Accomplishing The Impossible?

[Celeron_Phreak]

Could it be? Well, when modding a Macintosh, I think so. But that's just my opinion.

Some of you know that I ordered a Power Macintosh Blue & White G3 case, complete with power supply....or not; it was missing the drive cage. It was $25 off eBay, considering a friend bought one of the handels for $20 not too long ago, I say I did pretty good, aside from the missing drive cage. Everything else was there though, the "PC" speaker, power button, reset and inturrupt button assembly, hard drive rack, and the "cooling" assembly, yes, also the front bezels. When it arrived, I, as probably most of you would do, inspected my purchase. It had some deep scruffs along the sides, looking like someone dragged it across a sidewalk, the handels had cracks around the inside, and it was missing two screws for one of the side panels (I found two others to replace them) and the screws to hold the backplane in. Yes, even the blue Apple logos on the sides were pretty scruffed up, but some car buffing compound helpped those a great deal.

Now you may be asking yourself....where the heck is this guy going with this nonsense??? Well, to start, I had to find out how to mount a FULL SIZED ATX motherboard in a case designed for a microATX motherboard. Hard to do you say? HECK YEAH! This was by far the hardest part of the mod. I decided to mount it vertically, in the correct orientation, but 2.5 inches away from the actual back of the case, then use port extensions that would run form the motherboard and expansion cards to the back of the case, and then use epoxy to hold them to the backplane and a port cover cut out for a video card. This didn't work. I had everything installed, new "standoffs" for the motherboard installed (old ones removed), holes drilled, just to find out that what i had planned woulnd't work. After I shut the case over and over, I started to put components in. I closed the case again, but it wouldn't close all the way. I kept trying but it just wouldn't close, so I looked around for my problem...It was the RAM, it kept running into the metal "balcony" that the drive cage sits on. So yeah, pretty easy to fix with a dremel huh? Just cut out around it enough for the RAM to fit snuggly. So I did just that, put it all back together, and yes, it shut!

So I go to experiment with mounting a CDROM no drive cage meant I'd have to make do with what I had. So I built a "cage" out of some scrap sheet aluminum that I had left over from my custom cut fan grills I cut out last year. So alright, I had the drive cage all done after two hours of thinking and hard work. Only to find that the side panel wouldn't shut all the way again. This time because it was running into the CDROM.

This made me go ALL the way back to the begining; remove everything, and find a new orientation for the motherboard. No matter what I did, I couldn't find a good place to put the motherboard so the side could still close tightly. So I gave up on using the motherboard tray.

This is going to be a pain to explain without pictures, so until I get my hands on a new digital camera card reader to download those pictures, you'll have to wait paitiently on my little mac mod secret :).

Any questions?

~C.P.

[Smirabi]

good to see you back in the forums CP, what are the specs on the system you're trying to cram in there?

[Celeron_Phreak]

I'm not trying to, it already is ;). It's what was in my clear case:

AOpen AX3S Socket 370 motherboard
Intel PPGA Celeron 700MHz w/stock AMD cooler
Sony CRX-130E (I think that's the model) CD-RW drrive
MadDog GeForce4 MX440 8x - 64MB video (AGP)
Siemens 10/100 PCI Ethernet card
2x 64MB PC100 DIMMs
1x 128MB PC133 DIMM
Maxtor 30GIG IDE hard drive
300WATT ATX power supply

After I upgrade my main comp, I hope to put this AMD 1.1 in it and use it as my LAN machine :).

And yes, I'm even customizing XP to the Mac OS X - Brushed Panther look ;)

~C.P.

[SniperXX]

Sounds interesting, I cant wait to see some pics.

[Celeron_Phreak]

Alright, I got some pictures taken. I just need some file hosting. Anyone up for the 32 pictures? :)

~C.P.

[Smirabi]

CP, shoot me an email smirabispam@coxspam.net (remove the words spam for the working address) with the files and give me most of tomorrow (thursday) and i'll have it done. if that's too long to wait, i guess look elsewhere.

