This is the phase1 cutout complete....



After some measurements and markings, I could start on the new backplate....



And here's the cutout finished, before filing.....




a bit of filing, and some more markings, and drilling, we end up with this - not complete yet, still a few more things to do, but good enough for now....





from the backside with the i/o-plate fitted, to see what it will look like....

Not bad at all, looking much better than I anticipated....

Let me know what you guys think so far....

Here is shot showing how it looks from an angle....



and another angled shot....



and one from dead-on, look at how well it fits in between 2 sidepanels - a near seamless fit, to be honest - lots of carefult filing on this one....



With this part complete, it is onto the 2nd part of the rear cutout.......

Complete, like this......

I wanted to retain the very neat G5 sidepanel latch, and will need to markout and cut like this.....



to give us a final result like this.....



and here.....



and a final shot for now, from directly behind.....



The pics don't do it justice, it looks factory

Don't worry about PSU relocation (used to be G5 600W unit in bottom of case), I found a very decent pozzie for it, without doing the nasty as all the other G5 modders out there did.

As mentioned a while back, my plan would be to replicate G5 as much as I can, but the case must be easy to work in, must be upgradeable, etc.....and watercooled of course

Original back:



New back:



The more I look at it the better it looks.....my Wife also said she like the new back better than the original.

The latch pooks weird only on the photos, in real life it looks like factory job. Even the colors are the same as new i/o-plate, but for some reason camera makes it appear different....

Will get some close-ups of latch-area later, and post it.

As you guys can see, I had to eventually do the rear, and as stated earlier, if I have to cut the rear of the G5, I would like to keep up with Apple's intention, ie decent quality, and appearance.

I hope I have succeeded in this, and I will keep you guys posted of future updates to this mod. I have all hardware to complete, maybe need another DDC Plus pump, and 2x BI GT 120x120mm rads, as I would like to keep waterloops for X6800 and 7950 seperate, so maybe another visit to David and Karma's in order.

Jeesh, it would have been nice to have some sponsors, as this mod sucks money big time!!

Your feedback would be appreciated.

Kind regards,
MrBean

I have designed a new mobo tray to go inside, to fit better with the rear panel I made, and to clean up the inside of the case even better than either Apple's original intention, and my 1st mobo tray creation.

So, herewith the outline of the new tray, I am off to go and do the dremel/filing/drilling etc dirty deed on the unsuspectiing piece of aluminium.

Well, I am quite happy that 1x Lian-Li PC70 sidecover yielded both the new rear i/o-plate, and motherboard tray. Good utilization of the sidecover



Check back later, when I have finished the work on new mobo tray.

Herewith another small update - I have completed the new motherboard tray, well, 99% that is - still need to drill and tap holes for new standoffs....

This is the old tray, see the areas marked in red, where the tray stopped short of the sides of the case, not covering the screws etc.....it looked a little non-pro.....



So, I made a new tray, and extended the sides, see blue areas.....it now goes side-side, barely 0.5mm each side from the case - exact;ly what I was looking for, and I anyway had to extend the side on the i/o-plate side, as I need to bolt i/o-plate into the floor of the new mobo tray, to better secure it.

Took me about 2 hours start to completion, a lot easier than rear i/o-plate I made yesterday.



Here is another shot of the tray, somehow my camera struggles to capture aluminium today...pics seems a little fuzzy, soz....



This cutout will be to clear the G5 front power module.......it has a standoff that is in the way, but necessary, so I needed to do this...



and this one is for the optical drive module, also no way around this one....



That's it for today folks, will keep you posted. Now I can measure holes for motherboard, and get that mounted.

Then smooth-sailing from thereon in

Picked up some additional hardware....

a New Notrhbridge cooler to replace heatpipe on Asus board, which won't work in the reverse installation.....



and a close-up shot - it really is a monster copper unit....



My 2x new Seagate 320gig drives- I was after 2x Raptor 150gig drives, but no stock, and I was not willing to wait, so the Seagates it is....Sata II anyway fast enough in Raid 0 to get close to the Raptor's Sata 1 in Raid 0.



