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| Black Powermac |
| Written by Stephen W. Moore | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 12 September 2007 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This is my first major modification of any computer. I built a PC (which I sold for parts a few months ago), and did some soldering in school, but other than that, I haven't taken on a project of this scale before. Needless to say, there were some great "learning opportunities" throughout the course of the project, which ended up taking over 200 hours to complete. I hope that this guide might give some others new ideas, and help them avoid some of the mistakes I made along the way. This mod seemed a lot simpler in my head at the start of the project than it ended up being. Unex-pected difficulties arose throughout the project, but that's also what made it fun in the end. My ma-jor goals for the project were achieved. I plan on continuing to improve the Black PowerMac, but at a much slower pace now that the contest is over. I'm thinking of adding a larger radiator, and a few other small tweaks. The project can be broken down into six major sections, listed in the table of contents. Some por-tions of the overall mod can be done independently, but most of the changes are interdependent. Parts lists are included for each section of the mod. Specs from before and after modification are on the following page. Pictures of the finished mod are on the page after the specifications.
HARD DRIVE CARRIER Overview: I had one small problem when figuring out where to add extra hard drives to my PowerMac: there's only room for four hard drives in the stock case. That wasn't going to let me fit my four 500 GB hard drives that I wanted to use in a RAID 5 array, in addition to the two SATA drives I already had installed. To fix that problem, I created a new hard drive carrier to carry all four drives in one loca-tion, and give me easy access to them in case of a drive failure.
Step 1: Preparation DISASSEMBLY I stripped down the PowerMac completely for this mod, so I was just left with the sheet metal case. The disassembly instructions in the PowerMac service manual were a big help the first time I took the case apart. I wanted to fit the hard drives above the optical carrier, which meant that the PCI card holder (for extended cards) needed to be removed from the case. That was easily achieved with some needle nose pliers. I also removed the airport antenna, since it only got in the way and I wasn't planning on adding an airport card to the mac. OPTICAL CARRIER MODIFICATIONS The default location of the optical drive is in the upper location in the optical drive carrier. I de-cided to move the drive to the lower position, and cut off the top of the carrier, to provide more room for the hard drives. Tin snips were used to cut the carrier down to the size I needed. I cut below the top of the optical drive, so the sheet metal wouldn't be sticking out and get in the way of other parts. MOVE THE PRAM BATTERY When test fitting all of the parts for the hard drive carrier, I noticed that the PRAM battery on the motherboard would be in the way, and prevent the case door from closing with the hard drives in-stalled. To fix this problem, I moved the PRAM battery from the logic board to a spot on the case door where there was some room. I first broke the batter holder off of the logic board with need nose pliers, then used a soldering iron to remove the pins that had mounted it to the board. In its place, I soldered two wires with a 2 pin fan connector. I taped two wires and the male side of the fan connector to the battery using electrical tape, then secured it to the case door with a zip tie and zip tie adhesive mount.
PRAM battery holder on logic board (left) and removing the holder (right)
Wires soldered onto logic board (left) and final PRAM battery location (right)
 Step 2: Creating the Carrier HARD DRIVE CARRIER MODIFICATIONS Because I wasn't going to mount the carriers in the case like they were intended, the tabs and posts built into the sheet metal were only going to get in the way. I used a hack saw to remove the posts on the back of each carrier, and needle nose pliers to remove all of the tabs. I didn't cut the tabs with the pliers, but just bent them back and forth until the material fatigued and they broke off. I also used the pliers to break off the plastic piece on the side of each carrier. ASSEMBLING THE TWO HALVES I used double sided tape to attach the two drive carriers to each other, but epoxy would work as well. To fit the tape on each carrier, I layed it next to the rolled over sheet metal edge on the front of the carrier, and cut it to fit next to that edge. I repeated this four times, so both edges of each carrier were covered in tape. I then aligned the top and bottom carriers, and pressed the tape to-gether. The tape was surprisingly strong, and even holds when four hard drives are installed.
This picture shows the completed carrier with hard drives installed.
