I finally got around to buying a g3 to swap the blue panels on my g4. I know its kinda old but it still has a powerpc processor and runs my os9 stuff. I also swapped the latch mechanism that goes under the mobo because mine was broke. this required cutting a square hole because the g4 has a square piece that looks like it acts as a heatsink for something on the backside of the board.



next on the to do list is clearing the side panels, fixing my secondhand blue and white studio display, selling the graphite-white g3, adding fans, and upgrading the processor.



I want to make a window on the bottom half of the case by cutting a hole in the metal and somehow gasketing it to the clear panel. then I plan on removing the fan and cage and mounting clear fans straight to the clear plastic. but im not sure how big I can make the window before the case looses structural integrity.

Then I can think about making it faster. I am tempted to buy a upgrade processor like the ones from newertech, sonnet, or owc. But it might be cheaper to either replace the whole motherboard, or just the processor with the ones from a mdd or quicksilver.

Both are beautiful machines. I currently have two G4 towers I'm gonna' rebuild and sell off on craigslist or eBay.
(Every now and then, you gotta clean out the ol' tech closet.)

Hope you plan on keeping the blue and white display (LCD model, am I right?), as you don't see many of 'em around.

The display is a Crt, but that's how I roll. The way I see it I am keeping lots of potentially harmful stuff out of the landfill. I do plan on keeping it if I can find out how to fix it. I had it hooked up for awhile and it started making a popping noise and then the picture would go away for a moment. it is currently in storage slowly discharging until I feel it is safe to open it up.

I had the Graphite 17" CRT display. The popping noise and blackout was a known defect, but the repair was more costly than a replacement monitor. Probably was one motivation for Apple to switch to LCD displays.

do you know what the cause was?

It had something to do with the power supply/converter.

yeah i just found it online its the flyback transformer.

You'll still want to discharge it. They hold it, plus they pick up and store static through the air.

Thanks Mom.. yeeesh.

I took "until I feel safe to open it up" as they figured it would be discharged. Sosumi. :-P

Man, you are quick! You really must be everywhere...


I know, you were just being safe...

I know I plan on discharging it as well, plus I got some heavy duty rubber gloves.

sosumi- lol mac joke

i just realized this should probably be posted under mods

Okay.

If in the end you have a side panel left over for some reason you could make a clock like I posted in another thread. Have you seen it.. it looked cool. I see if I can find the pic/thread.

I already have this plan to make a clock out of the innards of a hard drive. that's way down on the to do list though

Here's the pic..

That looks very nice.

ok sorry i know its been awhile, i suddenly got busy with school. i currently have the sides off and am attempting to remove the paint. the middle is easy because the alcohol just sits in a pool there and after awhile the paint just wipes off. the corners are harder though because they are higher and the alcohol doesn't get to them. ive tried cutting paper towels to fit the insides and pouring the alcohol on them but it always evaporates too fast and by the time I check it its dry again. ive gone through a half of a bottle of 90% isopropyl. so thats where i am on the progect right now.

finally got all the paint off the side panels. For the corners I ended up propping the panels up with a stick and soaking one corner at a time in alcohol in small saucer made from the bottom of a Styrofoam coffee cup. I should post some pics. It looks like some kinda weird deadfall trap. then I waxed the panels with carwax. It took care of some of the scratches but not all of them. I think I am going to try one of those eyeglass/cd scratch remover products if that doesn't work im just going to leave it like it is.

finally got the window cut in the case. I am ashamed to say that for the moast part it was not me but my dad that cut it. I really need to work on my dremel skills its like a rite of passage in the computer mod world. I like how it turned out though. I just hope I got all the metal shavings out of there.





without all the stuff inside it was light enough for my cat to knock off the desk last night. It bent the case a bit and broke a handle but I found a replacement handle for 4$ on ebay. now I am deciding how I am going to mount the fans to the clear plastic hence the circles beneath the apple.

I went over the case many times with a fine tooth brush, and then again with a rare earth magnet from a cd drive to get all the shavings out. Then I installed the fans But in the process put a big crack in the side panel. I will look for a cheap replacement while I search for a processor upgrade. If I find one I might also plan my hole positions better to make a design. as you can see only one fan lights up. I can fix that with extra leds but the fans are smelling kind of like a dead capacitor. I am wondering if I shouldn't just replace them alltogether. Ive never bought a new computer fan before, always had plenty from old computers I take apart. Maybe im smelling a type of a "new car smell"? I doubt it though.



also sence the fans are tilted the corner of one of the fans impinges on the harddrive. I plan on cutting the corner off but not until I double check the direction of the fan, because I wont be able to turn it around when I am done. Sometime I should properly roll the Ide cable for the cd drive where it goes in front of the fan and wire the fans to the original fan connector.



also I broke part off of the latch mechanism/plastic motherboard backplate because the case is harder to close since the cat knocked it on the floor. I can replace it with the original g4 one. The only thing is the sticker wont be blue.