[thorilan]

pictures are worth a bazzzzzzziiiiiiiiillllliiiiiooooonnnn triiillllllliiiiionnn words

[Celeron_Phreak]

haha. well I've got some schoolwork to get done, then I have work at 4 to 8 today. So I'll try and get some of the pix up tonight.

~C.P.

[Celeron_Phreak]

I'm soo sorry about not posting pictures that night. My computer started to act up and I ended up having to reinstall windows from a fresh partition. Anywho, I've got it working again and i'll TRY to get this thread really updated this weekend, being late Saturday night, or all day Sunday. Sorry about getting all your hopes up :(

[SniperXX]

Dont you just love windows...

I will check back later or tommorow to see pics. :)

[Celeron_Phreak]

Alright, update time! :D Sorry about all the waiting, but lets go. Bear in mind that these pictures were taken AFTER I modded the case, as I did not have the camera when I was modding it.

Here is a picture of the inside of the case as it was, minus my CDROM rack I built. It's pretty small, and things can get cramped in there.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/case-small.JPG


Here is pretty much the only area of the case (without turning it around) that you can tell that I've modded it in any way; the rivets I used to hold the drive rack on.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/cagerivets.JPG


A nice shot of the drive rack I built. Two pieces of scrap aluminum from some fan grills I cut last year, and riveted together.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/homecage.JPG


As you can see, directly under the front of the CDROM, I put a support to keep the front up. I took a piece of angle trim, cut holes in it where the screws enter the case frame, and used the existing cage holes tapped by Apple.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/fontbay.JPG

[Celeron_Phreak]

Some people know this, some don't. But I think everyone knows how easy it is to get into a G3/4 case. Pull on the latch and it's open, right? Not if you use the panel lock ;).
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/lock1.JPG


Pulling on this "knob" moves some teeth that lock themselves into the latch used to open the side panel, and not letting it be pulled out enough to open the case. There is also a hole on the "knob" to put a masterlock or something of the like through, I like it.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/lock2.JPG


Here is the sled AFTER modding. Where the long horizontal retangles are, were standoffs for harddrive mounting, which I had to remove to put this HD in. So originally this sled could hold three drives; now two. Circled, I have the holes I had to drill to mount the drive parallel to the case, or the motherboard wouldn't fit correctly. This is the only part that actually worked from the begining, unfortunately.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/HDsled.JPG


Shouldn't have to say much about this one :)
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/harddrive.JPG

[Celeron_Phreak]

Here's the hole I had to drill to mount the motherboard the first time. Looks almost identicle to one of the original ones (to the left), aside from my plastic cutting techniques ;).
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/mobotray-cut.JPG


Had to cover up the screws that hold the plastic piece onto the side panel, so I wouldn't short out the motherboard. I just used some cheap, rather thick and tough, electricle tape.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/mobotray.JPG


For the backplane, I just removed the old "shielding" material, then used that metal epoxy I bought last year, and epoxied some homemade port extensions, I made out of some wires, connectors, and a bit o' solder, to it.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/backplane.JPG


"Outside" view of the backplane:
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/backplane2.JPG

[Celeron_Phreak]

The front control box. I desoldered the original color changing (amber to green) LED because it was burned out, cut the original traces leading to the button switches, and then soldered the wires to the appropriet leads on the switches, with a little help to my, out of date, multimeter.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/controlbox.JPG


The power LED itself couldn't have wires soldered to it's leads from the top, so I had to solder them to the bottom of the board.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/controlboard.JPG


Here's the box in place. I actually have the wires running in the OTHER direction now, going all the way around the HD sled and out at the back where they connect directly to the motherboard without any hassle :).
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/frontcontrol.JPG


Here's what I did for the video card. Just a simple straight through cable that I got with my Monster 3D video card a few years ago. I used some sheet metal screws to keep it on the backplane.
http://members.cox.net/smirabi/hosting/videoplate.JPG

[Celeron_Phreak]

This is the fan that came with the case, it's quiet, cools enough I guess. This being a Celeron computer, I guess it doesn't need a whole lot. I don't know the spec on it, but when I replace it or get in there again, I'll be sure to check.
http://members.cox.net/smirabi/hosting/PCIfan.JPG


