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G5 LCS to Air conversion

reddrag0n

reddrag0n

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 1, 2007
624
163
Canada
I have asked this question a few times before on different sites, but no one has really given me a proper or straight answer....

Can a G5 DP 2.5 GHz, (NOT Dual Core) be converted to air cooling instead of using the bad Delphi LCS? I know some of the heatsinks that are out there for the 2.3 GHz cpu's have copper that contacts the die, and some that are aluminum.
Also, i want to swap up the rear fans for the Triblade setup, not the traditional regular fans like in the 1.6 to 2.0 GHz G5's.

Can this be done since the DP 2.3 GHz models run air, so running at 2.5 shouldn't be that much hotter?
 
matey, i cant really comment personally on that, but i know OrangeGuy is doing something like that at the moment. Try a search for Orange, and see what comes up.

I cant really remember the details of the setup, but see how you go. Btw, i had the Delphi in my Quad G5 and never had a drama with it. Have you thought of Re-furbing the LCS? there is tons of info out here on that.

I must admit, my now DC 2.3G5 is a little louder than my quad LCS used to be, but it aint by much... and my Quad used to be near to silent, only becoming audible when crunching serious numbers.

cheers and good luck.
 
I tried searching the forums for both Orange and Orangeguy, and nothing came up. Will hunt the forums the old fashioned way. Maybe i might find something.
 
Well, i searched and i didn't find what i was looking for. I came across the same forums post that i am already part of and that's the G5 LCS repair (to make the LCS better). But what i am looking for is to make a DP 2.5 GHz air cooled, like it's DP 2.3 GHz brother.
 
Well, it's been awhile, but it's that time again i revisit this mod. Another machine came to me for this interesting modification, so for all of you that want to see, all of you that think it can't be done, and all the rest...

I give to you... the G5 LCS to Air mod.
 
I have already done this swap on my G5 dual 2.7ghz.

No problems, using the heatsink units from an older dual 2.0ghz G5.

You will hear the fans more often, and the cpu's will run slightly hotter, but I have had no problems at all in almost 1 year since I changed my 2.7 from water to air cooling.

If you have a choice of heatsinks from older G5 parts, I would go for the ones with the copper baseplates. I think the silver looking ones are also copper but are plated with chrome, or nickel.

The peace of mind from not having to worry about the water cooling unit leaking, more than made up for the extra fan noise I get.
 
Last edited:
Back in the days when I had DP 2.7GHz the LCS died and after numerous tries to fix it I gave up thinking it's not worth it at all. I had a couple of heatsinks from DP 1.8 model (with copper plates) so the "transplantation" went quick. I didn't ever run ASD for thermal calibration after that. Machine was sufficiently quiet at idle (temps were around 56ºC, if my memory serves..) but under load you could hear the fans much louder than it would be with LCS. Anyways I've decided that it's definitely better to be on the safe side along with loud air cooling instead of relying on delphi's and waisting your time and nerves every time some problem occurs..
 
On this one i had to do the thermal calibration. New board and cpu's it didn't know. As for temps, at idle it wasn't higher that 47 degrees Celsius. Only reason i didn't use the same heatsinks that were on the 1.8's was because the center of the heatsink was just a big copper tube core. The ones from dual 2 and up use copper heatpipes that are like modern heatsinks found with PC heatsinks.
 
Oh I had heatsinks with heat pipes and stuff as well, and I assume 2.7 model is a bit hotter than 2.5, that would explain the difference in temps.. Anyways that's sad that the logicboard of that machine failed over a half of the year since the conversion, then I replaced that 2.7 with 2.0DC.
 
I've owned 2x 2.7GHz models, and one was parted out while the other was turned into a 2.3 that was air cooled. I tried staying with the 2.7 however thermal calibration refused to accept that they were air cooled, hence the 2.3 swap. Runs stable, 155*F on average which is 20* cooler than the 2.7 using the LCS.
 
reddrag0n said:
Well, it's been awhile, but it's that time again i revisit this mod. Another machine came to me for this interesting modification, so for all of you that want to see, all of you that think it can't be done, and all the rest...

I give to you... the G5 LCS to Air mod.
Click to expand...

Cool... I hope you leave that in your Dropbox forever. Your linked images in the first post have been deleted.
 
Thank you, i will fix those links asap. They were just pics of the rear exhaust fans for the G5 macs.

----------

Since i can't edit my very first post, i can reprint it here with the proper links put back.

reddrag0n said:
I have asked this question a few times before on different sites, but no one has really given me a proper or straight answer....

Can a G5 DP 2.5 GHz, (NOT Dual Core) be converted to air cooling instead of using the bad Delphi LCS? I know some of the heatsinks that are out there for the 2.3 GHz cpu's have copper that contacts the die, and some that are aluminum.
Also, i want to swap up the rear fans for the Triblade setup, not the traditional regular fans like in the 1.6 to 2.0 GHz G5's.

Can this be done since the DP 2.3 GHz models run air, so running at 2.5 shouldn't be that much hotter?
Click to expand...
 
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