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Mostly complete mini-itx iMac mod

F

FerrisWorld

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 6, 2002
19
0
America
Check it out:

Zotac IONITX powered Grape iMac

It's mostly done, just needs a bluetooth adapter, wifi antenna installed, and a trim piece for the ports. Anyone know where to get a sheet of that holographic type mesh-look stuff that Apple used around the ports back then?

Next I want to do a slot loader, but I can't figure out how to get the screen to display video yet.
 
wow fantastic great job well done
you are a genius
i was planning nearly the same but only came to the point having the idea but no sufficient funds to get the project going but i did also want to keep the crt screen in a slot loader

i was planning to use the board of a dell zino ,the base model has also a intel atom but the 230
and gma 950 graphic like the dell mini`s netbooks which had been hackintoshed already
but dell will give driver support in the future
 
Well done indeed!!! Now, if you got REALLY crazy brave, you could ditch the CRT and put in an LCD instead. :eek:
 
yeah, I've seen lcd mods done, but to me it defeats the purpose. In the end you only use the shell, and the lcd never looks right. The closest you could get would be to use a 14.1 inch 4:3 ratio lcd, and put a piece of curved plexiglass over it. A 15 inch is just too big because the actual viewable size is only 13.8 inches on the CRT. I also feel like the whole design of the G3 iMac's is based around the fact that they have a CRT, and keeping it keeps the CRT from becoming e-waste.
 
a iMac G3 has to have a crt screen there is no other option
fitting a lcd might do for some,
but in my opinion it would be blasphemy
first was playing with the idea of fitting a board of the Mac mini G4 1.42 inside
but the g4 processor is producing quiet a bit heat
that brought me to the dell zino board as the intel atoms could run fanless
as they do in some atom based all in one pc`s ,
but then i was wondering if fitting 2 really smallish fans on the back behind the flap where the vga out is .....
 
FerrisWorld said:
Check it out:
Click to expand...

That's very nice! I wasn't aware this board was hackintoshed already. A couple of questions:

1. Do you have 10.6.2 installed? This supposedly broke Atom compatibility.

2. Does the on-board optical audio work? How about coax?

3. Does the DVI port work as well (at 1920x1200)?

4. Does the wifi work and make the computer "look" like a Mac on the network?

I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. :)

J&JPolangin said:
...is that the single core or the dual core N330?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure the 330 is the dual-core. Anyway, NewEgg lists it as such.
 
MacHamster68 said:
a iMac G3 has to have a crt screen there is no other option
fitting a lcd might do for some,
but in my opinion it would be blasphemy
first was playing with the idea of fitting a board of the Mac mini G4 1.42 inside
but the g4 processor is producing quiet a bit heat
that brought me to the dell zino board as the intel atoms could run fanless
as they do in some atom based all in one pc`s ,
but then i was wondering if fitting 2 really smallish fans on the back behind the flap where the vga out is .....
Click to expand...

As far as I know, the Dell Zinos use AMD CPUs.
 
Okay lets see...

The 330 is Dual Core. I think it runs OS X pretty well. Boots kind of slow, but really not too bad. I haven't timed it though. There is a bin hacked 10.2 mach_kernel that not only runs on Atoms, but also enables hyperthreading, so I'm using that.

@Cave man, if you read my whole page, click the link to the insanelymac thread for the board I used, and you'll see that just about everything works.

Oh yeah total cost.

iMac: $15
IONITX-D-E: $169
2GB DDR2 800: $39
500GB HD: Already had, probably like $60 or so now.
Lite-on SATA dvd burner: $39 I think
Slim SATA adapter: $6
miscellaneous electronic parts and connectors: $10

So, I think there were some other things, but basically it came in under $350. It took me like 2 months to figure it all out though.
 
This makes me want to buy an old iMac off craigslist, haha.

I wonder how hard it would be to cram that in the base of a g4 imac?
 
pastrychef said:
As far as I know, the Dell Zinos use AMD CPUs.
Click to expand...

thats right for the dell inspirion zino HD
but not for the entry level dell inspirion zino
which only comes in black and with atom cpu and intel gma 950 graphics
and comes with either windows xp or ubuntu and from 2010 dell will give driver support for mac osx snow leopard for all their intel based pc`s
dont know how and whats behind all that ..their new monitors look damn close as the apple iMacs ... even the sizes
 
NoSmokingBandit said:
This makes me want to buy an old iMac off craigslist, haha.