 Note the white strip of tape between the top and bottom halves. Step 3: Installing the Carrier DRILL MOUNTING HOLES IN CASE AND INSTALL SLIDES I temporarily installed the optical drive, to figure out where to install the drawer slides in the case, and assembled an angle bracket to each slide. Only one screw attaches the slide to the bracket. Some epoxy might have help secure the slides, but the screw held just fine on its own, so I didn't bother. After marking the hole locations, four per angle bracket, I drilled holes in the case, and mounted the slides with screws and nuts. The nuts are on the outside of the case, since they took up less space than the screw heads.
Slides mounted in case, showing hole locations from a different position I had tried that didn't work out
DRILL MOUNTING HOLES IN CARRIER The final section of each drawer slide detached from the rest of the slide, which allowed me to use them as layout guides on the drive carrier. I set the carrier on top of the slides in the case to mark where the slides fit, then detached the end pieces and taped them to the carrier to mark the holes I would need to drill. After drilling holes in the carrier, I used screws and nuts to attach the slides to the carrier.
Slide pieces taped to the carrier to figure out hole locations
After the slides are attached to the drive carrier, I just slide them back onto the slides mounted in the case, and the carrier was complete. In the picture of the slides attached to the carrier (above) you can see the release mechanism for each slide that lets them detach. This was useful when I needed to remove the drive carrier to reach behind it when working on the fan mod described later in this guide. Step 4: Creating the New Cable Pathway LAYING OUT THE HOLE LOCATIONS I needed the SATA cables for the hard drives to reach the RAID PCI card, but I didn't want them to turn into a rat's nest inside the case. When I disassembled the case, I noticed that the case door was actually a double walled panel, to help cool some components on the bottom of the logic board. I decided to use this extra space to route the SATA data cables for all six hard drives (four in the RAID array, two in the normal drive carrier). The locations of the holes I cut are shown below, marked with masking tape.
Hole locations marked on case door. Lower hole location (left) and upper location (right)
 CUTTING HOLES IN THE CASE DOOR To cut the sheet metal I used a RotoZip with a metal cutting bit. I'm sure a dremel would work as well, but I think the RotoZip allowed me to cut faster and cut tighter corners. The upper hole ended up being a bit too wide, and I cut through both layers of sheet metal in one location. Some duct tape fixed this (does it always?), but I should have double checked my layout before hand to prevent that problem. CLEAN-UP AND TEST FIT THE CABLES I made sure to get all the little metal chips out of the case using a vacuum cleaner, and then folded some duct tape over the cut edges. Again, something else might have worked better than duct tape, but it does the job. I then pushed all of the cables through and made sure they fit before moving on. The red cables in the picture below are for the two hard drives that will fit in the stock drive carrier in the bottom front of the case.
Completed drive carrier (left) and routed cables (right)
 II. POWER SUPPLY REPLACEMENT Overview: By installing the new hard drive carrier where I did, I couldn't use the stock power supply unit (PSU) anymore. The stock PSU was pretty big for the case, and removing it provided more room for addi-tional modifications. A normal ATX power supply would be very difficult to fit into the non-ATX MDD case, so I went with Shuttle PC's power supplies instead. Shuttle makes very small PC's, and they also happen to sell spare parts on their online store, which is where I picked up two 250 watt power supplies. I considered using just one power supply, which would probably work, but I wasn't sure if it would provide enough power for all that I wanted to add to the case. Using two power supplies allowed me to use one power supply for the logic board (which includes the CPU and PCI cards) and one for all of the drives and fans.
Step 1: Mounting the Supplies REMOVE THE POWER SUPPLY SUPPORT The stock power supply had a sheet metal support just under the power outlet for the computer. To fit the two shuttle power supplies where I wanted to place them, I needed to remove the support. I used a drill to drill out the rivets, and the bracket fell out of its place. CREATE A CARRIER FOR THE POWER SUPPLIES I wanted to mount the two new power supplies in the case in a way that was secure, didn't take up much space, but was easy to remove. Because I wanted to install them where a hard drive carrier used to fit in the case, I just cut up the carrier, and used the back plate of the carrier as a mount for the power supplies. I used tin snips to cut away all the material I didn't need, then a hammer to make sure it was flat.
