Mac Pro/G5 Case Conversion Gallery Thread

[aquamac]

Look forward to seeing them! Nice pic and nice camera. Any ideas on processor temps yet? They must be loooow....

[HackJoe]

Apr 20, 2009 18:11:26 GMT aquamac said:

Look forward to seeing them! Nice pic and nice camera. Any ideas on processor temps yet? They must be loooow....

Hey Aqua-Mac,

Well I've done a little bit of benching as I've been pushing my overclock.

Putting 4.2ghz through its paces I used OCCT's Linpak (About the heaviest bench you can do on a CPU, Intel use there Linpak test before releasing its CPU's from QC) bench at 90% for an hour. All gravy! some high temps under load but thats one hell of a load!

on Air, @ 4.1Ghz on Motherboard shut my PC down to save the CPU as the temps went to high.. you want to find stability.. Linpak! :-p



...


Depending on Room temps is idles between 29-31 and normal load (games and the like) it rises to about 35-37 heavy load its go as high as 45 and INSANE load (only the Linpak so far) it went to 65.

I'm gonna drop the multiplier and rise the FSB and use a 1:1 strap on the RAM hit up 4500Mhz later today! this E8500 seems to eat it up!


...

Once the bench ended the Temp dropped in an instant back to 30-31. I'm starting to like this water cooling business..

J.

[aquamac]

Sounds great, you don't really get less than 30 ish this time of the year anyway because that is just a bit over room temp anyway. I suspect in the winter you may see around 25 at boot rising to a few degrees above if idling! 4.2 GHz is the stuff of dreams!!!!!!

[HackJoe]

. . .

Was having problems with DirectX9 (lol... didnt know that until about an hour ago) thought it was my GFX card so I stripped it rebuilt it and added my spotcool Antec fan to direct air over the RAM and VRM sinks.

J.

[blackknight]

Added new pics to the first page. Here's a teaser pic:

[HackJoe]

Very nice! Love how your UV CC makes the tubing GLOW! I'm currently stuck with 2 UV LEDS pointing in the direction of the tubing..

Your layout has brought a good point to mind.. My loop goes pump CPU.. Yours goes pump RAD.. I'm starting to think you've got it the better way round.. the 18w pump gens a fair amount of heat! the coolant is at its coldest direct from the rad..

I'll switch mine next time I drain..

thanks.

thats i7 huh.. very swish! I love the 4870x2 is it a PowerCooler? HIS? or Sapphire? lol... or Other?

The window looks great! (doesnt it piss you off how much dust the MacPro case show!)

very cool!

J.

[blackknight]

I'm glad you like it. The tubing does glow, but not quite as much as the camera picks up. Looks kinda cool though, huh? We're using the same coolant though I'm using Tygon tubing (shouldn't make much of a difference, so if you pick up some A.C. Ryan overboost UV cathodes, it should look as good as mine. If I knew how to mess with the settings on my Dad's DSLR, I'm sure I could get some better pics of the UV without the really long exposure time, but I don't.

I did the pump to rad simply because it was the best option for my layout as it allows the only 90 bend to be right before the res. I'm also anticipating adding a waterblock for the GPU, so I wanted this layout. I simply take the tube going from the CPU to the res and run it into the GPU, then from the GPU straight over to the res. It really doesn't make much difference temp wise, maybe 1*C or so.

It's not i7, it's the same Phenom 9950BE that I've had for a good while now. I'm using a Danger Den TDX waterblock on the CPU. The GPU is an ASUS EAH4870X2 and is a reference cooler. They put this pic of some hot anime chick on it which is cool, but unfortunately, it's kinda cramped in there so you can't really see her. It won't be long before I get a waterblock though.

Honestly, I haven't had too much of a dust problem. The front of the case acts as a filter and I keep wiping it down about once a week, so it really is pretty clean inside. The radiator on the other hand does get quite dusty. My only real issue is with fingerprints on the case. I haven't cleaned it much in a while and you can really see the fingerprints in the pictures.

