When I started the G45142DP project I was looking to the great G5 case design for aesthetics cooling and quietness. I had no idea what I was getting into. It turned out to be very successful on all counts.
The first part of this mod is actually an article that you can find under site news. To start the second half of the mod, I was looking for even better cooling and quietness. I added several other options too. The include front fan controls, a Ati 9600 video card, USB 2.0 and some better engineering of the cases cooling zones.
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Tools I used for the project- corded drill with sever bit sizes, dremel, plexi cutter, electrical tape, metal shears, and several sizes of screw drivers.
Lets start with the cooling aspect. I wanted to redo the cooling zones to tighter tolerances for both looks and effectiveness. This involved cutting and mounting all new plexi parts. I measured and remeasured each area and used cardboard to make a template. I ordered several new fans for the part of the project also. In total I have 2x 60mm Sunons for the power supply, 2x 80mm Panaflos for the cpus, 120mm Panaflo for the pci/lower hd/graphics area, and finally a 80mm Panaflo for the upper zone for the dvd-r and raid 0 set. I also replaced the heatsink on the graphics card with a fansink. I initially put the fans in with no controller and they worked great. They were a little noisey (the GPU fansink was the worst), but it was cooler. I ordered Vantec fan controller to run each cooling zone (except the power supply). The problem with the controller was that it was big, a full optical bay mount. To mount it, I drilled four holes in the front of the case for the knobs.
This worked out great. All of the wires needed to be cut to length and the covered in wire loom. The temps would become unbelievably low. Here is what they are at right now as I write this. I am running five programs and it has run all morning.
CPUs- 46.2C HD lower bay- 28.0C Raid set upper bay- 33.0/34.0C
That is considerably lower than before and its also so quiet I can even measure the decibels at one meter.
Here are some photos of each cooling zone (not including the power supply zone).
To add the USB 2.0 card which would also run to the front panel, I needed to move
the hard drive forward. That was a piece of cake and now I can take advantage of the new, faster USB.
The graphics card mod can be found in my article on this site, under site news,
Make a 9600 a super card! For that reason I will no go any further than to say it fits snug and if you go this route get a fan controller. That little fan is a noisy bugger!
The next step for this computer is to add real carbon fiber sheets. I plan to make two bezels for the front controls. As you can see in the photos, the black areas are electrical tape, not very aesthetically pleasing I must say. I knew carbon fiber would be coming so I just covered the areas with the tape. In all, there will be five areas in the case covered in carbon. I also plan to put a large bezel on the back of the case to spiffy it up. I already replaced the sheet metal on the back which will be included in part three. For those interested in some of the other cooling parts used in the project see the Really Cool G4 mod guide. This was my first attempt and this project.
In the end this is the biggest mod I've ever done. After part three, it will be finished...I think. I consider it to be very successful and I am proud of all the work and planning it took. Hopefully this mod will inspire readers in some way in their own mods.
-maestro
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