Bracket with rivets drilled out (left) and carrier for the power supplies (right)
 TESTING FOR FIT After removing the power supply bracket, and creating a mounting plate, I checked to make sure the power supplies would both fit in the case. They fit fine at first, but then I realized that there wasn't any room for the molex connector for the optical drive.
Checking the power supplies for fit in the case
FURTHER OPTICAL CARRIER MODIFICATIONS Because I needed more room for the power plug for the optical drive, I had to move the drive for-ward in the case by about 1/4". Luckily there was just enough room in front of the drive to accomo-date this change. I drilled new mounting holes in the drive carrier, and cut one of the plastic tabs off of the drive door panel, and the optical drive fit in just fine while leaving just enough room for the power supplies.
Modified drive mount holes in the optical carrier (left) and the tab that was removed from the face plate (right)
MOUNT THE NEW POWER SUPPLIES ON THE CARRIER To mount the power supplies to the hard drive carrier, I first marked out their locations on the car-rier. I wanted to mount the carrier to their lids, so that I could remove the power supplies from the carrier if I ever needed to. I then used epoxy to attach the power supply lids to their drive carrier mount. I mounted the lids one at a time, so I could make sure they were in the proper location.
Mounting the first lid (left) and then the second (right)
 Step 2: The New Power Cable CUT MAIN POWER CABLE OFF OF APPLE PSU To make the new power supplies work with my PowerMac, I needed one of them to use the logic board power connector from my mac, instead of the ATX connector it came with. I did this by cut-ting the bundle of power wires from my PowerMac's original power supply, and reconnecting it to one of the new power supplies. MATCHING VOLTAGES Even though the number of wires in the Apple connector was different than the Shuttle power sup-ply, the color schemes used by all manufacturers are the same. I followed a couple guides online re-garding power supply modifications, and matched up the correct wires between the power supply and mac power cable. Each connection needed to be soldered together then covered in heat shrink tubing. I probably should have cut the mac power cable a bit shorter, since it is a few inches too long when assembled in the case.
Apple power cable (left) and Shuttle power supply (right)
 THE POWER-ON WIRE The green wire in a computer power supply, when connected to a ground, tells the power supply to turn on. To make sure that both power supplies turned on at the same time, I needed to add an ex-tra green wire to run between both power supplies. Make sure that this connection is good using a multi-meter before moving on past this step. Half of my computer didn't power up at first because of a poor soldering job on this connection, and I had to disassemble it and figure out what went wrong.
The second power-on wire
 Step 3: Device Wire Harness HARD DRIVES I wanted all of the wiring in my PowerMac to be clean, and tried to avoid any excess wiring if possi-ble. To power all six hard drives, I made custom wire harnesses using 90 degree SATA power con-nectors scavenged from other power cords. I then connected them to the device power cables on one of the two power supplies.
Two hard drive harness (left) and four hard drive harness (right)
 OPTICAL DRIVE There wasn't much room left behind the optical drive, even after moving it forward in the case, so I had to make a custom power connector. I used tin snips to cut down the standard 90 degree molex connector, then soldered it onto four wires going to a normal straight molex connector. This plugged into the wire harness that was used to power the fans as well.
Cut down power plug (left) and finished optical drive power cable (right)
 FANS The power for the fan controller was provided using the power cable that came with the controller, though I soldered it into the wire harness from the power supply, instead of using a bulky molex connector. PUMP The pump for the liquid cooling unit required 12v DC, so I soldered a 2 pin power connector onto a 12v line and ground line from the power supply used to power the logic board. The pump speed is not controlled through the fan controller, which is fine, because I wanted it to run at full speed all the time. CUT UNNECESSARY WIRES IN SHUTTLE PSUS I didn't need all of the wires from the Shuttle power supply to power my PowerMac, so I cut them down inside the case. I had to make sure that the bare ends were covered with heat shrink tubing or electrical tape, because they will cause a short if they are not. One 5v wire was not properly covered, and the power supply would not start up as a result. Step 4: Power Cable CUT TWO POWER CORDS I needed to power both power supplies at the same time, but the PowerMac case only had one power outlet. To provide power to both power supplies, I first cut off the ends of two black PC power supply cables. One cable was cut shorter than the other because of the different positions of the power supplies in the case. SOLDER POWER CORDS TO OUTLET I removed the power outlet from an old PC power supply to use as the outlet for my PowerMac. It was a good power outlet because it had a plastic flange around its edges with mounting holes. I sol-dered both power cables to the power outlet, making sure that the hot, ground and neutral lines were all in the correct location. I covered the solder connections with electrical tape, though heat shrink tubing would probably have been a better choice. I did use heat shrink tubing, however, to hold both cables together.
