Home | Cycline3 PC to Mac Mod - Installing a PC into an Apple Macintosh Power Mac G4 Case
PC to Macintosh Conversion Part 2 - Going to AMD Athlon 64
This is the second time I stuck a PC in a G4 case. Part 1 is here and you really should read it BEFORE this page. Otherwise, you will be lost.
There are lots of pics - so while they load, I'll give you a quick history. In August 2003, I built a 2.4GHz Intel P4 system. My main computer is a Dual 800Mhz G4 Power Mac G4 and I did an editorial comparing the two machines for OS NEWS. You can read the comparison here.
Now, after some time - I really just decided that the PC was too ugly. I thought about doing a mod - some hack worthy of my artistic nature. However, I just decided to make my PC a Mac. I couldn't stand it making my desk ugly and twins are always nice. So I stuffed a P4 into a G4...
Well, for whatever reason - I decided to upgrade to an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ processor. The catch - the new motherboard was way bigger and I didn't think it would fit. Alas... my beautiful Mac case...
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In case you don't know, PC cases are ugly. Lights, fans, buzzers, neon and blacklights? It's abominable. Oh well.. I wanted to clean up my rush job on my case mod any way.. so why not at least TRY and make the Athlon 64 fit... so I removed everything from the case and started plotting my plan of attack...
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I decided to scrap the floppy drive and ZIP drive entirely. It wouldn't fit with them in there. Also, I couldn't use the existing hard drive brackets so I removed them too. I mounted two brass screws in the side of the case to bolt down the hard drive with. |
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Here is the Maxtor 80GB drive with insulating foam and the aluminum retaining plate I cut. |
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The P4 got hot in this plastic box case so I was worried about this processor too. I put heatsink grease on the hard disk to pull heat from the drive and dump it into the metal of the G4 case. |
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Here is the drive mounted in its new home. |
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Even though I did a much better job with the holes and mounting this time - I still used Railbuttons from Railbuttons.com for standoffs. You can't beat them. |
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Here is the processor mounted in the motherboard. |
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GeForce 5600 GPU fan... |
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Compared to the P4 system before - a very clean and empty G4 case. AMD 64 3000+ CPU based system. |
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I removed more metal and plastic coverings from the back to allow more air and heat transfer. I also opened the speaker and ZIP ports on the front for air intakes. At first, I didn't like having to mount the motherboard recessed from the back - but now I do as it helps conceal all the connector cables. |
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The front.. the ports are now fresh air intakes. |
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Running by the real Mac - complete with AMD 64 logo sticker. This is a much more impressive system than the P4 was. The kings of the CPU mill right now are the AMD 64 and the IBM PowerPC G5 - as Apple calls it. Intel is lost out there somewhere - but won't be forever... until next time... -Sean |
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