I wonder how hard it would be to cram that in the base of a g4 imac?
Click to expand...

I kind of investigated this as well. I think if you had a super thin motherboard it wouldn't be too hard to at least cram it in there. Or, maybe if you used a laptop hard drive, put it where the G4 motherboard normally goes (under the optical drive), and put the itx motherboard where the iMac's hard drive would have been (above the optical drive, but I don't know if the diameter at that point is big enough. It would be better for cooling though. The main problem on those is figuring out the video connector. I had found a thread somewhere of people trying to do it, and they got pretty far, but ultimately gave up I think.

I may mess around with a slot load G3 soon. I've made a video adapter cable, but the screen won't come on even though the power supply seems to power up. There isn't anything wrong with the iMac, because it works perfectly when it's all together.
 
I seem to recall that the G3 iMacs (at least some of them) had a conventional VGA connector from the monitor that simply plugged into the lobo. However, I think the G4 iMac had a header that connected to the lobo. Could be challenging. But the G4 iMac is the best Mac ever made, IMO.
 
MacHamster68 said:
thats right for the dell inspirion zino HD
but not for the entry level dell inspirion zino
which only comes in black and with atom cpu and intel gma 950 graphics
and comes with either windows xp or ubuntu and from 2010 dell will give driver support for mac osx snow leopard for all their intel based pc`s
dont know how and whats behind all that ..their new monitors look damn close as the apple iMacs ... even the sizes
Click to expand...

I stand corrected...

In regards to Dell giving driver support... Can you elaborate?? Are you saying that if someone buys an Intel based Dell computer in 2010 onwards, they can expect the computer to be able to run Mac OS X Snow Leopard?? That would be VERY interesting!!!
 
Cave Man said:
I seem to recall that the G3 iMacs (at least some of them) had a conventional VGA connector from the monitor that simply plugged into the lobo. However, I think the G4 iMac had a header that connected to the lobo. Could be challenging. But the G4 iMac is the best Mac ever made, IMO.
Click to expand...

I agree. I can never seem to find one cheap on CL. Theres tons of G3s though :rolleyes:
I'd love to find a 20", but those seem to be super rare.
 
pastrychef said:
I stand corrected...

In regards to Dell giving driver support... Can you elaborate?? Are you saying that if someone buys an Intel based Dell computer in 2010 onwards, they can expect the computer to be able to run Mac OS X Snow Leopard?? That would be VERY interesting!!!
Click to expand...

thats seems to be the point , there was another post here to this bombshell
and i mean you can run windows on a mac now ,
you always could rum linux on a mac
but you only could rum os x on a mac

the only way of having os x on your pc of choice , there are good fast machines out there selling for less then a mini , was if you had serious hacking skills or give ubuntu the look and feel of os x , as not everybody has the hacking skills os x was never available for pc users , and to be honest who wants to buy a imac just to test out os x
and the boom of netbooks and especially the dell mini 10 which offers best support for installing os x on it due to lots of hacks available on the net ,
made i guess dell think and offer certain drivers so you are able to install osx if you wish, that would boost sales of snow leopard and put it to a point of being a real contender to windows 7and not just a oddity of some mac users
you can only boost sales if people know more about a product , that fact it does exist is not a good sales point , there would be lots of people who would eventually buy a iMac or any other mac for that , if they could try out os x on their pc , not many want to jump into the cold water and spend $$$$ only to find out it doesn`t work for them, so they dont buy a mac
i mean if you buy a mac you can with bootcamp always try out windows (30 days trial to find out if its for you )
but you cant have a 30 day trial to find out if os x would be of any use for you if you have a pc


but back to the subject of this thread , these atom powered boards are a good way of utilising your old mac again as they fit everywhere inside
and you can install snow leopard on it , the newest os
ok i`m quiet happy with my panther in my iMac G3 ,and i would not take the cute thing apart as its fully working (just writing here on it)
but there are always some not booting ones around
and the iMac is not the only one that could take such a board ..it would fit in a Macintosh TV too
.it would fit in a TAM too :)( the only lcd mac i really like )
 
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