My Black Box

[nano2nd]

I thought I'd share a little side-project I just finished. Apologies up front as this isn't a Mac Pro or G5 mod. Nothing major and no real modding skills involved but I'm reasonably pleased with the results - just not sure what I will do with it now I have it!

I recently bought a Shuttle K45 barebones with the intention of reusing some of the parts I had laying around from previous builds. The K45 Shuttle:

- based on the Intel 945 chipset
- GMA950 graphics
- onboard LAN
- 100W PSU ;D

I got the K45 for £85 and the rest I already had laying around:

- E4300 Core 2 Duo (1.8GHz)
- 2GB DDR
- 160GB SATA HDD
- Zalman CNPS8000 cooler
- Pioneer DVR-K05 slim drive

From an OS X perspective, it's solid - sleep/wake/shutdown, sound, QE/CI.



...can you tell I'm trying Aqua's image loading instructions?

The Zalman was a pretty tight squeeze and I had to clip the corners off of the plastic cowling that goes around the fan/sink. Running at full speed, the Zalman makes a lot of noise so I hid a Fanmate at the front end of the interior by the RAM and tucked the wiring out of view in the cavity between the metal case and the plastic front.





There really isn't much space in here....



One of the "marketing" features of the K45 is the ability to replace the image on the front of the case. It is held under a piece of drilled perspex so I printed a nice solid black sheet with white Apple logo in the middle and replaced the original image..



There is enough space inside the case for a slim optical drive but I'd have to cut a hole in the perspex and, as you may know, I'm not to be trusted with power tools! Instead I opted for an external USB caddy for the slim DVD I already had from my old G4 build. This works a treat.





Overall, its a nice little Hackintosh but I just don't know what to do with it

[nikonnut]

Nano,
I like it alot! I've got a pair of shuttles laying around (a little one and a mid sized one) that let me stay connected when the Hack is busy with an upgrade or testing. I feel for you about the noise as mine is annoying (to say the least) even at idle! Regardless, I like the cube like form factor and it looks right at home with the AL keyboard, Cinema display, and the JBL creatures

[nano2nd]

Yeah, the Shuttle does kick out a fair bit of noise for such a small box. The Zalman on the CPU and the 92mm on the back of the case aren't too bad - it is the tiny 40mm fan on the PSU that makes the noise. The other two are a reasonably gentle whoosh.

I've considered using a pico ATX power supply:

www.pcw.co.uk/personal-computer-world/features/2153980/power

..it works with an external power brick so is completely silent. Upshot would be I'd be able to take the original PSU out of the case as well which would make things a little more roomy. But I'm not sure the noise is bad enough to justify more tinkering and expense when it isn't even my everyday computer.

[aquamac]

Hey Nano,

Great mod - thanks for sharing with us! How did you do the apple graphics on the front of the case. Looks like it was meant to be that way - I am sure Apple will bring out a mid size computer soon, they would certainly sell a few I recon. Not every one wants an all in one imac.

[nano2nd]

I just laser printed a black sheet of paper with a white Apple logo in the middle - then cut to size and placed behind the perspex. I'm quite pleased considering it is such a lo-fi mod.

Agreed, the leap from iMac to Mac Pro is huge and there is definitely a market for something with a bit of expandability but without the huge cost of entry associated with the Mac Pro. Apple might just be concerned that they will sell less computers in the long run. When your iMac doesn't cut the mustard anymore, replace the whole thing. If you have an xMac - you can replace your own CPU, GPU etc resulting in less computer sales. Maybe.