Project: AMDG5

[Technochicken]

As you probably guessed form the title, this mod is based on the iconic Power Mac G5 case. Whether you are an apple fan or not, it is hard to disagree with the fact that this is a gorgeous case, inside and out....especially when you get it for free, as I did. The fact that the G5 looks as nice inside as it does outside brings me to my goals for this project:

1. Preserve the look of the case, inside and out, as best as possible.
2. Fit a full length ATX motherboard , 2 HDD's, 2 GPU's, and a CoolIt ECO.
3. Make it fully upgradeable. This means no modding the PSU to fit it inside the old G5 one.

That may sound like a lot to ask for, but I think I have figured out how to attain all those goals.

For starters, here's the case:

And inside:

As neat as it looks in there, it is an absolute pain to service it other than replacing the ram. It took me a good few hours to disassemble this thing. Here are the CPU's mounted to their heatsinks. The stock AMD cooler is for size reference:

Empty case:

To start off, I modified the top divider so that the end of a motherboard can fit under it. Notice that the board is sitting right where the HDD fans and HDD cage used to be:

Because of this, I had to move the fans and HDD cage forwards, which involved shortening the HDD cage and the piece the fans are mounted to, and drilling new mounting holes in the top tray:

Next, I rewired all the fans to work with standard 4 pin connectors. They all now run off 5V, because they sound like leaf blowers at 12, and push nearly as much air. The pair of fans to the left of the CPU are hot-swappable- a feature I wanted to preserve.

I made a motherboard tray out of the side panel of an old case, and some aluminum flat bar:

A big problem was figuring out how the PSU was going to be mounted. ATX PSU's are much taller than the apple one, so the bottom panel of the case had to be modded. I used the original housing of the PSU along with the bottom panel to make a PSU mount. I still need to work on the edges, and put some U channel on them. Since there was no convenient way to secure the PSU, I made one thumb screw mount with a scrap of aluminum bar. The other side of the PSU is secured by a neodymium magnet which is fastened to the bottom of the case. As a note, if you try gluing a really strong magnet with JB Weld, you are in for a surprise:

Once the internal structure of the case is modified to fit standard hardware, the PSU will be virtually invisible:

I also rewired the front panel to work with standard ATX headers. Currently, everything but the headphone jack is working, which is the power button, power led, USB, and I think firewire (although I don't own any firewire devices to test with).
USB and Firewire connected:

All done:

That's all for now. I'm currently working on the back panel. Thanks for looking!

[SXRguyinMA]

this should be cool +sub

[Technochicken]

Just burnt out my Dremel working on the back panel. It started making a sort of flapping noise, the white smoke came out. Now it doesn't turn on at all.

[xr4man]

things don't work once the magic smoke escapes.

[x88x]

Looks like this should turn out real nice.

Just burnt out my Dremel working on the back panel. It started making a sort of flapping noise, the white smoke came out. Now it doesn't turn on at all.

Hmmm, that reminds me...I really need to get replacement brushes for my 400XPR...I miss it...stuck using my 300..


BTW, you wouldn't happen to have a source for any more of these cases, would you? I was talking to PLAR last night and he's looking for one.

[Technochicken]

No, I don't have a source. A friend of mine got this one for free from our school with the intent of upgrading his other single processor g5 with the parts, but he decided it was not worth the time, and let me have it.

[x88x]

Ok, for some reason I was remembering the lab at your school clearing them out or something...maybe that was someone else...or maybe I made it up..

[AmEv]

So, which parts do you plan on keeping, selling, flat-out giving, whatever?


I do hope it stays original looks, too. It irks me when people change it drastically.

[Technochicken]

As for what I'm doing with the parts: All the original fans I'm using. The original PSU was dead, and I've chopped up the casing. The original CPU's probably work, but I don't know what I will do with them. The have some enormous heatsinks, which I may find a use for. The motherboard also probably worked, but I have desoldered some fan headers from it, and I removed the northbridge heatsink as well, because I may be able to use it for something.

Anyways, here's the back panel I made. To fit an ATX back plate, I had to move the fans, so I made this mounting plate for everything out of a section of an aluminum baking sheet. The shape was rough cut with the dremel(before it died)/other rotary tool, and finished with files:

I pulled this out of our shed when my dremel died. With a reinforced cutting bit, this could cut through the aluminum like butter.

You can see the offset needed for the fans:

Fan grills fit perfectly!:

Bolted in place:

I think it came out quite well. I still have to modify the fans slightly, so the fit inside the case. Next steps are to modify the PCI divider and mount the motherboard tray.

[x88x]

Oooh, a real Foredom. Nice! ...I can't decide if it's good or bad that I'm impressed by that...