Plywood G5 build

[mustagcoupe]

I bought a power mac g5 2.3 dc the other day and it included a pile of parts that used to be a mid 2004 dual 1.8ghz g5. I assembled the parts and powered it on and it seemed to work so i started wondering how i could make use of it. I decided to attempt to build a custom under monitor desktop style case for it out of plywood and assorted other junk i had laying around. Fortunately all of the standoffs as well as the plastic air channel for the chip on the back of the board were in the box of parts i got. I superglued all of the standoffs in the correct positions to a sheet of plywood, fitted the plastic air channel over the standoffs and drilled holes to permanently fix it to the plywood. Since i did not trust the superglue to hold the full weight of the computer should it get bumped or something there is also a sheetrock screw going into the plywood through a spare hole in roughly every corner to make sure it can't fall off. I re used the blower fan that originally cooled the chip on the back of the board to do the same thing but in reverse. It now blows air in from the top and out the front as that was the easiest way to make it fit with what i had laying around. I used the bottom of a plastic rubbing alcohol bottle to channel the air from the fan through the duct and hot glued it in place to seal it. I bolted the power supply to another sheet of plywood and attached it to the bottom piece using L brackets and bolts. The DVD drive, hard drive and the original hard drive cooling fan are bolted to another piece of plywood on the opposite side from the power supply using the same L brackets and some zip ties. The processors are currently held down with some long sheetrock screws just to keep them from falling out as i was unable to reuse the original heat sink bolts. I will try to come up with something better using springs to allow for heat expansion next time i go to the hardware store. It seems to be working just fine, i was able to install leopard for testing no problem. It is very loud at the moment as i have not had a chance to see if it will calibrate yet. When the weather is warmer i will probably coat the outside of the plywood in polyurethane spar varnish to protect it and make it look nice. I may also replace the sides and top with much nicer plywood in the future as this is some very cheap stuff i had laying around in my garage.

 

[velocityg4]

That's pretty neat. I'd suggest whenever you redo the case. Since you're no long constrained by the Apple case. Replace those fans with quieter modern 120mm/140mm fans.

 

[mustagcoupe]

Thanks. I honestly dont think it needs new fans. It just passed thermal calibration. I replaced the thermal paste on both processors and the backside northbridge chip with artic mx-5. Its running damn near silently, i can easily hear the hard drive over the rest of the computer. Im running cinebench r10 on it right now and cpu 0 is at 53 degrees, cpu 1 is 59 degrees and the backside northbridge is at 42 degrees. It finished while i was writing this. It scored 2377 points in cinebench r10. This came with 2 sets of processors. The 1.8ghz 970fx's that came in this motherboard and a set of the original 970 processors from an 03 model, also 1.8ghz. At some point i will probably put the 970s in it and see what happens. Im also interested in seeing if i can get it to run a faster processor. I will have to keep an eye out for a cheap one. Now that i know it works im about to load it up with both tiger and leopard and potentially put a bigger faster hard drive in it. Right now im using the original 160 gb hard drive out of another g5. Might put an ssd in it at some point but i dont have any spares conveniently available for testing. I am also wondering if i can get the build of 10.2.7 for the original 03 g5 to run on this 04 with the 970 fx cpus.

 

[Amethyst1]

I am also wondering if i can get the build of 10.2.7 for the original 03 g5 to run on this 04 with the 970 fx cpus.

Its kernel will panic on 970FX CPUs.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Is this not a fire hazard?

 

[Wild Hare]

Is this not a fire hazard?

Perhaps…
if your G5 reaches a 230˚ internal operating temperature.



In which case you’ve other problems / and it would likely shut down beforehand.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I feel safer in my house of wood…it never gets that hot in here and therefore will never catch on fire!

 

[ervus]

Nice project! Thanks for sharing it with us. I have a Cube logic board that I made a wood enclosure for. It's roughly the same size as a Mini because there's no optical drive.

 

[mustagcoupe]

Is this not a fire hazard?

Most things do not catch on fire anywhere near as easily as you would think. I have done extensive testing on that. For it to catch on fire the entire computer would need to get above the boiling point of water or something would need to begin sparking extensively. The computer will shut off long before it ever gets that hot and if it was to begin sparking it would probably trip one of the multiple circuit breakers i keep my computers plugged into. I also do not leave any electronic device over 10 years old plugged in when im not using it. And even if the computer was still in its original aluminum case it could still catch on fire, plastic burns very well, sometimes even better than wood and the g5 case is loaded with plastic in the form of fans and air deflectors. There was just a recall on one model of metal pc case for catching on fire by the PCIe riser, stuff happens, no point spending all day worrying about it.


I stopped at the hardware store on my way home today and picked up some better screws for holding down the processor as well as some springs to allow for thermal expansion. When i get around to replacing the screws i will take a picture and post it.

Nice project! Thanks for sharing it with us. I have a Cube logic board that I made a wood enclosure for. It's roughly the same size as a Mini because there's no optical drive.

Thanks. That wooden g4 cube sounds cool. Any chance you could pm me a picture or link to a build thread? Building this has given me some ideas for the future. I collect all kinds of computers and sometimes the cases aren't worth saving due to excessive damage or grossness. I never expected this plywood g5 to come out as well as it did, i did not expect all of the pieces to be there and im pretty shocked that it passes thermal calibration and runs as cool as it does considering it does not even have a top or any kind of air guide to direct the air over the processors yet.

Its kernel will panic on 970FX CPUs.

