- Joined
- Nov 15, 2012
- Messages
- 4
- Motherboard
- MacPro Hackintosh
- CPU
- i5 3570k
- Graphics
- NVidia GTX 660 TI
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
I've been meaning to write this up for a while now, so here it is. What I started with was a 2005 model Mac Pro that I bought on eBay. The Mac Pro wasn't working when I got it, which was fine for me as I only wanted it for its case.
This is the list of components that went into the case:
I'm going to shorten this write up, for full details, you can refer to my blog (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3)
First thing's first, I've stripped the case down. This was harder than I thought, but after finding the G5 manual and following disassembly instructions there, the job became much easier.
From what I read about the 2005 G5 front panel connector is it requires 12V to power the LED, I've checked this later on by trying to light the power LED from the motherboard and it seems correct, it didn't light up. I wanted a power LED and also I wanted a HDD LED, so I built my own board and support for it to fit into the front panel of the case.
I wanted to keep the power connector the same as on the original Mac, so I've taken the power supply apart and cut a standard power supply cable and soldered the original power supply connector to the cut off cable so I can just plug the new power supply in as usual and plug the Mac into the mains with its original cord.
Next was cutting the back panel and fitting the motherboard tray. Not too hard a job, ended up using a dremel at the start and then switched to an angle grinder, should have used the grinder the whole time, it's much faster!
So it turned out that the power plug required that original power supply to stay in place properly, the only way I could do this was to cut off the original power supply and fit the plug inside it. The angle grinder came in handy here.
I've screwed the cut off original power supply in it's normal place, the new power supply went in towards the front of the case. The motherboard tray was cold-welded to the case on the inside to prevent it from swaying out.
I've had to assemble the CPU/motherboard/RAM outside the case because it was going to be a pain working inside the case, afterwards I just had to slide it in on an angle.
Finally connecting everything inside and tidying up the cables:
After installing everything with the help of various posts on here, we have boot!
This isn't the cleanest mod out there, but I'm quite happy with the way it turned out, especially the front panel lights. The USB and speaker connections on the front are also functional. I didn't bother with firewire because I have no devices that use FW400 anyway. I've got the pinouts of the front panel connector on my blog for anyone who is interested, these are linked at the top of this post.
Thanks for reading!
This is the list of components that went into the case:
- Belkin Mini Bluetooth Adapter
- Corsair 16G (4×4GB) Vengeance CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9 DDR3
- OCZ Agility 3 240G SATA3 SSD
- FSP 750W Aurum Aurum Series Modular PSU, 80PLUS Gold
- Intel Core i5 3570K LGA1155 CPU 3.4Ghz 6Mb Cache Ivy Bridge
- Gigabyte GTX 660Ti WF2 EDITION PCI-E 3.0 2GB DDR5 2x DVI , HDMI, DP, Fan
- Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5-TH/Z77/4 x DDR3/3 x PCI-E3.0 x 16/3 x SATA3/10 x USB3.0/2x THUNDERBOLT/HDMI/D-S
- 2x Arctic Cooling, Ultra Quiet Case Fan F8 PWM, 700-2000 RPM
- TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 - 450Mbps Wireless N Dual Band and PCI Express Adapter
- Zalman CNPS9900MAX-B CPU Cooler with Blue LED
- Samsung SH-224BB SATA Black Internal 24x Speed Plus DVD/RW Drive
I'm going to shorten this write up, for full details, you can refer to my blog (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3)
First thing's first, I've stripped the case down. This was harder than I thought, but after finding the G5 manual and following disassembly instructions there, the job became much easier.
From what I read about the 2005 G5 front panel connector is it requires 12V to power the LED, I've checked this later on by trying to light the power LED from the motherboard and it seems correct, it didn't light up. I wanted a power LED and also I wanted a HDD LED, so I built my own board and support for it to fit into the front panel of the case.
I wanted to keep the power connector the same as on the original Mac, so I've taken the power supply apart and cut a standard power supply cable and soldered the original power supply connector to the cut off cable so I can just plug the new power supply in as usual and plug the Mac into the mains with its original cord.
Next was cutting the back panel and fitting the motherboard tray. Not too hard a job, ended up using a dremel at the start and then switched to an angle grinder, should have used the grinder the whole time, it's much faster!
So it turned out that the power plug required that original power supply to stay in place properly, the only way I could do this was to cut off the original power supply and fit the plug inside it. The angle grinder came in handy here.
I've screwed the cut off original power supply in it's normal place, the new power supply went in towards the front of the case. The motherboard tray was cold-welded to the case on the inside to prevent it from swaying out.
I've had to assemble the CPU/motherboard/RAM outside the case because it was going to be a pain working inside the case, afterwards I just had to slide it in on an angle.
Finally connecting everything inside and tidying up the cables:
After installing everything with the help of various posts on here, we have boot!
This isn't the cleanest mod out there, but I'm quite happy with the way it turned out, especially the front panel lights. The USB and speaker connections on the front are also functional. I didn't bother with firewire because I have no devices that use FW400 anyway. I've got the pinouts of the front panel connector on my blog for anyone who is interested, these are linked at the top of this post.
Thanks for reading!