And this is where I will mount them in the case, electronics facing up......here it is wrong way, just imagine flipped over.....

I will make a new bottom plate, as this one is to short, went with my 1st iteration mobo tray, so I will make a new tray, picked up additional alu sheeting this afternoon.....

so, how will I cool this harddrives - well, semi-passive......with 2x cutouts in bottom plate to fit these grillz....



Air will be flowing from the rad, ontop of the floorplate - rad will be horizontal...and fan at rear - 1x 120mm mounted in the rear i/o-plate - will scavenge hot air from rad......

At the same time this moving air will create small vacuum at the area immediately below the rillz, causing air movement over harddrives.....which will keep them happy - and remove the need for additional cooling fans.

Maybe this will explain above better:



Here is the 2x rads I will be using, one for cpu, other for gfx - or maybe I'll use 2x 120mm Coolwave monster I have, and a single loop. I will play to see which config I want to use, I can go either way, as I have enough hardware....



Yesterdays shots were a bit fuzzy, so I took new ones today, after charging camera batteries - they were really flat, and may have caused fuzzy pics - soz about that.

Here is a nice angled shot of cutout at rear, and new mobo tray I made, showing how well it fit into the case....



This areas here, marked in red circles - there will be a total of 4, equi-spaced top to bottom of motherboard tray......



will match to 4 similar holes on the bottom of the i/o-plate, where it mates with motherboard tray, and I will bolt that to the i/o-plate with countersunk allencap screws....this will make it all the more sturdy, and top-quality....pop-rivets on i/o-plate was just for measurement purposes, I will replace them with same stainless countersunk allencap screws - take note this plate is not finished, just raw presentation - need to brush it to obtain same look as rest of alu panels.



Here is a few shots to show the mating of surfaces.......or meshing of corners etc...whichever way you want to call it....

Cutouts for the front panel switch......



and above to fit underneath optical drive mechanism....

the top rear below where PSU will be located.....



and a clear shot of the new backplate - previous one was a bit unclear....



I will keep you guys posted, will do some big updates on the weekend again.

Feedback would be appreciated.

Here is the new motherboard bottom tray, or at least the measurements done - this time the donor is a PC65 Lian-Li side panel, PcCasegear ran out of stock on the PC70 ones.....

This one is wide enough with 1mm to spare Close call, but it has to be 461mm long to match motherboard tray length, which fits exactly the depth of the G5 case.



If I have time in the week, I'll cut and file this one, going to be a quickie, in the meantime I will start marking motherboard mounting holes on mobo tray, and a few other odds and ends.

Still a way to go, but it's getting there

I have decided to fit a nice big 120mm Coolermaster Aluminium fan to the rear, instead of 2x 80mm screamers - reason is for much better airflow at lower soundlevels the 120mm vs 2x80mm can provide.

And, it will go well with the same 2x 120mm aluminium fans I will fit to the rad(s).....

Here is the outline marked on the backpanel, and 4x 4mm holes drilled:



From the other side....



To make sure everything fits together - hehe, don't worry, I took careful measurements....



Even the original Apple G5 baffle tray still goes on, without touching the fan - but, about 1/4mm gap



And here's a close-up with the baffle fitted, to show the minute gap.

Take note, I still have to do the fanhole, but havent decided on a std round hole with grill - oh no, not that - or some nice custom hole to fit the theme of the mod...will still make up my mind on that one - for now the fan is in position, and fits where it's supposed to!

I have finished the bottom tray, need to secure it to the motherboard tray, but here are a few shots to show how it fits into the scheme of things....

Sideshot......



Reaching all the way to the front of the case, exact same length as the motherboard tray.....



a Cutout to accommodate the rear i/o-port plate....



and showing it goes all the way to the back too....



Here's a few shots of one harddrive, and some heatsinks I picked up this afternoon - I got 4, some extras are always welcome.

Will consider carefully how these will fit into the mod, especially wrt the harddrives, but they will be used



another one...



and another one....