Close up of the power outlet (left) and the whole power cable harness (right)
 MOUNTING THE POWER OUTLET To mount new power outlet in the back of the case, I held it in place, and marked the sheet metal on the outside of the case with a marker. I drilled out two holes next to the existing rectangular hole, and then used self tapping plastic screws to fix the outlet in place. Holes drilled next to the power outlet hole in the back of the case (left) and the power outlet installed (right)  III. CASE COOLING Overview: After finishing the power supply and hard drive modifications, I reassembled and tested the com-puter. It was very, very hot. The normal fan and heat sink kept the stock CPU at a good tempera-ture, but there weren't any fans keeping the hard drives cool. To fix this problem I installed smaller fans all over the case, and a six channel fan speed controller so I could adjust the speed of each fan. I moved the fan controller knobs from the controller itself to the upper drive door of the PowerMac, so they are accessible with the case closed.
Step 1: Controller Modifications REMOVE CONTROL KNOBS I used wire snips to remove the knobs from the fan controller, since the soldering iron just wasn't doing the job. In place of the control knobs, I attached three wires so I could relocate the knobs and still have them provide input to the controller. Three pin fan connectors were then attached to each set of three wires. These plugs will connect with the plugs from the repositioned control knobs. CUT BACK OFF OF APPLE PSU FOR A MOUNTING SURFACE The open area above the power supplies and behind the hard drives looked like a good place to mount the controller, but I wanted to be able to easily remove it for whatever reason. I just used the back portion of the original power supply, that already had tabs that lock into the PowerMac case, to mount the fan controller. I used tin snips to cut the piece of metal off of the power supply case, then a hammer to flatten it out. To get rid of the foam insulation on the sheet metal, I heated it up in the oven then scraped it off. I then used epoxy to glue the controller to its new mounting plate.
Fan controller attached to its mount
 Step 2: Mounting the Control Knobs CUT PIECE OF ALUMINUM To mount the control knobs on the back of the upper drive door, I needed to first build a bracket that would hold them all. I cut a piece of angle aluminum to length, and drilled six evenly spaced holes to fit each of the knobs. HOT GLUE KNOBS INTO ALUMINUM BRACKET I used hot glue to mount each control knob in the aluminum bracket. After gluing the knobs in place, I checked the bracket for fit with the drive doors, and noticed that I would have to remove some material. The knobs on each end of the bracket were hitting the plastic of the drive door panel, so I used pliers and snips to cut away the material, which did not have any impact on the function of the doors.
Checking the control knob bracket for fit
 SOLDER WIRES ONTO KNOBS AND MOUNT ON DRIVE DOOR After the control knobs were mounted onto the aluminum bracket, I soldered three wires to the back of each knob, corresponding to the three connections it used to have with the fan controller board. Three pin connectors were added to the ends of these wires, and heat shrink tubing was used to bundle them all together. I bent the wiring off to the left hand side (from the outside of the door) so that it would fit against the side of the case, and underneath the drawer slides when fully assembled.
Wires on control knobs (left) and wires bundled up in heat shrink (right)
 KEEPING THE DRIVE DOOR SHUT The drive door with the fan knobs had a tendency to stay open just a bit, because of all the wiring behind it. To fix this problem, I drilled a small hole in the upper right corner of the fan knob bracket, and attached a rubber band between the bracket and one of the optical drive mounting screws. This was a quick last minute fix, but it works pretty well.
