Macintosh LC II Mod

[Cuzza]

Well, what a blowout this project turned out to be. Nothing has happened in ages. I have decided to drop the whole complicated waterblock idea. It was a fascinating design concept, but the whole thing is flawed and over complicated. I am going to simplify the rig and make it into a HTPC. I'm eyeing up a trinity APU when they come out.

 

[Cuzza]

First update in ages! Hold your breath..... lol

I bought this little flex-ATX PSU for the grand sum of $1. And it it in mint condition, looks unused, no dust at all. Hope it works! Only 150W, but with a low-power APU and only a couple of drives, I should be fine.

The PSU pictured above arrived last night and is now sitting in the mac case. I am a bit gutted however. It appears that my estimates of the space inside the case were a bit out. I estimated 41mm of height in there. The PSU is 40mm. It appears to be 1mm too tall. So only 2mm out, but enough to screw me around. But don't worry; I'll make it work.

Anyway, I got cutting with knives and saws and pliers today and made a new opening in the rear of the case for the PSU power plug and ventilation. Check the pics.

Making a mess!

Here is the hole:

And here with the PSU in place:

Now, two weeks later, I bought myself a birthday present:

Time to Dremel.

So you may recall that the PSU was 1mm too tall. So I have spent about 2 hours cutting and grinding and sanding at the raised edges in one corner of the mac case. Just had to take them down a little bit, still a serious job.

Here's the result. Compare right of pic, that's what it used to all look like:

I also extended the slot I cut in the rear of the case for the power connector and tidied up around the edges.
Here's how it looks now with the PSU in place:

So that's all for now. I have a slot-load BD drive on its way and mounting that baby is going to be tricky. Motherboard is still over the horizon.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

WAYHEY! Worklog.

Likin' it so far.

Good luck, sub'd.

 

[NAVI_Z]

some people have all the fun.

 

[Cuzza]

Today's progress: minimal. But slow and steady gets you there.

What I have done is cut a hole in the underside of the case for the PSU fan. It will bring in cool air and expel it out the rear of the case. Remember that there is no space inside the case above the PSU so it would be useless if I had put it up the other way, and I sure ain't cutting a hole in the top! Added bonus, the fan mount screws serve as the mounting screws for the entire PSU and she is in there very solidly.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Nice log, though has to have the record for slowest as well

 

[Cuzza]

OK team, back to Mac

Tonight I have been making up some mounts for the BD drive. This took a long time to get right. I butchered an old laptop and cut up the interior parts for some strips of metal I could bend and cut to the right size, and be able to shorten them and bend them differently in order to get the thing sitting at the right height inside the case. So the dremel and the drill and the scissors (who needs tin-snips?) have been busy.

Here's one of the finished mounts:

Yeah, it looks like sh*t, but it works, and its the right height. Maybe further down the track I can measure it up and make a nicer looking one.

Here are two of them together:

These front ones are crucial to get right because they will set the thing at the right height for the slot in the front of the case lid. The back brackets ain't as important, in fact I think I will only screw one of them down.

Here is the drive in place:

Still need to make some slight adjustments - you can see it is not quite level. That should be easy enough.

Next step - wait for a suitable trinity motherboard to come on the market. Patience is a virtue.

 

[Cuzza]

Self explanatory really.

Make sure you wait til the end. Takes 20 secs of so for the drive to load up, then eject itself on instruction from the OS.

And yes, that is Rod Stewart playing in the background.

 

[micropage7]

subbed
cool project

 

[Cuzza]

It's happening again!!

OK update time:

Thanks to the brilliant people at AlphaCity.co.nz and PBT Couriers, my board and CPU turned up about 6 hours after the order was processed... Frickin' outstanding.

Anyway, here's a shot of the board and associated parts. Phew!! All running sweet on the 150W psu.

The big issue is that the stock heatsink has no chance of fitting into the mac case. So, time to mod!

Take 1x thermaltake DuOrb:

Cut in half:

Try to fit on the motherboard:

Guess what, it fits perfectly, and exactly the right height to fit in the mac case.... now how to mount it to the board??

So I spent the afternoon with a hacksaw, drill and dremel. Mutilated a AM3 mounting bracket, and some pieces of aluminium off-cuts. The result?

The cooler works perfectly, and the CPU is sitting at 10 degrees above ambient in the BIOS. Then I undervolted it and dropped another 3 degrees. So I'm confident the cooler can handle this workload.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Looking forward to seeing more...

 

[Cuzza]

OK, another minor update.

2 things:

1. RAM has arrived! Shiny Kingston DDR3 1600MHz. I was worried I might need low profile but regular memory fits.

2. I have cut out the back of the case for the plugs and connectors. Admittedly I could have used a backplate and all that but I wanted to leave as much of the case in place for structural integrity. Check the pics.

<---------->

So to get this thing running properly I need to order myself a SSD. After that it is just cable management and tidying up a few loose ends.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Good stuff!

 

[wolf2]

fine mod especially that it has more power than my MSI-945GSE-A atom board.
any speed facts about your mod? how fast at what temperature is it?

 

[Cuzza]

Crikey frickin heck Cuzza returns!

4 years since I did anything on this project. You know why? Kids is why. When I last posted in this thread I had none. Now I have three. Priorities huh.

Anyway, I got out the drill, dremel again today and attacked the Mac. Check it out.

Here is the system as it is currently set up:

The only things different here to in earlier posts: (a) the mobo is screwed down. (b) those mutilated blue brackets for mounting the cooler? I forgot to put them in. But it seems to work OK. (c) Cable dangling out the back is power button. This will be mounted at some point.

What I did today was drill some holes in the top cover for the CPU cooler to draw in air. This kinda spoils the "stock" appearance of the case. But I don't care anymore. I just wanted to get on and do something to this project to make it useful.

I was dubious at the beginning, but considering my rudimentary techniques, the end result is not half bad.

I had to attack the raised sections of plastic because these were making contact with the fan. Not much clearance in there!

Here it is with the lid on, all powered up:

Mint! Fan is still kinda loud though. Need to drop the voltage on that one.

Stay tuned... I might even finish this project one day soon. Peace to all the old school TPU guys who are still rockin this place. And hi to the n00bs.

- Cuzz out.

 

[insane 360]

very cool. what you need to game on it would be a gaming pc setup for streaming and just use steam in-home streaming. very cool project!