Serendipitous G4 Cube

[neobayer]

I have wanted to build a G4 cube ever since I finished my G5. I am however an old fart on a very tight budget. It takes me quite a while to build a project because I generally can buy one or two parts every month. As luck would have it I won an auction on eBay for dead G4 Cube for only $5.50 plus shipping.The seller included an Apple wireless keyboard that was not even mentioned in the ad. When I opened the box I was flabbergasted. It was probably one of my best buys on eBay in fifteen years.

Now that I had the Cube I had to start the project. I disassembled it entirely and sold some of the parts on eBay. In essence I got the Cube for free and made a few bucks. I read every post I could find about G4 cube builds. I got a lot of good ideas and inspiration from the builds on this site.

I was perplexed about which motherboard to chose. I knew I wanted a Gigabyte ITX board but that was my one criteria. After studying the layout of many different boards I settled on the Gigabyte GA B85N Phoenix WiFi. I choose it for it's layout and price. I don't think I could have chosen a better board. The built in WiFi and bluetooth don't work. I will need to replace at some point with a broadcom card The only inconvenient connector was for the Sata II plug that was not needed anyway.

I bought a 160 watt Pico PSU again from eBay and started building and thinking. I think in a way it was good that I had to wait for some parts because I spent a lot of time staring at my progress and fitting parts in different place. The 2.5 hard drive fit perfectly into a little niche on the side like it was designed to fit. I chose to mount the motherboard upside-down with the cpu fan pointing inward using four long bolts. I had to bend a slight dog leg into in two of them.

I re-used the touch sensor using directions found here. Basically one wire to pin 9 on the 24 pin and a ground. I clipped out the stock led and slid a blue led in its place and plugged the pigtail to the motherboard pins. I worked perfect the first time I also used a blue led behind the apple on the front. It glows for a hdd activity light

I choose the Intel I3 4360 for it's low power consumption and price. I found the Rosewill Z775 low profile cpu cooler and fan to fit perfectly with a quarter inch to spare. I mounted a 120 mm led fan where the HDD used to reside. It helps keep the inside nice and cool

The only part I am not happy with is the backplate I had to craft from a sheet of aluminum. All I have is Dremel and a few small files. I bought some chrome stickers to snazz it up. but it still bugs be. I will probably make another at some point.

I was able to install Yosemite to the 2.5 hdd and it runs perfect I still want to install an msata and a dvd then it will be done, or maybe it will never be done

The total cost was a little above $300 but I already owned the hard drive and memory. They will be replaced with ssd and two low profile sticks of eight gbs

I like this better than the G5 hackintosh i built last year.

 

[trs96]

Looks like you got the deal of the century on that G4 cube.
Was the exterior in that shape when you got it or did you
have to clean it up a bit ?

 

[gslo]

Beautiful Work!

 

[NuClEaR]

Fantastic job, it looks great!

 

[fleisch]

Very cool build so far! A cube for 5 bucks? That is crazy. I think I paid close to 100 on mine...
I'm still running it as my main computer though. It runs great but quite hot under heavy load. Cooling that thing is challenging especially when adding a gpu.
Congrats! Fun project!

 

[DougJoseph]

Nice job!