Rubber band to keep drive door shut
 Step 3: Installing the Fans HOT GLUE FANS TOGETHER I first decided where I wanted to place all of the fans, and then figured out how I would group them, because the fan controller only had six channels available. I used hot glue both to stick fans to-gether, and to mount them in the case. It worked surprisingly well, and was so much easier to work with than epoxy or fan screws. SOLDER FAN WIRES TOGETHER IN GROUPS After gluing two or more fans together, I then soldered their leads together in groups. I used heat shrink tubing to protect each connection, and to help organize the wiring. Only one long pair of wires was left leading to each group of fans, which I could then route back to the controller.
Fans for the rear of the case (left) and the front of the case (right)
 ROUTE WIRING FROM FANS BACK TO CONTROLLER The last step after installing fans in the case, and mounting the controller, was to route all the fan power cables back to the controller. I kept the wiring mostly to the edges of the case, and used hot glue to secure it in place when necessary. As a result, the wiring inside the case looks very clean, and stays out of the way when opening and closing the case door, rather than appearing all cluttered.
Wiring to the fan controller
 FAN LOCATIONS The pictures below show each location in which I installed fans. I used mostly 50 mm fans in the case, except for the radiator fan, PCI fan, and front air intake fans. The lower front air intake fans are actually two Verax fans taken from the Verax fan kit that was made for the MDD power supply. I'm not sure what their size is because they're a custom shape, and I don't think they can be pur-chased anymore. To accommodate a fan in the speaker grill, I had to move the speaker to the top of the case, and secure it in place with double sided tape. The speaker could also be removed, but I wanted to keep as much as possible intact.
From top left to lower right: Fans were installed in the bottom front air intake, speaker grill, hard drive carrier, rear of case door, rear of case above the power outlet, and the radiator and PCI slot
 IV. CPU COOLING & OVERCLOCKING Overview: As I mentioned, the liquid cooling section of this guide covers the first modification to the PowerMac that I made. My goal when fabricating the liquid cooler was to make it fit inside the case, similar to the liquid coolers Apple used in the PowerMac G5's. To achieve that goal, I had to machine a custom water block to fit in a mount created from the stock heat sink. The original cooler used a 120 mm radiator, but that did not fit in the case now because I moved the power sup-ply. I replaced the 120 mm radiator with an 80 mm radiator that gets the job done, but doesn't cool the processors as much. To top it all off I followed the over clocking guide on bitsandpieces.info and bumped the clock speed of each processor up to 1.5 Ghz.
Step 1: Modify the Stock Heat Sink REMOVE THE FINS The original aluminum heat sink that shipped with the DP 1.25 Ghz MDD PowerMacs was made from an aluminum base, with sheet metal aluminum fins attached with solder. I removed the fins using tin snips and needle nose pliers at first, but some of the material remained soldered to the base. To remove the leftover material, I heated up the base on a hot plate until the solder melted, then peeled off the remnants of the fins.
Heating up the base of the heat sink (left) and the heat sink with all fins removed (right)
 MACHINE THE POCKET I used Pro/Engineer and Pro/Manufacturing to model the heat sink and create all the tool paths for the Haas CNC in the machine shop at school. I layed out the processor locations in Pro/E, and then machined a pocket in the heat sink base just above them. Modifying the stock heat sink sig-nificantly reduced the effort needed to create a custom cooler, because it was already made to fit around all of the components on the PowerMac's logic and processor boards.
The Haas CNC used to machine the water block and mount (left) and the finished heat sink base (right)
 DRILL AND TAP THE MOUNTING HOLES I used a drill press and 10-32 tap to finish up the mount. the holes were drilled and tapped in loca-tions on the top of the mount and were used to attach the copper block to the aluminum base Step 2: Create the Water Block MACHINE BOTH HALVES OUT OF THE COPPER BAR Using the same CNC from the previous step, and Pro/E and Pro/Manufacturing, I machined upper and lower halves of a water block out of a bar of copper. The block was designed to have two NPT ports in the top, and a snaking path through the interior to improve heat transfer from the block to the liquid coolant. After the top half was removed from the copper bar, the hole for the NPT port was drilled.
