"Sawtooth" inside a Quicksilver chassis

[cheeseburgersnbeer]

Hey everybody,

The work that's completed here was done a few months ago, but I just got around to putting up photos.





The AGP cases and the Digital Audio cases essentially have the same form factors, the difference being the placement of logicboard stands and input sockets. It was a matter of removing some of the stands and replacing the rear plate frame thing, with one that had come from a beaten up AGP case I had found, and there you go.
Though one problem does still remain, concerning the power button. The system won't start, using a quicksilver powerbutton circuit board connected to a sawtooth logicboard.
While I've tried some of the guides at xlr8urmac and outofspec.com, it hasn't worked out yet. I did try an old blueberry apple keyboard, with the power button on it, and it started up fine.
I suppose that modifing the chassis to fit a sawtooth powerbutton board isn't such a bad idea.

[aquamac]

Hi cheeseburgersnbeer & welcome,

Well, you made a very nice job, that is for sure. I always thought that the Quicksilver cases were the best looking of the G4's. What processor upgrade do you have? Looks like a Giga! There are also still a no of upgrade options for you:

If you have broadband you could install a 54g PCI card.

For graphics, you could install a flashed 6200,

Maxing out the memory always helps too.

On the power button front, I guess the easiest thing to do is try and follow the circuits of both boards and see where they differ, would certainly be nice to get that working. If I can find any info on this over the weekend I will post back here.

Regards,

aquamac.

[B B]

Hello cheeseburgersnbeer,

Nice job indeed. It won't help you a lot but some years ago, three or four I built a G4 Gigahertz inside a Quicksilver case and I bought a Quicksilver Statup Board, because it was cheaper and compatible. Of course I had to adapt, like you did, the IN/OUT panel.

[cheeseburgersnbeer]

Thanks guys,
The system is actually my second, it just so happened that I had gained enough parts to build a whole new system, and in the process make it prettier. The processor is an OWC Mercury Extreme 7455 1.0ghz from macsales.com. I read that it was manufactured for OWC, by Fastmac. But as you said it does look more like a Gigadesign model.
Eventually, I'm going to move all the parts from my other G4 to this case. Including a 9800 radeon card with one of those giant articool heatsink/fans, along with 2gb of branded ram. Later I need to order a usb card and a serial ata card, along with an atx powersupply I have lying around to finish off the hardware part of the modifications.
Hey Aqua-Mac, I did attempt to try what you suggested and trace the circuits, but that made me kind of crazy. I ended up tearing apart a in/out connector ribbon trying to figure out what would make juice flow through the system, to no avail.
BB, it's depressing how much the price of hardware depreciates every week. I have several cases leftover which I think, the cost of shipping will be greater than any money I'll make off of ebay.
On another note, 50mm (for the processor) fans are a pain to hunt down, not only that they are just as loud as the original factory fans. So that's another mod I'll have to take of soon. Probably an 80mm or 92mm silentX or acoustic brand fan.

[B B]

Yes it is depressing for those who have some parts to sell, but not for those who want to buy. My second Mac was a G3 W/Blue bought for $2 000. You can imagine how I was depress to sell it for $ 700 2 years later and today you can get one for $ 100.
I built one back just from nostalgy and because it's cost me less than $ 80.

[aquamac]

Oh one other thing,

That spare PCI slot above the AGP slot is a great place to mount a PCI exaust fan without losing a slot & helps take heat away from your processor. If it is too noisey, you can run it at 7 volts or 5 volts.

[cheeseburgersnbeer]

Absolutely, someone's going to get a bargain, and yes that's what I was thinking, to either purchase a slot fan or make an aluminum exhaust venting hot air directly from the heatsink.

[reddrag0n]

Try this, it might help, or it might not...

Wiring up a G4 mobo is almost painless. Apple conviently uses a 10 pin header with the same pinout across the G4 line up through the 'Quicksilver' machines. To power the machine up, you only need wire a momentary between pins 6 and 3. Most PC cases also have a reset switch, use it as such by wiring it to pins 8 and 3, or use it as a sleep button by going to pins 4 and 3. (The one obnoxious part of this setup, Apple used a common ground, so all switches/LEDs have one leg wired to pin 3.) Simple, right?

The Power LED is a bit more of a pain as you can't just wire it directly. Instead, you need a transistor, fed power from pin 7 which is hot whenever the system has power. The transistor is signaled by pin 1, and sends its output to the transistor. This is the writeup I used to set my 'throbber' LED up. To do things properly, you're going to need a soldering iron, a 10 pin ribbon cable and plug, heat shrink tubing, a transistor and resistors, wire posts, and possibly a case or other enclosure. To do things ghetto, scotch tape and a lack of patience are all thats required.



Extra credit for noticing Serial Port headers use a 10 pin cable and plug that is a perfect fit...

[cheeseburgersnbeer]

Yeah,
I've actually read that page, and I can say that it left me more confused than before. What the heck is a "wire momentary" ?

[reddrag0n]

A momentary wire is a small wire you connect or "short" between the green (power on) wire and the black (ground) wire in order to dry boot (turn on) the power supply to see if it will boot up. It's probably the same thing to boot up the machine if you don't have a power on board.

[cheeseburgersnbeer]

Ok that makes sense, thanks Red Dragon.
I'll try that out and let you know how that works out.