Ben's Hackintosh Build in a G5 PowerMac Case... (Need some input on hardware)

[ben333]

Well, got a pretty sweet deal on a G5. Machine looked great on the outside and even passed the diagnostics but after a good deal of tinkering and research I've pretty much found that it would need a new logic board to be able to get an OS on it. That would run me a couple hundred, IMO not worth it to fix a non intel powermac.

So, I'm already working on a couple things, I'm going to try and keep the two metal dividers in and also use a mATX board as to not have to add a new motherboard tray / back pannel.

About to start soldering up the lil front panel cable for firewire, usb, audio and the power button / led.

Have a gutted PSU that will fit in the bottom bay, going to wire up a plug to plug into the G5's wire set for the two HDDs and DVD drive.

Need to wire up all the fans for either PWM off the motherboard, or hard wired quiet but sufficient.

For cooling, I'm thinking an apogee drive (the pump / block combo) and a single rad or heater core at the front of the case to work into the already excellent air flow design. After all, the original beast that was in this enclosure was water cooled!


So... if anybody can help me with the hackintosh goodies it would be much appreciated. Una, if you know some good mATX boards for the task... or anybody else.

Goals for the board:
8 GB or higher RAM limit
mATX
firewire header on the board (not required) unless I can find a PCI FW card with an internal header.
will do a retail install and be perfectly working with minimal patching
will run snow leopard and work on auto updates

[ben333]

From my thread on O/C:

Well, I plan to either write this up for the logs section or perhaps OverClocker.com but as I go I'll post things in here. Only hardware goodies will be posted, the name will not pose a threat on any policy here but mods, feel free to change the H to an M if you must. To thread viewers, no software discussions.

And if you're wondering how I came upon this mac, want to see pics of what it looked like originally or what was wrong with it, see my original G5 related thread here.

Hardware:
PowerMac G5 Case - Bought a whole G5 with a bag logic board for $110
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 for $50 shipped (new in box, but buying used) Big thanks to Evilsizer!
Processor - i5 750, Not yet acquired
Memory - 4 GB or 8 GB kit of DDR3, Not yet acquired
Video - BFG 8800GT 512 MB for $65 shipped when I bought it (a good while ago)
Storage - Western Digital 500 GB, HP SATA DVD Burner, 2 TB drive to come
Power - Uncased Antec Earth Watts 550 with custom wiring to come

I'll start off this thread with a bunch of pics. I've been thinking about everything so much over the past couple days it would be a pain to write out all my thoughts and ideas but from now on I'll probably post them as I go.













So there they are, just some ideas and not much work yet. Did manage to steal some sleeveing too, from now useless server cables. Pictures isn't even half of what I ended up with. Going to be connecting the power supply to the G5's original plug that brings power up to the superdrive and HDDs and then bringing down the fan wires to the bottom bay. I'll have a terminal strip to connect and optimize those. Tonight I finally got the wires labeled on those so things should be pretty slick 'n easy now. The only wires visible (and I'll hide em the best I can) will be the 24 pin motherboard wire, the 8 pin CPU wire and the 6 pin PCIe. Going to sleeve those and make them look all nice. Not the silly one sleeve per wire, but the cleaner more practical one sleeve per bundle :thup:

Now, if anyone could help me by fabbing up a front panel breakout cable that takes the powermac's front board and breaks it out to connectors for audio, firewire, usb, power button and the power LED I would be grateful.

Also, thanks to Visbits for hostthenpost.org where I'll be uploading my pics

Up next, after a trip to the hardware store for heatshrink and other electrical related goodies will be the wiring of the power supply and fans.

Original Post

[ben333]

Update: 11/20/10

From my thread on O/C:

Well, got my broken laptop's SD reader working with a driver so some more pics:




















The powersupply is on some brass standoffs goop'd to a plexi glass sheet. This bolts to the bottom of the case where the original PS attached and will prevent arching from the bottom of the new supply's PCB. The terminal strip (to be used to wire the fans) also was attached with some goop.

As you can see, I'm keeping things pretty original. The partitions and fans and ducts... some people would probably think this was an unhacked G5 just looking in the side. The rear still needs some TLC but I'm feeling pretty good. I repositioned the mobo standoffs and just waiting for the JB weld to cure holding them to the tray in their new positions.

Here's some things my mod will have that others don't, the WORKING cooling system. All the original fans with their sections to get the proper air ducting and flow. A fan for the drives, a blower for the motherboard backside, CPU fans, a fan for the GPU / PCI area, etc. The plastic door will function as a shroud like it should Very happy with the board I picked as it fits great.

Original Post

[ben333]

Update: 11/21/10

From my thread on O/C:

Some work I put in tonight... motherboard wires sleeved and to the correct lengths, fan wires, terminal strip in action:

























In the last shot you see a test run with the PSU jumped and five fans running full speed. These fans have three wires I'm using, 12V, 5V and ground. The 5V must be connected to run, but it appears that the 12V lead can be run at either 5 or 12 volts. Things will probably get moved around to get ideal air flow and low noise so the terminal strip will prove useful.

Original Post

[ben333]

Update: 1/9/11

From my thread on O/C:

Update

Processor is in, RAM is in... Don't have an 1156 heatsink but that's nothing a couple zip ties won't fix for the sake of testing. Tried a Leopard install but it won't boot. No worries though, people have installed Snow Leopard on the board I have. So here's some pics... And a shot of the HW monitor so people don't think I'm nuts for using zip ties to hold a heatsink onto my new processor I just spend $180 on.











So, a little soldering to go, a better cooling solution, something for the front IO... some research and a 16 GB flash drive and I should be good to go!

Original Post


Update: 1/12/11

From my thread on O/C:

Pics of a successful Snow Leopard install:

Original Post



Update: 1/12/11

From my thread on O/C:

Yup, went to the hardware store tonight and grabbed four bolts, four wingnuts, four locking nuts, four neoprene washers and four nylon washers. Those will be used to mount one of the G5 blocks to my CPU, just need to make a mount top plate.

I manually changed the CPU name from displaying as "Unknown" by editing a system file. Still need to make it display as a Mac Pro vs an iMac, I think the reason it shows as one is because this is 10.6.0 and the iMacs were probably the only Core i apples at the time 10.6 came out.

Some screen shots:





1920x1080 Desktop Screenshot

Very satisfied with this so far, good things to come!

Original Post

[ben333]

Well it's been a LONG day. Finally its just about done, and I'm really very happy with how it turned out. There's a bunch of pics in the middel, and more description but I'm too tired to manage all that right now. Enjoy some near finished pics I just snapped:













Progress pics to be up soon, and pics with this set up at my desk.

Anyway, I myself certainly like it, and I think I've done something that no other G5 to Intel modder has done is left it as original and standard as possible. At least in a practical way. The cooling system is great, so is apple's design with the dividers -- that's why I kept it. Very good CPU temps with everything on 5V... and on 12V this thing is in super-benching mode, sounds just like a noisy dual CPU server at boot up (because even those don't run the fans maxed all the time). I have a 20A switch in the back to toggle 5 or 12 volts, but doubt I'll ever run it on 12 unless I'm doing some heavy work and am out of the room for a while, then I suppose it's a great feature to have.

-

My desk / setup tonight. Probably will rearrange things to fit another LCD in.

[ben333]

As of now, this worklog (of my posts with images) is up to date. Thing is pretty sweet... just the darn VooDoo HDA which isn't perfect. Other than that, mint except I've been too lazy to figure out getting it to sleep. Apple bluetooth KB and mouse to come I'm thinkin...