The bottom (left) and top (right) halves of the water block after one machining operation
The two completed halves of the block (left) and a picture of them assembled together (right)
 SILVER BRAZE THE TWO HALVES TOGETHER I brazed the two halves of the water block together to create a water tight seal, and a strong me-chanical connection. Brazing is similar to soldering, and uses silver as a filler compound. I applied flux to both halves of the block, then sandwiched them together around strips of silver brazing ma-terial. A steel piped was placed on top of the pieces to hold them together, and then a torch was used to heat them until the silver melted. I had help from the guy that ran our shop when doing this, because I didn't feel like ruining the water block or burning the shop down, hehe.
Flux applied to both halves of the block (left) and heating the blocks together (right)
 TAP THE NPT PORTS After the two halves of the block were brazed together, I tapped the holes for the NPT ports. Un-fortunately I went too deep with the tap on one hole, and ended up having to solder a fitting into the port, instead of using thread tape. NPT threads are tapered, so the depth of the tap matters, keep that in mind when tapping the holes. Step 3: Put it all Together ASSEMBLE THE PUMP TO THE WATER BLOCK I connected the pump to the water block inlet using brass 3/8" tube fittings. The elbow fitting was soldered in place with plumbing solder and a torch, because I messed up the tapping of the threads. The NPT connection to the pump was made with normal thread tape.
Pump assembled to water block with brass tube fittings
 MODIFY THE RESERVOIR I drilled out the bottom hole of the acrylic reservoir that I had purchased online, to accomodate a larger fitting. I only had to do this because I couldn't find the appropriate adapter fitting to fit be-tween the pump and reservoir. It ended up working out very well, since it took up less space than an adapter fitting would have. The upper port of the reservoir was also modified, to fit a hose barb with 1/8" NPT threads in the port. EPOXY THE RESERVOIR TO FITTING After drilling out the bottom port of the reservoir, I used epoxy to glue them together, and create a good seal. To ensure that the reservoir was positioned properly, I assembled the fitting to the pump first. Epoxy was applied to the reservoir and fitting before fitting them together.
Drilled out reservoir port (left) and gluing the reservoir to the fitting (right)
 ROUTE THE TUBING I had to be careful to avoid kinks in the tygon tubing when routing it from the reservoir and pump to the radiator. I cut the hose barb end of the brass 1/4" NPT to hose barb fitting to help prevent kinking in the tygon tubing. Also, zip ties and zip tie mounts helped to keep the tubing in place while squeezing it just enough to prevent kinking.
Liquid cooler from the top (left) and the back (right)
 MOUNT THE FAN ON THE RADIATOR The radiator already had holes for mounting a fan to its face, however, I couldn't find any good screws to use. Hot glue saved the day, and actually provided a very tight connection to the radiator. The cooler won't ever get hot enough to melt the glue either, so that wasn't something I had to worry about. FILL THE SYSTEM WITH COOLANT I filled the reservoir with some liquid then powered the pump on for a few seconds to push it into the system. I repeated this process until the system was filled with fluid, and then let it run over night to get all the bubbles out and make sure it didn't leak. Step 4: Overclocking LOTS OF PATIENCE I used the PowerMac overclocking guide already on macmod.com to overclock the processors, so I won't go into much detail here. The best advice I can offer is to make sure you've read through the guide 2-3 times before touching the processor board with your soldering iron. I also used a fresh tip on the iron to make sure I didn't mess things up. REMOVE RESISTORS FROM PROCESSOR BOARD Using a soldering iron and tweezers I slowly pried the small resistors off of the processor board that set the bus speed multiplier. I removed three resistors on each side of the board to boost the multi-plier from 7.5 (1.25 Ghz) to 9 (1.5 Ghz). INSTALL AND TEST After the processor board was modified, I installed it in my PowerMac and crossed my fingers. I heard the startup chime, which means it didn't break, and was very relieved. This was definitely the most tense part of the whole mod, because one mistake would have cost so much. V. INTERNAL BLUETOOTH Overview: I didn't order my PowerMac with bluetooth or airport, because I was trying to save money at the time and didn't see a use for either technology in a desktop computer. I've since changed my mind about bluetooth, and wanted to add it to the power mac, but didn't want to use up an existing USB port. Instead, I bought a USB/Firewire PCI card, and hard wired a bluetooth USB dongle to the internal USB port.
