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- Apr 10, 2011
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So…about 18 months back , I was gifted a G4 Quicksilver . A complete machine with a very toasted power supply. Guess I could have gotten another psu, but who knows what else was bad. Which means it’s time for another case mod. It’s been quite a while, so I guess I’m due.
Here are the objectives of this mod:
1: Exterior to remain as close to original as possible. Seeing as there’ll be some cutting needed to get the backplane to be mATX compatible, I’ll be using a LaserHive kit. I was originally going to fabricate the back panels, but decided to throw money at the problem and make it go away.
2: Interior layout to be as similar to original as possible. Wiring runs will, of course, be different, but I want the component locations to be as original as possible. No Led’s, water cooling, huge graphics cards, overclocking. Just a basic machine. Front panel and optical drive to be functional, but I don’t think I’m going to go through any heroics to get a startup sound or the pulsing power light under sleep conditions. I’m aware of the problems folks have had re: memory interfering with the optical drives, but let’s see what happens. I’ve done some pretty careful measurements, plus a lot of research for components, and think the parts I’m going to use won’t create too many problems.
There’s a lot of Quicksilver case mods on this board, and elsewhere, so I’ll put out a general thanks to everyone who’s gone before with this case, and in particular; minihack, tviolation, Psycho_Rocker, Chinese Spy, Project Icarus and graphicstation.
The guts:
Gigabyte GA-110M-A … not the greatest of specs, but it should work fine for my purposes; plus it’s cheap. It’s also quite narrow in relation to other mAtx boards; it’s the same as a mini ITX board from the port edge to the opposite edge; so just maybe I can get away without cutting up the optical bay too much. The stock DVD drive is quite a bit longer than a contemporary one and sticks out the back of the holder, so substitution of a modern one will open up close to an inch of space in the area between the psu and the optical drive bay.
i3-6100, stock cooler
Onboard graphics (Intel 530)
No Bluetooth, never use it. Maybe wifi via pci card or usb dongle, functioning sound is irrelevant for my purposes, if it works, great, if not, still great.
Antec Basiq 350 power supply. Seems to be the same size (or close) as the Apple one. It’s a ‘flow through’ type case, no big fan hole in the top. Air goes in the left and is exhausted out the right, so airflow is as original. The sata leads are going to need extending. At this point, there’s no way I’m attempting to extend the main power cabling by using soldered splices so I’ll need at least 1, maybe 2 power cable extenders.
8 Gb. Memory
Maybe a basic graphics card, Nvidia GT 1030 or similar single slot low profile cards. The psu has no plug for a graphics card so whatever gets used will be pretty low end
ekwb EK-Vardar EVO 120S PWM case fan in the original location. Initially it’ll be set to exhaust the case. Certainly need some cable extension on this.
MacOS 12.6 Sierra, maybe Win 7 dual boot.
All things considered, nothing too exciting as regards components.
Here’s the obligatory shot of the insides before starting. If you look closely, there are 2 red lines drawn on the optical drive mount. The left one represents about where a current model DVD drive will end, the right where my motherboard will end. Nothing real accurate, just measurements taken from the board and drive and transferred as best as possible via tape measure. Leads me to believe I might get real lucky as regards cutting. We’ll see…..
Time to clean out the case , install the Laser Hive stuff , and see what interference I run into...
Here are the objectives of this mod:
1: Exterior to remain as close to original as possible. Seeing as there’ll be some cutting needed to get the backplane to be mATX compatible, I’ll be using a LaserHive kit. I was originally going to fabricate the back panels, but decided to throw money at the problem and make it go away.
2: Interior layout to be as similar to original as possible. Wiring runs will, of course, be different, but I want the component locations to be as original as possible. No Led’s, water cooling, huge graphics cards, overclocking. Just a basic machine. Front panel and optical drive to be functional, but I don’t think I’m going to go through any heroics to get a startup sound or the pulsing power light under sleep conditions. I’m aware of the problems folks have had re: memory interfering with the optical drives, but let’s see what happens. I’ve done some pretty careful measurements, plus a lot of research for components, and think the parts I’m going to use won’t create too many problems.
There’s a lot of Quicksilver case mods on this board, and elsewhere, so I’ll put out a general thanks to everyone who’s gone before with this case, and in particular; minihack, tviolation, Psycho_Rocker, Chinese Spy, Project Icarus and graphicstation.
The guts:
Gigabyte GA-110M-A … not the greatest of specs, but it should work fine for my purposes; plus it’s cheap. It’s also quite narrow in relation to other mAtx boards; it’s the same as a mini ITX board from the port edge to the opposite edge; so just maybe I can get away without cutting up the optical bay too much. The stock DVD drive is quite a bit longer than a contemporary one and sticks out the back of the holder, so substitution of a modern one will open up close to an inch of space in the area between the psu and the optical drive bay.
i3-6100, stock cooler
Onboard graphics (Intel 530)
No Bluetooth, never use it. Maybe wifi via pci card or usb dongle, functioning sound is irrelevant for my purposes, if it works, great, if not, still great.
Antec Basiq 350 power supply. Seems to be the same size (or close) as the Apple one. It’s a ‘flow through’ type case, no big fan hole in the top. Air goes in the left and is exhausted out the right, so airflow is as original. The sata leads are going to need extending. At this point, there’s no way I’m attempting to extend the main power cabling by using soldered splices so I’ll need at least 1, maybe 2 power cable extenders.
8 Gb. Memory
Maybe a basic graphics card, Nvidia GT 1030 or similar single slot low profile cards. The psu has no plug for a graphics card so whatever gets used will be pretty low end
ekwb EK-Vardar EVO 120S PWM case fan in the original location. Initially it’ll be set to exhaust the case. Certainly need some cable extension on this.
MacOS 12.6 Sierra, maybe Win 7 dual boot.
All things considered, nothing too exciting as regards components.
Here’s the obligatory shot of the insides before starting. If you look closely, there are 2 red lines drawn on the optical drive mount. The left one represents about where a current model DVD drive will end, the right where my motherboard will end. Nothing real accurate, just measurements taken from the board and drive and transferred as best as possible via tape measure. Leads me to believe I might get real lucky as regards cutting. We’ll see…..
Time to clean out the case , install the Laser Hive stuff , and see what interference I run into...