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Build your own apple computer ?

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Lionsault_100

Member
Joined
Aug 24, 2005
Sorry if this has been asked but i'm looking for a cheap g4 desktop. i'm not making a switch, its just i need to learn how to get around on that platform for some of the work i need to do and would rather not use the lab at school.

and cant draw myself to shell out 300 for a 450mhz g4
i've been looking around and it looks like the parts are all the same as a PC except for the logic board, and CPU.

so my question is if i get a G4 logicboard and CPU, would a normal 22pin powersupply work ?i'm sure the hard drives and memory are intercompatable

would a normal pci video card work ? i wouldn't even need a case for now i just need functionality i'd probably set this up in a cardboard box or something.
 
what isn't possible about it ? i mean the hard drives and memory are all the same as far as i know.. what would the PSU have to do with executing the regular OSX correctly ? PSUs are hit or miss arn't they ?
 
Lionsault_100 said:
Sorry if this has been asked but i'm looking for a cheap g4 desktop. i'm not making a switch, its just i need to learn how to get around on that platform for some of the work i need to do and would rather not use the lab at school.

and cant draw myself to shell out 300 for a 450mhz g4
i've been looking around and it looks like the parts are all the same as a PC except for the logic board, and CPU.

so my question is if i get a G4 logicboard and CPU, would a normal 22pin powersupply work ?i'm sure the hard drives and memory are intercompatable

would a normal pci video card work ? i wouldn't even need a case for now i just need functionality i'd probably set this up in a cardboard box or something.
The problem is that x86 is little endian and macs are big endian (for more information on endianness, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness). This means that a video card won't work out of the box, because the byte order is wrong. Many cards that have both a PC and a MAC version will work with a bios flash to the mac version, but not all do AFAIK. The PSU pinout is most likely going to be differnet, but you can probably get all (or almost) all of the voltages you need from an ATX PSU (you just need to build an adapter). You will need to find out the pinout of your logic board, but this information is usually available somewhere on line.

AFAIK, HDDs and memory are interchangeable.

edit: what's a normal 22 pin PSU? ATX is either 20 or 24.
 
Gnufsh said:
The problem is that x86 is little endian and macs are big endian (for more information on endianness, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness). This means that a video card won't work out of the box, because the byte order is wrong. Many cards that have both a PC and a MAC version will work with a bios flash to the mac version, but not all do AFAIK. The PSU pinout is most likely going to be differnet, but you can probably get all (or almost) all of the voltages you need from an ATX PSU (you just need to build an adapter). You will need to find out the pinout of your logic board, but this information is usually available somewhere on line.

AFAIK, HDDs and memory are interchangeable.

edit: what's a normal 22 pin PSU? ATX is either 20 or 24.

i saw a 22pin one just for apples on ebay - it looks like PSU's are also platform specific. these parts are VERY tough to find, even on ebay.
 
Lionsault_100 said:
i saw a 22pin one just for apples on ebay - it looks like PSU's are also platform specific. these parts are VERY tough to find, even on ebay.
Yes, the PSUs are platform specific. I'm not certain that they're standard across Macs either. That's why I recommended building an adapter to an ATX PSU. There are people who have rigged imac guts to run off of ATX PSUs.
 
OK, it looks like i'm going to be doing this , the info in that link benfanz posted was pretty good they did exactly what i was looking to do but 2 years back in time, i should be able to do this for a lot cheaper.
 
OK, it looks like i'm going to be doing this , the info in that link benfanz posted was pretty good they did exactly what i was looking to do but 2 years back in time, i should be able to do this for a lot cheaper.
Glad to help! Dont forget to post your results and pictures (if you can).
 
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