Step 1: Remove the USB Ports FROM THE PCI CARD I tried to be careful and use a soldering iron to remove the UCB port from the PCI card, but, that just didn't work. Needle nose pliers and wire snips (brute force method) worked very well. Make sure, however, that you don't damage the contacts on the PCB, since you'll need to solder wires to them. FROM THE BLUETOOTH DONGLE Using the soldering iron was more successful on the bluetooth dongle's USB port than the PCI card's. I slowly pried the port off of the dongle as much as I could, then ended up using wire snips to finish it off. Step 2: Connect the Two Devices SOLDERING WIRES ONTO THE PCI CARD The USB port was attached to the PCI card with through hole pins, so it wasn't too hard to melt the solder in each hole, and push a new wire through. Be patient, however, because sometimes the wire doesn't go through all the way, and it can be frustrating. SOLDERING WIRES ONTO THE DONGLE Soldering wires onto the dongle was much easier than the PCI board, since the dongle's port was attached using surface mount soldering. I added a small amount of solder to each surface mount pad, and then attached the wires. I used heat shrink tubing at both ends of the wires to protect the solder connections and add some support.
The PCI card and dongle with ports removed (left) and with wires attached (right)
 HOT GLUE THE ATTACHED DONGLE TO THE PCI CARD I finished off the bluetooth modification by hot gluing the dongle onto an open portion of the PCI card. I did this just to make sure it wouldn't get caught on anything when opening and closing the case. VI. EXTERIOR MODIFICATIONS Overview: Even though this is the last of the mod sections, it was one of the first changes to the PowerMac that I made. I wanted to get away from the silvery gray stock look, but still have an Apple feel. I spent some time looking around Apple's website, and decided I would make the PowerMac look like the black MacBook. I was considering making the Apple logos light up white, like the MacBook, but I ended up covering them in metal foil, to match the mirrored drive doors. I am very happy with the result. This kind of mod has been done quite a few times already by others, so I won't go into too much detail on the paint removal in this guide. I also started this part of the mod before I knew about the contest, so I don't have many pictures of the steps I took.
Step 1: Remove the Paint DISASSEMBLY I already had removed the side panels from the case when I first disassembled it, but I thought I'd mention one tricky part of the disassembly, the rear panel. The rear panel fits around the case lock-ing mechanism near the top of the case. When you try to pull the panel off around the plastic lock, it won't fit. You really have to yank on the back panel to remove it, and then smack it pretty hard when reassembling the case. I was worried I would break the panel the first time I did this, but the material is actually very tough. SOAK IN ISOPROPRYL ALCOHOL I had trouble figuring out what I could use as a container to soak all the case parts, until I found a large plastic storage tub at Bed Bath & Beyond. I had used smaller versions of the same container before, and the larger tub was just big enough to fit the PowerMac side panels. The panels didn't all fit in the soaking tub at the same time, so I had to move them through in groups. 91% isopropyl is critical for this step. I tried using more diluted alcohol, and it barely had an effect on the paint. 91% removed it easily after only soaking for a few hours. SCRUB OFF OLD PAINT I first used a paper towel to scrub off the paint from the case panels, since I had read about that in a guide online. That wasn't working so well for me, however, so I went out and bought some cheap tooth brushes. The tooth brushes were amazing, and scrubbed the paint off almost right away. Where the tooth brushes wouldn't fit, I used Q-tips soaked in the isopropyl. These worked very well for the interior corners of the panels. Make sure to soak the panels again if you were not able to remove all the paint in one go, since you don't want the silver paint showing up when you paint the panels. Step 2: Apply New Paint CLEAN ALL OF THE PARTS...AGAIN I made sure, especially on the side panels, to clean the surfaces that I was going to paint black. There are a few small areas where I had trouble getting off all of the paint, and they are visible if you look closely at the case. Using Q-tips soaked in isopropyl alcohol is a good way to get at the extra little bits. MASK THE PANELS After the old paint was cleaned off of the panels, I had to mask them to prepare for the final paint job. I didn't want