Powermac g4 - the italian job

[neilhart]

Thanks Powerg4, to be honestly to me the mac mini mid 2010 is still enought. I have no time for playing games, probably in few years my son will start ( he is 4 now).
at the moment I'm enjoying this new adventure of building a new computer. But one of the rule I have set to my game is to find the best compromise between computer speed and the cost because I'm convinced that the average user won't recognise the difference between a good computer and the best one that is going to cost 100-300 box more. .

I'll say more about this when i'll decide witch graphic card will suit me better. God they are wery expensive.

One good g. Card can cost as an entire computer.

If I may comment? Today you really do not need to spend a lot on a GPU card to run a satisfying Mavericks hackintosh.

For example take a look at one of my projects: http://www.tonymacx86.com/others/136894-neilharts-scratch-build-4-microatx-into-small-box.html

This hack has the one fan on the CPU cooler and by using the Pico PSU most of the heat related to power is external to the case.

The i3-4330 supports Intel HD4600 graphics and I run HDMI and DVI displays concurrently. And one can always add a GPU at a later date (but not in this case).

Good modding,
neil

 

[valdagno]

I will connect my air intake fan an also the additional fan to discharge the hot air
to the The four pin peripheral power cable. ( I just discovered that the corsair cs550 can vary the fan speed so probably an extra fan would be necessary.)
i'll use it also for case lighting.


Pinout
Pin number Wire color Description
1 yellow +12 volts
2 black ground
3 black ground
4 red +5 volts



Unofficial cable/connector maximum wattage delivery
Voltage rail Number of lines Maximum current Maximum wattage
+5 volts 1 5 amps 25 watts
+12 volts 1 5 amps 60 watts

Here is a link to a complete psu connectors specs just in case someone needs

http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/connectors.html#eps4plus4

p.s. An improvement would be a variable speed fan to the gigabyte motherboard sys fan header.
can anyone tell me if variable speed fan are supported by OSX Maverick ?

 

[valdagno]

Here is a small memo about fan. ( just in case someone needs)


3-wire fans it's a variable speed fan and work fine.
The 4-wire system is just a different way to control speeds that came after 3-wire, and the connector and BIOS designs were made backwards compatible. If you look closely at the connectors, you will see that there is only one way to put them together. It is set up so that a 3-wire fan can plug into a 4-pin mobo header only one way, with the 3 wires connected to the correct pins.


A 3-wire system uses those 3 for Ground, +12 VDC (controlled) supply, and fan tachometer signal. The tach signal simply feeds the mobo 2 pulses per fan revolution so it can measure the fan speed. In the case of a CPU cooler fan, based on a temperature probe built into the CPU the mobo changes the DC voltage provided on the +12 VDC line to change fan speed and maintain proper CPU temperature. There is no connection to the fourth pin on the mobo pinout connector.


In a 4-wire system, that controlled variable DC voltage supply is not used. Instead, a fourth wire supplies to the fan a rapidly-pulsed signal that provides control by Pulse Width Modulation. It's just a different way to vary the average voltage supplied (and hence the fan speed), but it has some advantages for low-speed operation.


Either way, IF you set the mobo to control the fan speed (default setting), it monitors the temperature inside the CPU case with a temperature sensor and varies the power supplied to the CPU fan to keep it near the temperature setpoint via a simple feedback control loop. As an additional function it monitors the actual fan speed which it can show you, plus it uses that fan speed to detect an emergency situation if the fan suddenly stops turning. In that case, no fan speed is a warning to shut things down and prevent CPU overheating, and this will likely be recognized and action taken before the measured temperature starts to rise quickly.


For case fans, a similar system is used, except that the temperature input for the feedback control loop is a sensor on the mobo somewhere, rather than inside the CPU.

NOTE : present motherboards has 4 pins connectors

i found that generally speaking the 12 mm fan are less noisy than the other mainly because you can run them at lower speed , an this make a lot of difference.

On amazon arctic F12 are very appreciated an described as silent. They' have 3 wires connectors but at the moment the one with thermal control built in is cheaper than the normal one. I think I will go for that so i will have a separate thermal probe to put where I want.

 

[valdagno]

Today I prepared an old case as temporary home for my hardware.

Just in case the modding of the powermac g4 case would proceed slower.

i could reuse the old psu unit but I preferred not to risk.


by the way I bought on eBay another g4, The quicksilver, that has a better looking.

I'm waiting for it to start the modding.

 

[valdagno]

The quicksilver isn't arrived yet, a guy from south Italy is always too busy to send me what i have payed for !!!! Nevermind, In the meanwhile i went on with the software installation.

my configuration is:

PSU corsair CS550M
Mb gigabyte GA-H87M-D3H
CPU Intel I5 4460
Ram 4x2 gb corsair ram
hd 2nd hand 500 gb sata hp disk
wifi the one from tonymac buyers guide

i fought that the installation would have been a piece of cake, instead it wasn't so easy.
At the beginning i easily managed to install maverick and boot from hard disk without problems but when I tried to enable the HDMI audio i fell into a complete nightmare. The toledo's post is probably very precise but too complicated for beginners!!!! Anyway I finally managed to sole the thing and now I'm proudly writing this post from my new customac listening to the new U2 album just downloaded from Itunes store.

There still a lot of work to do, I still have problem with iMessage an FaceTime but I'm pretty content right now

P.S. i'll write down soon a post to explain how i managed to enable HDMI audio. link will be added here.

 

[Divine_Evil]

If I remember correctly in order to make iMessage / Facetime / Appstore work you needed to generate some code based on your Ethernet and put that into the org.chameleon.boot.plist. Or whatever that file was called where you put your boot options.

 

[valdagno]

After a while i am proud to say that my first case mod is almost finished.


This is just a first picture of the system fully assembled and, as you can see, working.

During the re assembling step i faced some minor problems that wasn't mentioned in other builds log.

Anyway the system now is working using a Mavericks (clover based) installation. ( so far clower works very fine with my hardware)

There are still many minor tasks to complete but in the mean while the system is good enought for my son to play with batman lego !!! And during the game sessions for me to monitoring the temperatures of the system

 

[valdagno]

As you can see in in the center of the bottom part I added an 80 mm intake fan to get fresh air in. ( at the moment it is connected as SYS FAN 3 and is controlled by the HW monitor application )

In the upper part of the case ( the case is upside down in the photo ) i drilled many holes to let some fresh air come directly to the PSU unit because the PSU intallation brings the intake fan very close to the case ( it doesnt touch the wall anyway) I decided to used the same method used by apple for the main case fan hoping that this kind of solution would stop a little bit the noise.

 

[valdagno]

As you can see in this picture, a part from the messy garage, i have reused the original standoffs. I painted them in red, and glued to the door. No problem so far.

I also did the basic cutting for the I/O ports and for leave some clearance between the ram and the "DRIVE SHELF"

In the future i would like to install a dvd reader and some usb ports on the front.

 

[Sbrillo]

hi, can i ask you something?
what temperature do you reach with your config?
i'm assembling a G4 too, and i need to use the original cooler because my noctua cooler is too big and i've must to cut the PSU stand in the case to fit it and i don't want to right now.
On the other side i've made two big hole on the bottom of the case for the two 120mm fan of the noctua cooler but i don't know if these work well as system fan..