Powermac G5 ATX mod – part 2: Case mod and motherboard fitting

Yes, I know… yet another G5 case mod… but, what can I do if the G5 case is SO amazing??? I bought a full G5 Powermac about an year ago at eBay for about 20 quid. The G5 wasn’t working and I didn’t intend to get it back to work, anyways. Just wanted the case. And the case was in perfect shape, no scratches or dents – very unusual, by the way… so, it would be a perfect fit to my project. I drove 2 hours round trip to get the case, and I left it in my garage for all this time. I knew this project would take me a great amount of time and patience, and I only wanted to start it when I was fully committed.

Well, with the lock-down, the time has come. I started by disassembling the whole thing – that, I should add – might be the most challenging bit of the project. Different than other Powermacs, the G5 was built in a very “locked” way, making it very challenging to fully disassembling it. But with time and a lot of Internet instructional videos, it’s doable of course. You have to make sure you don’t damage the chassis while disassembling the whole thing. So, again, take your time and don’t force anything out (like some people normally do).

Of course PC ATX (and variants) motherboards will not fit the case directly. Some modifications are needed to fit them properly. In my case, I choose a mATX board. I needed to cut the original mesh back plate of the G5 and also get the motherboard tray refitted. To obtain a greater finish, I choose the obvious option: Laser Hive G5 mATX original kit. It costed me £60, but it is totally worth it. You can see below the finished cut (I used a generic dremel with metal cutting discs and was able to finish the job in around 15 min).

And, here, the finished back panel, with the motherboard and video card already fitted. I still haven’t finished the project, as I need to buy the CPU, memory and Disk (I will go for a 1 TB M.2 SSD, which saves up the mess with cables and it is way faster than regular SSDs). I also still need to mod the from power button and USB, but I don’t think this will be too hard to do. Once all is done, I will post some pictures of the finished G5 atx here.

 

New project in the oven! Classic Mac as a modern game and media station (with the original CRT glass!)

I’ve bought those 2 Macintoshes from eBay, a Classic and a Plus. Both were sold as non-working. Testing them further, I realised the Plus was just in need of new caps. The Classic, well… this guy was busted. Bad CRT, both boards in really bad shape, non-working floppy and hard drive… a disaster. BUT – the case was in really good shape as it can be seen below (left, the Classic, right, the Plus).

So, I decided to go for a project of transforming the Classic into a modern game / media station. But I wanted to keep the Macintosh Classic visual intact, so I wanted to use the CRT lens and add a LCD to the back of it. Below, you can see the CRT lens separated from the tube (I’ve used an angle grinder to cut it). There was a LOT of sanding and polishing afterwards, as the inside of the CRT lens is VERY rough surface – not see-through. I will detail the process later on.

Below you can see the lens after the sanding / polishing job. Since the glass is very strong, it took me about 3 days to get to this stage. A lot of work!

And down here you can see the test with the 8″ LCD display below it. Interested in knowing more about this project: Stay tuned!!