[worklog] [watercooling] Apple G4 Cube goes i7-7700K/GTX1070....

[alliance2000]

Hi there!

Not long ago I heard a side talk about the G4 Cube and I thought this could become my newest modding project....

I got mine on eBay for a reasonable price:

My ideas to follow for this modding project are:
- to keep the outside as original as possible
- high-end hardware inside incl. water cooling:
-- Asrock Z270 Fatal1ty Gaming-ITX Mainboard (overclockable)
-- Intel i7-7700K Prozessor (overclockable)
-- Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 16GB
-- Gigabyte GeForce GTX1070 (short version)
-- Alphacool "Eiswand" external tower-radiator
-- EVGA fully modular 550W Bronze power supply (compact version)

Some limitations apply with this plan:
A radiator of a water cooling system will never fit into the case - that's why I chose an external tower-radiator.
Another problem is the power consumption - way too much for an ITX- or Pico-PSU. That's why I also chose an external PSU.

So there will be 3 components:
- the Cube: silent (only SSD and water cooling)
- tower-radiator: 6 fans (12V or 7,5V depending on heat/noise)
- power supply: fan cooled

Most of the hardware already arrived.....

Stay tuned....!

Marcus

 

[ShatteredAvenger]

Now that's an aggressive cube build, with a unique flavor! Looking forward to the build process- keep us updated!

 

[alliance2000]

Much has happened, but one step after the other:

At first the big passive cooler had to be sawed apart to get more room inside the case......

Then I had to make aluminum rails where the mainboard is supposed to sit on later. Therefore I had to shorten two of the pillars of the case by twice the thickness of the aluminum rails....

Then I modified the HDD- and CD-ROM housing to maybe be able to keep the CD-ROM in the case (if it's enough space for the graphics card)....

Here you see my paper templates of the mainboard and graphics card to be able to determine the mounting positions:

Stay tuned!

Marcus

 

[alliance2000]

Next busy day:

At first I mounted the water cooling blocks for the CPU (had to rearrange it twice to make the connectors fit correctly) and graphics card (all from Alphacool). I also had to saw a small gap into the CPU cooler backplate because of a too long socket screw to make it fit correctly.

Then the first mounting test into the case - unfortunately I had to remove the CD-ROM...

A few things had to be taken into consideration: all connectors have to be on the lower side of the case later on and the PCIe connectors of the mainboard and graphics card have to be on the same side to not have the riser cable go across the whole case later:

Also it showed that if I wanted to keep the original sensor power switch (and I certainly want to), the mainboard will stick out of the case for about 1cm. That's because it's exactly 17cm long - same as the case. Then I had to make gaps into the middle pillars which hold the case lock mechanism to make some room for the memory modules:

Stay tuned!

Marcus

 

[alliance2000]

Next step:

Now the power switch had to be modded - there's a perfect guide for that here (I did it including the 500 ohms resistor exactly like it's described here):
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/cube-switch-modding.43924/

Now the lower side of the case, where all the connectors are, had to be altered to let the mainboard and the graphics card fit into the case (the graphics card is exactly 17cm long like the case, so it sticks right in without any further retention and doesn't move at all):

Now I had to fit the hoses for the water cooling system and the power cables for ATX, CPU and GPU into the case. Most of it fits through the gap above the thunderbolt connector, but the return flow of the water cooling system (coming from the GPU) and the power cable from the GPU had both be put through a seperate hole in the lower case....

The yellow cable by the way is coming from the power switch LED (including the 500 ohms resistor) and ist connected to ATX PIN 16 to make the switch glow when the PC is on.

Now the ventilation grill had to be made a little less deep, otherwise it would hit against the graphics card, and then glued into the case - the original retention system was also too deep into the case:

A last check if the water cooling system is not leaking and to get all the air out of the system:

Nearly done!

Marcus

 

[rake.mistry]

Fantastic work! Can't wait to see the final product!

 

[alliance2000]

Final step!

The Cube needed more "space", but only for data (until now only the m.2-SSD Samsung EVO960 with 250GB is in the Cube):

I had two other SSD drives from my other PC (Samsung 840 with 128GB and OCZ Trion with 480GB). These should now be added into the Cube!

A good place was found above the graphics card on the PCIe-connector side, because there will no internal DVD-drive be possible anyhow.

One of the original CD-ROM holders from the case was a little bit modified and now holds both SSDs on one side. Later on in the Cube they will stand upright and won't bend down anyhow, and on the other side they are laying onto the unused GPU-power connector.....

Marcus