[glay78]

I love the Power Mac G5 and Mac Pro's enclosure, the aluminum finish and the design is so damn nice. Too bad Mac Pro is abit way out of my budget and Power Mac G5 are obsoleting soon as Intel processors are used in Macintosh nowadays, so the only way is to put my PC in an Apple desktop enclosure.

After some months of searching I found an empty case for sale because of the logic board failure so I managed to get the enclosure with the spoilt logic board and fans in the case.

[glay78]

The spoilt logic board, which I will explain later why I need it



My intention is to keep the outlook as original as possible even the rear where all the ports will still remain, I do not wish to cut the rear for the mobo I/O like other mods I've seen to fit an ATX or mATX board.

My PC is about 2yrs old. Below are the specs

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz @ 3.0Ghz
Gigabyte GA 965P DS3
4 x 1GB Kingston DDR2 667mhz Ram
ZEROtherm BTF90 HSF
MSI nVidia 9600GT 512MB
Seagate 300GB IDE HDD
Seagate 320GB SATA HDD
LG 20x internal super multi DVD writer SATA
300w Mini PSU

The biggest challenge in this mod is to fit an ATX board inside while not cutting off the rear I/O portion of the case and also my aim is to preserve the inside look as close as original G5. Below is a picture of how the inside of G5 looks like

[glay78]

This is what most modders do when they fit a pc in a G5 case. Notice that the rear I/O portion is cut off.



Even if I cut off the rear portion I will also have difficulty in fitting in an ATX board. So after some thinking and planning I got my ideas on how can I fit in.

Stay tune for update, its late I need some sleep

[HShin]

Ah, young Jedi... We shall watch your career with great interest.

[Righteouz]

I always wanted to get this casing. Looking forward to your post.

[bullydog]

Wow definitely looking forward to this!

[glay78]

woo! cool great to see replies I will post pics tonight, its completed anyway but with area to improve. Cheers!

[glay78]

OK lets start working. 1st take a look at the front connections. I found the pinout for this and I'm sure I can make all ports useable, however I do not use firewire so I will pass the firewire connection. I'm only able to tap the on/off button and power LED to work. For the headphone jack and USB I will need to try to squeeze the jumpers in inorder to tap out the connection.

[glay78]

OK the spoilt logic board as I've mention, I will cut out the rear I/O portion out 1st.



This is the finished product, but not done yet



I will take out both the USB and the speaker out jack

[glay78]

Fit in USB ext cables so that the other end connects to the mobo inside the case.



Bought these from Sim Lim Tower, just connect the points using wire and checked connectivity using multimeter.



Its done



This end will go thru the case speaker hole and screw to tighten.

[glay78]

The small part of the logic board is screwed to the case.



This is how the rear looks like, check out the speaker output jack.



Next will proceed to lay the cables. The power button and LED to the mobo, the SATA and IDE cables as well as the rear I/O cables.

[glay78]

Next I moved on to the gfx output. I will be mounting the mobo inside of the case so the original PCI cards won't align to the case opening. So this is what I did.

Use an old nVidia FX5200 card from my old Power Mac G4



Take out the metal plate, bought a both end female DVI plug and fit in. The other hold looks empty so I cut out the VGA port too.



Mount it onto the plate and its done.



Can guess what I'm up to? I will connect a DVI cable inside the case to one end of the female plug, so from the back of the case it looks like a gfx card fitted in.

[glay78]

Next is the mounting of the mobo in. As the standoff of the case do not fit a pc, I do not want to remove them so I used these cardboard, cut and mount onto the original Apple standoff then insert the mobo mounting to mount my ATX board.

[glay78]

The mobo has a PCI slots backing behind so I can screw the PCI cards and secure them. Its cut off from my previous Power Mac G4 case.



Mobo fitted in.



Next I moved on to the DVI cables for the gfx card to the female DVI socket. Also added a 4 x USB bracket and plugged to my mobo. Notice DVDROM and HDD are in placed. The HDD are secured to the HDD bracket that comes with the case with lock.

[inxlee]

wa very raw i like