any of the black paint to get on the exterior of the panels, and ruin the clear plas-tic finish. I found that the best way to mask off the panels was to use long strips of masking tape. I rolled up smaller pieces of tape to plug the screw holes in some of the panels. APPLY TWO TO THREE COATS OF PAINT Make sure when you spray paint that you're in a well ventilated area, outside is probably best. I used a large card board box I had laying around to help shield the parts from debris outside when I was painting. After applying one coat of paint, a second coat can be applied after about 15 minutes. When the paint dried to the touch I held the panels up to a light to see if I could see through them at any point. If I could, I applied a third coat. Step 3: The Apple Logos REMOVE FROM SIDE PANELS One of the more difficult aspects of changing the apple logo color is actually removing the logos from the side panels. there is a small hole in the side panel behind the logo, and I read online that they can be pushed out through that hole. I didn't have any luck with that method, so I used a sharp knife to pry them out of their locations. Be very careful if you do the same, because one slip could end up cutting the logos, the side panel, or your hands (ouch). After removing the logos from the side panels, clean off the adhesive using the tip of a flat head screw driver. APPLY BARE METAL FOIL To achieve the same look as the optical drive doors on the PowerMac for the Apple logos, I had to use Bare Metal foil. The foil is sticky on one side, and is very easy to apply. It is delicate, however, so be careful so you don't scratch it off of areas you've covered. I cut out a square piece large enough to cover each logo, and then pressed it down onto the logos. I used Q-tips to help press the foil onto the plastic parts. After the foil was pressed onto the logos, I wrapped it around to the back of each logo and cut off the excess material. Small knife cuts were necessary in some areas to get rid of wrinkles from the wrapping. GLUE ONTO SIDE PANELS To attach the logos to the case side panels I used super glue. I also used some of this glue on the back of each logo to secure the foil in place.
Final logo glued on side panel (left), and a picture of the original side panel for comparison (right)
FINAL ASSEMBLY What follows are step by step instructions for assembling the completed Black PowerMac. There is a certain order of assembly, and if it's not followed, you won't get everything in the case. 1. Route the SATA cables through the case door and up the side of the case 2. Route the speaker and front panel board cables up the side of the case to the front 3. Install front panel board and attach cable 4. Attach speaker to top of case with double sided tape 5. Route IDE cable to optical drive location 6. Install 120 mm case fan 7. Assemble the front panel to the case 8. Assemble the drive doors to the case, routing the fan control wires under the drawer slides. 9. Install optical drive but don't attach the IDE cable 10. Assemble optical drive power cable to optical drive 11. Install power supplies, routing the power cables to their locations in the case 12. Install the power supply power outlet and cables, and connect them to the power supplies 13. Install the fan controller and attach it to its power cable 14. Connect all of the fan control knob wires to the fan controller. 15. Connect the fan wires to the fan controller, including the CPU fan harness 16. Install the logic board (including RAM) and connect it to the PRAM battery 17. Slide the hard drive carriers in place, and attach their power and data cables 18. Install the PCI cards and PCI fan. Attach the SATA cables to the SATA cards, and the power cable to the PCI fan. 19. Attach the processor board to the logic board, make sure thermal grease is applied to each processor. 20. Mount the liquid cooler on top of the processor board, and connect the pump power cable. 21. Assemble all case panels to the case. 22. Pray that it all works and you didn't forget any connections buried somewhere hard to find. 23. Close everything up, plug it in, and press the power button! REFERENCE MATERIAL There are plenty of useful documents and websites to help with modifying your own MDD PowerMac, and I've included a list of the ones I used below. If you have trouble finding any of them, I'd be happy to email you a PDF if I have it. Websites · www.macmod.com · www.bitsandpieces.info Documents · PowerMac G4 Developer Note · PowerMac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors) Service Source · PowerPC G4 Architecture White Paper
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