I really can't wait to see what you're doing with the extra side panels. When I was considering what to do with my rad, I was totally looking for a way to mount it up top or below and using bits of another case to make it look really clean, but I just couldn't figure anything out. The only thing I could come up with was using a skate on the bottom and the accompanying rooftop that goes on top and just cutting holes up top. It would look clean, but that was way more cutting into the case than I wanted to do. www.powersupportusa.com/product/show/g5-rooftop

[HackJoe]

Just a quick one...

Check out this dudes G5 watercooling mod!!

www.donotsurf.net/?tag=apple-g5

wow!

J.

[blackknight]

Interesting... I had thought about mounting a radiator in the top like that, but really couldn't as I have two optical drives (BD-Rom and DVD-RW) and the PSU is too tall. Now he could get the G5 roof that I was talking about before and it would look so clean from the outside. The roof is just a mesh top that goes between the handles on top of the case. Not a bad case though.

[aquamac]

Thanks for that link Blackknight, I had not seen that one before. I have an untouched G5 case standing before me, 3 GTX 280's an Asus P6T6 x58 motherboard and a thermaltake 1250 watt PSU. All working with Snow Leopard. The 3 cards in SLi was why I am using a G5 for this mod as opposed to a Mac Pro case. This will mean that the back panel will have to be fairly extensively modded as I need 6 slot outlets for the 3 cards, but I still want to retain the Apple original look. Unfortunately the two back fans will have to move as they will be in the way unless I move the board up in the case - but then I lose the ability to have a DVD drive and I don't want to do that.

Looking forward to getting going on this one!

[blackknight]

That sounds awesome Aqua, though I wasn't the one who posted the link, that was Joe. I can't wait to see how you fit a 1250 watt psu in that. Speaking of Snow Leopard, have you heard of a kernel that works with AMD yet? I'd really like to try it out on my desktop.

Aqua, are you gonna go watercooled on that system, or air? I bet the G5 case would be perfect for watercooling, even with all of that kit.

[aquamac]

Hi Blacknight,

I must be going blind! Sorry Joe-thanks for the link anyway! Just had a look on irc, snowleopard but it seems that no one has posted a kernel after SN 261, and there have been 2 updates since then, so still no AMD support yet. The jury is still out on the cooling method I will use, but I am currently on air at 4 gigs running cool with one of these. It is the most awesome air cooler of them all! You need to see one of these to appreciate just how big the thing is - it makes the GTX 280's look small!

Note below the i7 shows as 8 processors in Open GL Extensions Viewer due to hyperthreading. Also the 8 megs of L3 Cache.



At that speed, the fins are still cold and it is virtually silent and will just about fit in a G5 case. At the moment, the system is strewn across the floor with the motherboard sitting on top of it's box with the power supply nestling along side and 3 gigs of ram. I had quite a problem getting Snow going on this board and tried cloning a couple of disks from my already working Snow system, but it was a no-go. Then I remembered the DSDT.aml file, deleted it and we were up and running. Everything is working, including sound, all lan ports, USB wireless, ICH10 SATA Ports and Marvell e-sata. Only thing I have not got going yet is the 2 Onboard Marvell SAS ports.

















Here is the board:







Would you believe, Asus have now even superseded my board with a seven PCIe slot version seen here:



Here is a read out of the Hardware on my Asus P6T6 system in OSX 86:

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation QuickPath Architecture I/O Hub to ESI Port [8086:3405] (rev 12)
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation QuickPath Architecture I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 1 [8086:3408] (rev 12)
00:03.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation QuickPath Architecture I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 3 [8086:340a] (rev 12)
00:07.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation QuickPath Architecture I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 7 [8086:340e] (rev 12)
00:10.0 PIC [0800]: Intel Corporation QuickPath Interconnect Physical and Link Layer Registers Port 0 [8086:3425] (rev 12)
00:10.1 PIC [0800]: Intel Corporation QuickPath Interconnect Routing and Protocol Layer Registers Port 0 [8086:3426] (rev 12)
00:14.0 PIC [0800]: Intel Corporation QuickPath Architecture I/O Hub System Management Registers [8086:342e] (rev 12)
00:14.1 PIC [0800]: Intel Corporation QuickPath Architecture I/O Hub GPIO and Scratch Pad Registers [8086:3422] (rev 12)
00:14.2 PIC [0800]: Intel Corporation QuickPath Architecture I/O Hub Control Status and RAS Registers [8086:3423] (rev 12)
00:14.3 PIC [0800]: Intel Corporation QuickPath Architecture I/O Hub Throttle Registers [8086:3438] (rev 12)
00:1a.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 [8086:3a37]
00:1a.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 [8086:3a38]
00:1a.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 [8086:3a39]
00:1a.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 [8086:3a3c]
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:3a3e]
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:3a40]
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 2 [8086:3a42]
00:1c.2 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 3 [8086:3a44]
00:1c.3 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 4 [8086:3a46]
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:3a34]
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:3a35]
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:3a36]
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 [8086:3a3a]
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev 90)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801JIR (ICH10R) LPC Interface Controller [8086:3a16]
00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SATA AHCI Controller [8086:3a22]
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SMBus Controller [8086:3a30]
02:00.0 PCI bridge [0604]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:05b1] (rev a3)
03:00.0 PCI bridge [0604]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:05b1] (rev a3)
03:02.0 PCI bridge [0604]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:05b1] (rev a3)
06:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:05e1] (rev a1)
07:00.0 IDE interface [0101]: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6121 SATA II Controller [11ab:6121] (rev b2)
08:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller [10ec:8168] (rev 02)
09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller [10ec:8168] (rev 02)

[HackJoe]

Thats the first i7 board I've seen with a PCI-X slot lined up with the screw mount hole (first slot) that would fit in my MacPro nicely (would be a waste as i couldnt use all those PCi-X slots).

They need to release more boards with that design.. I'm having to look at M-ATX if i wanna move my MacPro to i7 not a bad thing mind thing thou


...
Asus Rampage II Gene Intel X58 mATX

Turns out they are one of the best overclocking i7 motherboards available, as nothing other then the reduced number of expansion slots has been subbed for the mATX layout.

Snow Kitty is looking fab! does it scream on that rig?

Great looking HSF! Would be great to see some photos! wow! triple 280's! and a i7 at 4Ghz... that must FLY!! are you using the 920 i7? I'd like to do a G5 mod, I'm still picking at my MacPro (I'm waiting on a quote for its paint Job) and looking at adding the GFX card into the loop. I pushed it 4.5Ghz and benched then backed off to 4ghz for 24/7 use.. I'm now nailing down the RAM timmings and seeing how little v-core i can get away at 4Ghz.

I've finally started my QuickSilver mod, very basic, just all my unused components and a blow hole. I'm just lacking the CPU atm i want a Q6600 and run it at 3Ghz folding.

Aqua, you should do some photos of all your mods side by side.. that would make for quite the gallery.

J.

[aquamac]

Hi Joe,

That mATX board looks like a cracker for a Mac Pro case! I may consider it as an upgrade to the Gigabyte DS2R one day.

As you guessed, I am using the 920 i7. Wow this thing clocks! got 4.25 gigs on air - no crashes but backed off to 4 gigs for everyday stuff. Snow kitty is great, there are a few annoying bugs but none that stop it being a pleasure. I am sure that the later variants are even better, but the combination of the core i7 and GTX 280's is awesome. I did say that this lot is sitting on the floor in the living room like the entrails of some broken animal, but working nonetheless. I am at the "mulling" stage on the case, trying to think of an unusual way to get everything in. Maybe when I finish this one, I will collect everything together for a mass photo session, "Hacks through the ages"!

Must remember to bring my camera home from work.

[HackJoe]

Do any of you guys have a link to the G5 case mod where he sprayed it Black and chromed the centre?

J.

EDIT:

Found it!!

forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=125218&page=31

Cyprio really does deserve his Supermodder title, Aqua he's up there with you i thinks. very good stuff.

J.