Here is where I cut out a corner of that top drive cage platform. Blue is where I cut, red is where it used to extend to. This, in theory, was enough room for the RAM....Until I learned that it would still run into the CDROM, and things got really shaken up.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/cagecut.JPG


As you can see here, the cut, again in theory, would have worked out perfectly if the case wern't soo small ;).
http://members.cox.net/smirabi/hosting/RAMproblem.JPG


In order for things to fit properlly, I would have to do something about the back plates for the expansion cards. Either cut off the tabs at the bottom, or remove them entirely. I decided to entirely remove them, just in case I end up moving this hardware to another computer in the future.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/netcard.JPG

[Celeron_Phreak]

To avoid shorting out the video card on the butt-end of the top drive cage platform, I had to mask off some of the GeForce.
http://members.cox.net/smirabi/hosting/videocard.JPG


Same goes for the motherboard. No shorting out on the side panel. The plastic plate doesn't cover the entire side.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/mobotape.JPG


The PSU I'm using has a very short ATX cable, so there's not much room for it to extend, and a lot of strain on it when working on the computer while it's fully open.
http://members.cox.net/smirabi/hosting/powerwires.JPG


As you can see, without the ATX being plugged in, the board can rest well :). This is also proof that I'm using a full size ATX board in this tiny case =P. Something I personally find amazing.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/motherboard.JPG

[Celeron_Phreak]

This is really the only thing that keeps the motherboard from falling out when the side panel is down. The edge of a little clip on the frame that helps to keep the side panel shut.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/mobocatch.JPG


And here it is, in all it's glory, inside the case :). All that's left to do is connect the port extensions and close her up for some final shots.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/mobo-mount.JPG


Video and Network (I have actually trimmed 1/2" off the PSU platform, so the video card no longer runs into it, chancing another accident wiht surface mount resistors)
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/cardplug.JPG


PS/2 and Sound:
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/moboplug.JPG


USB connects to the front USB port connections, as I didn't have the nessary parts to build a USB extension, I just took a pair of ports I had from an old beat up casee.

[jimstandard]

good job but it sort of ghetto now

[Celeron_Phreak]

The only thing I hate about this motherboard orientation is how theh video extension gets in the way of the side panel opening all the way. In order to open it all the way, I have to move the motherboard around a bit and then it'll relax. But hey, it still fits ;).
http://members.cox.net/smirabi/hosting/videoconnect.JPG


The only thing odd about the front is the empty zip drive bay. But I've seen a few G3s in person missing the zip drive and used as main comps before, so no biggie. I hope to eventually find some way of putting my floppy drive there.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/front.JPG


The biggest stand out is the back, with all the missing ports and all. That doesn't matter much anyway though, it being on the floor and in a corner of the room and all. I hope to eventually route the parallel and serial ports back as well.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/back.JPG


Whew, check out that Apple guys! ;)
http://members.cox.net/smirabi/hosting/shiny.JPG



Well that's all until I ever get a little more straightened up with it. This is actually the second time I'm retyping this one, as the board said I had too many attatchments. Special thanks go to smirabi for hosting the pictures. If you have any questions, just ask 'em. Gotta get some sleep now, and hey, I'm an hour ahead of schedule!

Nite all
~C.P.

[Celeron_Phreak]

Oh! Almost forgot, need to put a screenshot up of the desktop on this little guy. Here you go; and smirabi, please email me about this one, I'll need it uploaded to your services as well.
http://members.cox.net/scomirabi/hosting/Xdesk3.jpg


I used ObjectBar, WindowBlinds, and YzDock (banned by Apple) for the basics. Took me two days on and off to find icons, and a few days on and off for the wallpapers.

~C.P.

Again, questions = ask :)

[Celeron_Phreak]

Oh! And the temps!

CPU = 24°C idle
30°C load

Case = 25°C constant

[Remove]

Nice job in shoehorning that system.

[suicidalmole]

you should definatley show up at a lan with that sucker.......people would just be like...wtf???