Hack Pro Mod

[norsko87]

Now I have finally received my Mac Pro Enclosure.. It was brand new and sealed! Awesome!

Attachments:

[aquamac]

Nice,

What plans do you have?

[norsko87]

I am not really sure..
I am kinda clueless.. I just want something that first of all will fit.

And i am thinking the best of the best. 16gig ram, geforece 285 (2gb), and at least i7 Quad Core of at least 3 ghz.. Any ideas?

I just want it to be able to boot mac os x, that is of course important.

[blackknight]

Seems like a lot of firepower for just "booting os x"!! haha. Good luck with the search and we're here to help.

[norsko87]

Well.. I just wanna make sure that it can boot os x.. Basically i will try to make it dualboot, so i can have windows on it also for use with 3D studio max.

[HackJoe]

look after it, they dont seem to keep that colour after a while..

[norsko87]

How am i supposed to make the harddrives work?
I have inserted the PSU and the motherboard. All the cables are there. The PSU has 6 conncetions for SATA power. But how the heck do I connect SATA data cables? I got 4 of them loose, but am I able to use the HD brackets that already exists? All 4 of the brackets are serial connected and ends up in a weird looking molex-plug. I guess you all have it. So some tips, if you have: How to get it working with the Hard drives?
I appreciate your help!

Btw, I am taking pictures while i am building this thing, so I will post some of them very soon.

[aquamac]

This is the only pic I appear to have:





Look here too. This will need to be trial and error - try with an HDD you are not scared to kill!!!!

[pirloui]

Posted in insanely Mac as well; but they're more G5 over there
I got hand on a cheap Mac Pro case some weeks ago. I like it better that the G5 case, and decided to make it as stock looking as possible.
I got a Mac Pro PSU that I gutted, and replaced it with my ATX PSU.
The Hack Pro now has a sleek bar of aluminium on top

It's just half done, but here are some pics. A mess inside, but over time I will use the Apple quick release for the HDDs, clean up the mess and hopefully find the original fan block and air guide. (they are too expensive online).


The case stripped of cables. I will wire the front pannel, but another time.


A slipstream fan for silent cooling of the power supply. Should have been a Gently Typhoon, but not to be found.


Motherboard in place. Stand offs reglued with epoxy.


The interior of my Antec Earthwatts 380.


The ATX PSU bottom case was cut and bended to fit on top of the Apple stand offs.


Et Voila! an Apple ATX power supply.


Everything fits well.


Getting in place; was slightly long to get there, I hope I won't have to move it too soon.


Fan alignes nicely with the heatsinks.


Closer


Most is there.


All in place for now. As mentionned will tidy up a lot and add fans.


The back. Mac Pro power cable and foud a grey wifi antennae.

Update in a couple of weeks probably

BTW, you guys who have the fan block and ram cages and so on: Do the fan block touch the wall behind it? I would like to have the 24pin prolonger run horizontally from the front panel to the mobo, would that be possible if I get the parts? Thanks a lot for any information.

[aquamac]

Hi Pirloui,

This looks great, so nice to see another Mac Pro conversion, not so many around due to the extra agro. The power supply is done very neatly and has the benefit of looking nicely stock. The ram cage should you use one bolts in on two standoffs at the bottom but usually requires cutting around the ram. Your milage may be a little different depending on the position. Hack Joe has some photos on this forum of mods he made. This looks to be a great mod in the making and I am looking forward to seeing it as it develops. In the meantime, welcome to Hack Pro club!

[pirloui]

Thanks for the comments. I hope I will find the original internal parts. Online they are terribly expensive.

According to the "official" front panel scheme; power needs to be drawn from certain pins of the PSU motherboard plug. That's pretty violent, but I guess you got to do what you got to do.

edit: Just got the power button and LED working. Thanks to the creator of the diagram

[HackJoe]

Hi Pirloui, Your mod looks great! Really like what you've done with the PSU. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished result.

J.

[pirloui]

Thanks It's stalling a bit right now as front pannel wiring doesn't work yet, and especially I'd really love to use the original fan mounts and so on. Although if I don't find them I'll have to make a custom solution. Probably along the lines of bended sheet aluminium.

[spanky]

Hi all!

Joe sent me over this way from the InsanelyMac forums. Cheers Joe!

I'm seriously considering building a Mac Pro Hackintosh and have spent the last week reading through every page of this thread and a lot of hardware research.

I've got a 2006 Mac Pro for over three years now and I've been itching for something with a bit more power for a while now. Apple's charging way too much for their Mac Pros at the moment and I don't like the way they're going with their price markups on the Mac Pro line so I think a hackintosh is going to be the way to go.

My plan is to gut my Mac Pro and sell off the parts. There's already a Mac Pro logic board on eBay for £500 so it looks like I may be able to get a decent amount for its guts. Doing this would also mean that I could be sure to have all the genuine Mac Pro parts I need. My cat has also grown very fond of the case and spends half the day on the top using the rear hard cut handle bar as a pillow (weird).

I think I'm up to speed on most of the wiring now from reading the thread. I don't have a clue what you mean about a sata cable for usb ports on the front but I'm sure it'll be clear when I get round to opening it all up!

A few questions though:

1. It looks like the Mac Pro's fans aren't real four pin PWM fans and they're a bit of a fart arse to get working properly. Does anyone know what PWM fans might be suitable replacements? I've been planning on getting a Scythe Kama PWM 120mm to go on the CPU cooler, does anyone have any experience of these and how they compare noise wise to the Mac Pro's original fans?
2. What size is the PSU bay fan?
3. How big a gap is there from the rear of a motherboard installed in a Mac Pro case from the existing rear port holes? I'm wondering if I can get away with not cutting it out but I may have to get some slimmer cable ends for the optical out and ethernet cables I'm currently using.
4. Has anyone found a UK supplier for that PCI card with an internal FW800 socket?
5. Are there any things that I will definitely need to do a conversion? From reading this, I know that a 20/24 pin PSU extension cable is a must. Anything else? Any other power cables?

The build I'm planning would use the following components (I think):

i7 920
Asus Rampage II GENE mATX (Joe's suggestion, thanks!)
Corsair XMS3 DDR3 RAM
Prolimatech Megahalems
Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 1000W PSU
Belkin F8T016NG mini bluetooth adapter (wondering if I can hack this to use the internal Bluetooth aerial)

I'll be reusing all five of the hard drives I already have in my Mac Pro and probably the optical drive too if I can (although it is ATA). If I can afford it I'll get an LG BH08LS20 blu ray burner.

Anything stand out that I might need for the above setup? I've got all sorts of old molex cables, SATA cables and God knows what else in the garage hoarded from countless PCs before I switched to Mac so I should be ok.

If I do this then chances are it will be an over-Christmas project since work pretty much stops from about a week before Christmas. This does mean that I'd have to be sure to have everything I'd possibly need beforehand. I've already got a Dremel, loads of tools etc although I'm hoping I won't actually have to do anything to the case apart from move the logic board mounting bits.

[aquamac]

Hi spanky and welcome, lots of questions that I feel compelled to answer but I have to go to work, drat. Joe is spot on with that motherboard suggestion - that popped straight into my mind as well. Just briefly though:

1. The 2 front fans, these are nice (& quiet) montsers and I am using now in the front of my Mac hack pro:

specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/product.php?productid=9358&cat=878&page=1

I used this on the back which is one of the best fans around for quietness:

specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/product.php?productid=7557&cat=885&page=1

You will need an 8 pin extension too for the PSU to CPU extra power socket.

You do not mention graphics cards but my money is still on GeForce 285 - powerful and quiet.

Will come back later with some more suggestions.