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Written by Jason Schrader
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Friday, 01 September 2006 |
This mod started out as just putting the G4 in a PC case so I could quiet it down and get some betting cooling. Well, it spun out of control to become a full fledged Mac mod. Read on and see how I turned a MDD G4 into the Killer Bee. My goals for this mod well pretty simple. Clean and quiet. That would mean no case windows, clean installation and patience. I have broken it down into sections so that those that want to read only certain sections can do so. These include components, fabrication, paint work, and final gallery.
Here is what the Mirrored Door G4 PowerMac looked like before I tore into it. A beautiful case but I wanted something more unique and efficient. I wanted a nice looking case that wasn't too big and was high quality. I chose a LIan Li because of their build quality. This case was perfect except for the fact that the MDD has its pci slots and I/O reversed which I will get to later.
Lets take a look at the components I chose for this mod.
Components
- MDD G4 1.25DP with 4mb cache.
- Apple copper heatsink
- ATI 9800xt pc card flashed to Mac with modified Arctic Cooling 3 cooler
- 2GB memory w/ heat spreaders
- Maxtor MXlll ATA-100 250 GB hard drive
- Maxtor MXlll SATA 250 GB hard drive
- Maxtor MXlll SATA 250 GB hard drive
- Firmtek SATA pci card
- 5 port USB 2.0
- Vantec Nexus fan controller
- Stock power supply w/Sunon fans
- Arctic Cooling 80mm fan
- Arctic Cooling 80mm fan
- Panasonic Panaflo 80mm L fan
- CoolLink silent clear/blue 120mm fan
- FrozenCPU sound matting
- FrozenCPU dual 4" ccfls
- FrozenCPU 12" ccfl
- Lian Li vented bezel
- Thermaltake hard drive carrier
- Carbon Fiber
- MNPCTech aluminum power button
- Stainless steel hex head screws
- Apple Pro black keyed keyboard
- Logictech MX510
Okay, now that we have a list of parts, let us see how it went together. First, everything needed to be stripped down. The next step would be fabrication.
Fabrication
I used the original Apple mother board tray which was removed from the case and cut to fit. Next, I mocked up the rear to make the panel for it. I used aluminum bent in a vise to cover up the holes. To complete the rear, I cut another piece of aluminum to be painted yellow that the specs. sticker and logo could be place on.
The power supply would also need a tray for it to rest on because it is so much larger than a ATX model. I use a sheet of aluminum to make the tray and covered the inside around the psu with sound dampening mat.
I removed the front fan bracing to help lower the noise that the intake fan made. The front panel was also covered on the inside with sound matting.
Fan Controller
To make the fan controller match the case, I drilled four holes into one of the smaller bezels and coved it with carbon fiber.
The top bezel (vented Lian Li) would also be covered with carbon fiber and I drilled out a small area to help cool the power supply. I did not drill out the whole panel to keep the pressure within the case. That way the psu would also pull air from the lower areas of the case.
CPU Airflow
To help airflow over the cpus, I cut a piece of aluminum which would be covered in carbon fiber. This forces the air the two cpu fans create out of the case.
The last piece of case fabrication was the top stripe. I got a piece of aluminum bar stock and cut it to size before painting it yellow and attaching it with epoxy.
I chose the Arctic Cooling Silencer because I had used the before and they are super quiet. I knew when I ordered it that it would not fit in the case. When I got it, I first needed to mod it to fit the card (go figure). A small area would need to be dremeled out for the card to seat itself. On the rear I added Zalman heatsinks to the memory as the large brace would not fit. To aid in getting the hot air out, I actually sliced off a large part of the cooler. There is no pci slot to vent the card, so cutting it shorter allowed the air to go out with the cpus exhaust. The cooler would also leave me with 3 memory slots instead of four. The cooler hit one of the tabs on that empty ram slot, so it needed to be removed. This part of the mod was a lot of work, but proved to be very quiet and overclocks well.
Power & Lighting
The power on components would need to be modified to work with the new case. I wired the billet power button to the power tabs and also solder an led to the board so that I could keep the sleepingmac throbbing.
Sound matting was used throughout the case to keep things quiet. It made temps only slightly warmer.
The ccfls were placed within the case to shine blue light through the vent holes on the front and side of the case. The two front ccfls work in conjunction with a clear framed transparent blue intake fan. You can see the carbon fiber cpu cover through the side of the case and it gives off a nice blue glow.
  
Paint Work
This would prove to the the most difficult and lengthy part of the mod. It is also the best paint job I have ever done. If you decide to do this style of paint work, be prepared to take your time....like 9 days. The keyboard and mouse are also painted to match the case. Lets start off with a list of materials.
Supplies:
- Krylon Primer Spray Paint
- Krylon Interior/Exterior Sun Yellow Gloss Spray Paint
- Krylon H2O Latex Spray Paint
- Turtle Wax Rubbing Compound
- Mequiars Deep Crystal Polish
- Wet Sand Paper 800/1000/2000
- Sanding block
- DIsh Soap
The first step is to cover every piece with primer. It dries quickly, but I gave it a day of drying time before sanding. For sanding the primer, I went with only 2 stages. I put my 600 paper on the block and soaked it in warm water and a small amount of dish soap. Then I sanded from the bottom of each piece to the top in the same direction wetting the block for each pass. After that I moved to 1000 grit and used it in the same manner. I let all of the pieces dry and moved on to paint.
I started the base layers of paint with six coats. I recoated every 15 min. I let this dry for a full 24 hours before sanding. Wetsanding this would have three stages. It is the same as the primer, but I added wetsanding with 2000 grit paper. After drying I went with 4 more coats of paint. I again waited 24 hours before sanding that stage. I sanded it the same way as the last stage.
Now I switched paints. That may seem strange and I will admit I thought it was too at first. Now I would add four more coats of Krylon H2O in Yellow Sea. This paint cover so much better than standard spray paint and it has a smother finish. Wet sanding a water based paint leaves some serious drying time. This time I waited 3 days to wet sand. I also used less steps as before. This time I left out the 800 and only sanded with the higher 1000/2000. After letting it dry, I went onto making it shine like a mirror.
For working the finish I use a two step process. I buffed the finish with Turtle Wax Buffing compound using two pads. I worked a small area at a time buffing the removing it. This is very time consuming, so make sure you have some free. This is like sanding one last time with really high grit sand paper. It will further smooth out the paint. Now I moved onto the polish from McGuires. This part will really make it shine. I rubbed on and off with two seperate pads and then used a clean pad for the final rub down.
As for the carbon, I use 3M glue backed sheets. It all cut, peel and stick. Piece O cake.
I added yellow paint details to the interior.
I finished off the interior and exterior with some decals made in Photoshop.
The final project turned out great. It is whisper quiet (although I could get some of those SilentX fans), and a pleasure to look at. I could hear the MDD in its stock form in another room of my house. Now I can only hear it as I sit at my desk. It is actually nice to listen to, as it is non obtrusive. My GE G4 is considerably louder than this mod which gives you a good idea of how loud it actually is. The temperature are looking good too. Cpu temps are in the low 40s and the hard drives are in the high 20s C. When I xBenched this mod I got a total score of 77.42 with a dual G5 PM as the 100 pt score. Some of you might be wondering why I have not modded a monitor to match. My present LCD is being moved to another computer to make way for some widescreen fun, so painting the LCD was out. I enjoyed working on this mod and I hope that some find the information here helpful in their own quests for a killer mod.
Final Gallery
  
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