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Powermac G3 Revamp

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Powermac G4 Revamp

Skip to page 2 for the final build photos if you want spoilers, if not then happy reading my progress! :)


After looking at all these amazing G5 conversions, I thought I'd have a go at it myself. eBay was not being kind to me for a long time, everyone wanted a whole lot more money than I wanted to spend for just the G5 case, but then I found this little G3/G4 for a bank destroying £10.
I was planning on upgrading to the Sandybridge CPU's and Z68 chipset motherboards, as I wanted 100% compatibility for my main desktop computer, so with the old P55 motherboard and Intel i5 760 processor, I decided to re use them in this powermac revamp.

After some time, finally got all of the parts out of the machine, it's not as easy as I first thought...

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Needed a damn good clean!

Never seen so much dust in one place!

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The professional technique of using a couple booklets to act as motherboard stand offs, but you get the general idea...

Test fitting to see how it would line up with the back, which has not been cut yet.

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Rather than trying to build my own motherboard tray, or make stand offs directly into the case due to being too scared of messing it up...

I stole a motherboard tray from a...fairly old packard bell PC I had collecting dust upstairs. The stand offs are there in place already, so its just a case of trimming the panel and screwing it into the case.

If you're wandering why it looks so battered and bruised, I went to town on the edges with a hammer trying to flatten it out, not the most professional way of flattening out metal I'm sure, but at the end of the day, it's inside the case, and most of it will be covered up by the motherboard anyway.

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Screwed in the motherboard to see if it would still actually hold a motherboard after its been battered and bruised by my hammer, good news, it does. Decent stand off area between it and the sheet of metal too, so no short circuiting!

The couple photos below show it stood upright against a chair to show stability

You can also see the lines I've drawn when I'm ready to trim it.

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Here is the back I/O plate cut with the motherboard on its tray (still waiting to be trimmed)

This again is another test fit to see if I needed to trim anymore of the original backplate so I wouldn't loose any USB ports.

I know I'm loosing the audio ports, but I have an external USB device for audio, so I'm not too bothered about that.


At the moment I'm waiting for the tools to trim the motherboard tray and a cheap 500W power-supply I got from Amazon to arrive in the mail.

Going to trim the motherboard within the next few days...

So stay tuned for more updates!

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Nice, at least someone else besides me likes the older colored G3 and G4 cases.

I went the route of removing the back plate and going with a custom laser cut persplex on for my G4 Graphite case.

I've been trying to come up with a decently priced G5 case myself. the first one I won was a good price $55 with shipping but UPS dropped the damn thing and busted the bottom supports loose from the riveted posts on one side of the case. So I'm still trying to find another one that I can get for a decent price. I don't even have any parts to put into one yet, not sure why I'm still searching other than the fact that I do eventually want to do one of those for my next project.
 
Nice, at least someone else besides me likes the older colored G3 and G4 cases.

I went the route of removing the back plate and going with a custom laser cut persplex on for my G4 Graphite case.

I've been trying to come up with a decently priced G5 case myself. the first one I won was a good price $55 with shipping but UPS dropped the damn thing and busted the bottom supports loose from the riveted posts on one side of the case. So I'm still trying to find another one that I can get for a decent price. I don't even have any parts to put into one yet, not sure why I'm still searching other than the fact that I do eventually want to do one of those for my next project.

Haha, I do exactly the same thing, a lot of people would be selling them, but pick up only, didn't fancy driving over half the country to pick it up.

I'm still always looking though, the perfect deal is out there somewhere, just a matter of time...
 
Motherboard tray cut!

Just a couple coats of silver spray paint and it will be ready to be fitten into the case!

It's all coming together now!

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