O plate is used as standard this sets the rear of the mobo a little further from the back of the case than I wanted and so squeezes the space available at the front ( I mean it makes it hard to fit a pico psu without extender and tricky to fit the touch switch). So the first thing I did when I got the board was to measure up all the spacings from the I/O plate and transfer that to autocad to get a new back plate finisher cut that I could bond or fix on to the external surface of the Cube. It might seem extravagant to do that, but by attaching a plate to the outside of the Cube rear and cutting away the original rear to get the mobo as far "down" in the case as possible you can get the actual rear ports to butt up against the new plate and extend further back than is otherwise possible - that gains a vital few millimetres at the front of the Cube case.

So here at the back I cut it away like this:

thebackofthecubecutaway.jpg

I needed the cooling to be non-intrusive to the airflow and the best I could come up with in the space available was a 1.25" copper cube that I hand sawed from a 1.25" copper bar. I didn't matter if my cuts were not perfect, because being a square profile bar I could use the already flat outer profile for my CPU and heatsink mating surfaces.

Here is a dry run of the passive linkage:

standoffssideview.jpg


standofflayout.jpg

In these pic.s you can see I went for 4 CPU fixing pillars and four mobo standoffs - the heights I chose to make it that with the CPU balanced on the copper cube the top of the motherboard mount holes just about sat flat on the mobo standoffs, while the cpu fixing pillars were lower so I could use plastic screws to adjust the pressure between copper block/CPU without flexing the board.

In the final version the copper block is bonded to the Cube heatsink using arctic silver two part thermal adhesive and then normal arctic silver 5 is used between CPU and copper block.

A bit of a disappointment was the Zotac wifi/BT card. I knew the BT would not work, but had heard that the wifi would. Unfortunately at least for the UK market Zotac had changed to a Ralink chipset that had no OSX compatability, so I replaced the card with a Atheros AR9280. I have a D-link DBT-120 and rigged that up to an internal header and placed it near the top of the Cube where it stands a chance of getting some signal in and out.

Hard drive operation and DVD drive are basically arranged according to the original Apple set-up with just a mounting arrangement being needed to get the slim slot loading drive in the right place. I had a bit of a brainwave for that as I had a cheap USB case for a slim slot drive and thought why not use that as it has flat square sides I could drill and use the original Cube mounting points.

usbdvd.jpg

Also, a single USB cable is easier to route than sata plus power and obstructs the air less. The only drawback was that it turned out the Zotac is light on USB power and so I had to use a double USB header to provide enough juice for the DVD. I also in the end had to slightly enlarge the slot of the DVD enclosure as it would occasionally obstruct the eject. All in all more work than I had thought, but still a good solution. Here are some pic.s of the drive mounts as adapted:

sideviewshowingmounts.jpg


howdvdlooksinthecage.jpg

My work at the back of the cube and above the motherboard paid off to "just" give space for the Pico PSU to fit without any extender cable. No extender means less clutter and more useable space/better airflow. it also gives on the limit ability to allow the touch switch to just fit correctly too in its original spot and with all major components in close proximity again there is less wiring clutter.

closeupfront.jpg

Touch switch operation and how to link that in with a Pico PSU is described in my tutorial here by the way: http://www.tonymacx86.com/customization/43924-cube-switch-modding.html





To get the headroom inside this cramped space I had to get rid of the two bottom case struts (the mobo underside would have fouled them). However, by re-using all the other Cube structural parts and because I am actually using 8 mounting points to fix the mobo to the heatsink I can avoid undue stress on the motherboard when moving the Cube chassis around.Here's the bottom shot:

undertheboard.jpg

The Cube has a mounting plate for a 80mm fan which I decided was essential to provide bottom to top airflow over the mobo and the massive Cube heatsink and this works well as the space provided by the copper block mount gives a good airflow channel both on the board side and on the finned side of the heatsink.

One last component I had wanted to re-use the internal original airport antennae and re-wired them to fit:
airportexperiment.jpg

However, things don't always go to plan and in the end that was a failure! Old tech sometimes is not re-useable. I am for the moment using the external antennae, but have some cheapo laptop internal antennae on the way that I'll try out as it'd be nice to keep the bottom of the Cube as clean as I can.

Here are some shots of the inner cage with everything mounted and working:

frontviewq.jpg


closeupside.jpg


assembledrightside.jpg


assembledleftside.jpg


undersidefinishingplate.jpg

Okay I lied about no laser perspex, but just had to finish this area off somehow! When the design is fully finalised I may send the CAD file off to my friend to get it laser cut from steel so I can just bond it on subtly to the bottom of the case and spray so it looks more original.





Software Installation

Details on this can be found in my post over at "User Builds", here is the link.

So far though: all running smoothly and the picopsu and the passive cooler are coping very well!

Hope you like the build.
 
Isn't the m-sata on the board occupied by the wifi card?
 
Nope - it has a full size mini-pcie (where my msata is) and a half height slot (wifi card). It also has a full size PCI-e slot.
 
Looks sweet, how are temps?
 
After 4 hours stress testing it peaked around 78c at the CPU heatsink monitor (i.e after running at 100% load for 4 hours) and idling I have seen as low as 29C (more often about 32c).
The stress test was done with the core inside the metal case, inside the perspex outer and sat on a warm window ledge.......we seem to be having summer today in yorkshire (!).
 
How do the other sides look?
 
How do the other sides look?

Which other sides? Thought I had shown them all!

Anyway I'll post the cased up pictures in a day or two but basically when viewing the assembled Cube case from outside it looks like any other Cube.....for the final shots I am waiting on seeing if the laptop internal antennae work well and also on a Noctua PWM 80mm fan (at the moment I have a Zalman in there which produces 30db instead of the Noctuas which gives a practically inaudible 17db). Also waiting on a right angled HDMI cable - hopefully they should be here by the end of the week and I can run the official Mountain Lion on it.
 
Looking good mini. As per though. As per.

Always neat solutions. Where do you get the metal for those standoffs. I need something similar for the mini I'm working on.
 
Which other sides? Thought I had shown them all!

Anyway I'll post the cased up pictures in a day or two but basically when viewing the assembled Cube case from outside it looks like any other Cube.....for the final shots I am waiting on seeing if the laptop internal antennae work well and also on a Noctua PWM 80mm fan (at the moment I have a Zalman in there which produces 30db instead of the Noctuas which gives a practically inaudible 17db). Also waiting on a right angled HDMI cable - hopefully they should be here by the end of the week and I can run the official Mountain Lion on it.

Noctua FTW! :)
 
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