Modding a G5 and moving over my current build

[jsahlen]

It's been fine since - I realised after I put it back together that it was the front panel cable pushing the filter material and so creating too much slack

Cool, thanks for the info – I'll keep it in mind. I already have the magnetic Silverstone dust filters, though still in their packaging, so I could return them if my aluminum frame turns out crap.

I received my front panel cable harness from BlackCH yesterday – really nice build quality and works great. It irks me to still have the Firewire port in the front though, since I'm literally never going to use it. Are there any "simple" mods that have been done to replace it with a USB port, or would that mean ripping out the I/O board and making a completely custom solution?

 

[rehpotsirhc]

Cool, thanks for the info – I'll keep it in mind. I already have the magnetic Silverstone dust filters, though still in their packaging, so I could return them if my aluminum frame turns out crap.

I received my front panel cable harness from BlackCH yesterday – really nice build quality and works great. It irks me to still have the Firewire port in the front though, since I'm literally never going to use it. Are there any "simple" mods that have been done to replace it with a USB port, or would that mean ripping out the I/O board and making a completely custom solution?

You could pry the FW port off of the board and hot glue something like this into its place (after cutting away the extra plastic from around the port) http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002O1W7FY/?tag=tonymacx86-21 Seems a little futile after paying for the fancy cable, you probably could have just glued 2 USBs to the board and wired some other headers directly to the power switch.

 

[jsahlen]

Yeah, does seem a bit futile with the cable doesn't it? Well, it's just an idea for now, and if I decide to do anything about it, it would be further down the road when the rest of the mod is completed.

 

[jsahlen]

Strike the following, see note below

So… The front panel isn't working as well as I thought. Just tried the headphone jack, and it won't work. The HDA device is detected correctly according to system profiler, the UEFI BIOS is set to use HD Audio (and not ACL'97), and the front panel cable is plugged into the motherboard. Headphones aren't available as a separate device in System Preferences, and in Windows I can't select the headphones as the output device - that device is just greyed out with a "Not plugged in" note.

Any pointers on where to start? Do I need to jump some of the pins even though I don't have a Gigabyte board? Or can it be solved in software? If jumping – do I need to crimp a short cable at both ends, or will it work with just twisting the ends?

Never mind about OS X… Apparently I had HDAEnabler1.kext installed, which I didn't know – I think it was overriding my DSDT edits. After editing my AppleHDA.kext for separate "Internal speakers"/"Headphones" outputs, it seems to work well! However, in Windows of course the Headphones are still always disabled – any way around that?

 

[rehpotsirhc]

This is a known issue with no resolution, you'll have to turn off any speakers manually connected to the back 3.5mm audio out if you don't want to use them simultaneously with the front jack.

 

[jsahlen]

This is a known issue with no resolution, you'll have to turn off any speakers manually connected to the back 3.5mm audio out if you don't want to use them simultaneously with the front jack.

That's not a problem – I really don't need automatic switching. However I would like to be able to do manual switching in Windows, too (like I can do in OS X now). Even if I can tell the motherboard that headphones are always plugged in, that would be an acceptable solution. Is it possible to do something with pin 10 on the HDA connector…?

 

[jsahlen]

I still haven't had time to work on the fan mounting solution, but the temporary setup is working great. I connected the two 140 mm to the CPU fan header on the motherboard (with a Y connector), since Asus' BIOS doesn't allow setting anything less than 60% power for the case headers

I'm also thinking about USB. I have an ugly Xbox 360 Wireless Controller receiver, which I'm going to hide inside the case. I haven't decided if I'm going to mount a couple of regular USB ports inside the case, or if I should just solder the receiver's cable onto a motherboard header connector. I also need to get a Bluetooth dongle of some kind, for my Magic Trackpad. Not sure which is best – just getting a cheapo USB dongle, or a proper Apple module. What do you guys think would work best inside the G5 case?

 

[SirRumo]

Strike the following, see note below

So… The front panel isn't working as well as I thought. Just tried the headphone jack, and it won't work. The HDA device is detected correctly according to system profiler, the UEFI BIOS is set to use HD Audio (and not ACL'97), and the front panel cable is plugged into the motherboard. Headphones aren't available as a separate device in System Preferences, and in Windows I can't select the headphones as the output device - that device is just greyed out with a "Not plugged in" note.

Any pointers on where to start? Do I need to jump some of the pins even though I don't have a Gigabyte board? Or can it be solved in software? If jumping – do I need to crimp a short cable at both ends, or will it work with just twisting the ends?

Never mind about OS X… Apparently I had HDAEnabler1.kext installed, which I didn't know – I think it was overriding my DSDT edits. After editing my AppleHDA.kext for separate "Internal speakers"/"Headphones" outputs, it seems to work well! However, in Windows of course the Headphones are still always disabled – any way around that?

I too have BlackCH's front I/O cable and can only use either the headphones (with front audio plugged in) or external speakers (with front audio unplugged). He also sent me the audio sense jumper, which I'm not sure whether it's screwing me up.

Could you detail what you did to get the audio working for both without having to physically switch the cable?

Thanks!

 

[jsahlen]

I too have BlackCH's front I/O cable and can only use either the headphones (with front audio plugged in) or external speakers (with front audio unplugged). He also sent me the audio sense jumper, which I'm not sure whether it's screwing me up.

Could you detail what you did to get the audio working for both without having to physically switch the cable?

Thanks!

Well, that's how it's supposed to work, isn't it?

After installing Mavericks, I haven't done this mod again yet, since I don't use the front headphone jack anyway (I have my headphones plugged in the back, and a pair of USB speakers), but I think it involved editing the Info.plist of AppleHDA.kext to add the headphone jack as a new output. I would link you the guide, but I can't for the life of me find it right now – but I think it was here on the forums. Sorry, I hope you can find a solution!