Has anyone figured out a work around for the unsupported 970fx. I do have a set of the original 970s. I plan to swap those in at some point for testing, they should work in it. Ive seen some posts that the early mid 04s came with the leftover 970s from the 03 model. I am interested in comparing the 970 and 970fx to see if theres any major thermal or performance differences. That is one major benefit to this thing, it comes apart in minutes with total access to all 4 sides so i can do tests like that super easily.

 

[profcutter]

Totally reminds me of this:

 

[mustagcoupe]

Small update to the Plywood G5 project. I added a frame for the video and pci cards to bolt to before i accidentally break them. Its nice and solid now and helps support the rear fans. I also stopped at the hardware store and got some proper wood screws and some springs to hold the processors down and allow for some flex. Before they were solid mounted with sheetrock screws. In retrospect i wish i had chosen springs with a lighter clamping pressure as i cant screw the screws into the wood as much as i would like without an uncomfortable amount of flex in the processor daughter card. I might buy another set of lighter springs and swap them out again in the future. It works for now though, the processors can move a bit when they heat up and cool down but they cant fall out.

 

[Amethyst1]

Has anyone figured out a work around for the unsupported 970fx.

Theoretically, it should be possible to compile a custom kernel for 10.2.8-G5 (we have the source for it, don’t we?) which has the check for unknown CPUs removed.

 

[B S Magnet]

I can’t help but think of this as the Power Mac G5: Red Green Special Edition.

 

[mustagcoupe]

I can’t help but think of this as the Power Mac G5: Red Green Special Edition.

That is an excellent and very applicable reference.

Im honestly surprised at how mediocre the G5 really is in terms of basic raw processing power vs power consumption. I have 3 of them, i started out with the 1.8ghz single imac based one which wasn't that much faster than a fast g4. Figured it was crippled a bit by the slower front side bus. While this dual 1.8 with the faster front side bus scores slightly better in a single core test it still only scores core for core about equal to a 2.4ghz northwood pentium 4. I have not been able to test my dual core 2.3 as it did not come with a video card. I flashed a radeon x1900 for it but the 6 pin cable got lost in the mail so i cant do anything with it. I dont expect the dual core 2.3 to be that much better though. It still probably wont come close to my Dell Precision 670 with dual 3.8ghz prescott p4s in terms of raw processing power, admittedly the p4s are 2ghz faster but the 1.8ghz g5s run almost as hot. Where the g5 shines for me is running tiger, i love tiger and it flies on the g5. All my testing has been done with cinebench R10 and R11.5 which seem to give a pretty fair and accurate cross platform score as well as general os tests like unzipping files.

 

[profcutter]

I mean, that is why they shifted to Intel. Motorola just couldn’t live up to their promises. It’s disappointing, and interesting to see your data on how it compared to comparable machines of the era. Now it’s Intel that can’t live up to its promises. Intel may recover in a way that Motorola never could.

 

[Amethyst1]

The G5 may have been a formidable match for the Opteron and Pentium 4 back in the day.
But the Core-based CPUs were a game-changer. It was amazing how much faster they were despite their lower clock speeds. I'm not even talking about power consumption.
A friend of mine upgraded from a 3.4 GHz P4 (single-core but "hyper-threaded") to a 2.66 GHz C2D. It was mind-blowing to see how much faster it was.

Where the g5 shines for me is running tiger, i love tiger and it flies on the g5.

It also flies on my 2.4 GHz C2D MBP — at a fraction of the G5's size and power consumption. That's... progress, I guess.

Anyway, back on topic

 

[mustagcoupe]

The G5 may have been a formidable match for the Opteron and Pentium 4 back in the day.
But the Core-based CPUs were a game-changer. It was amazing how much faster they were despite their lower clock speeds. I'm not even talking about power consumption.
A friend of mine upgraded from a 3.4 GHz P4 (single-core but "hyper-threaded") to a 2.66 GHz C2D. It was mind-blowing to see how much faster it was.


It also flies on my 2.4 GHz C2D MBP — at a fraction of the G5's size and power consumption. That's... progress, I guess.

Anyway, back on topic

The core 2's and core 2 quads are awesome, especially if you can overclock it to the moon. You can come close to a decent core i series with one overclocked to around 4ghz. I still use a dimension e520 with a qx6700 to play fallout 3 because it runs so much better on an old computer running windows xp. The neat thing with the e520 and a core 2 extreme is you can use throttle stop to bump up the multiplier from windows, i usually run it at about 3.2ghz.

Im honestly not a huge fan of most of the intel macs. IMO the minis and macbooks and most of the imacs are ok but the macbook pros and mac pros tend to be unreliable pieces of crap. The macbook pros seem to have constant video and processor overheating problems. I have an 08 mac pro that i never use because its a complete pita to keep it working. Id say it was just mine but my uncle has another 08 mac pro and its also a temperamental piece of crap. I also dont particularly like any mac os after snow leopard and find anything after el capitan to be extremely annoying to use. Most of the software i want to run is PPC native or universal so i might as well repair and use the power pc ones as i like them better even if they are slower.

 

[Amethyst1]

The core 2's and core 2 quads are awesome, especially if you can overclock it to the moon. You can come close to a decent core i series with one overclocked to around 4ghz.

Someday I want to build a 4 GHz C2D rig and slap Tiger on it to see it fly to the moon.

The macbook pros seem to have constant video and processor overheating problems.

My two 2007 MacBook Pros have fixed GPUs and run fine. I made it a point to stay clear from 2007/2008 MBPs which don't, since I hate ticking timebombs.
My 13" 2011 MacBook Pro has no dedicated GPU, has been rock-solid and runs Snow Leopard faster than greased lightning.

Some iMacs also have a history of GPU failures BTW.

 

[mustagcoupe]

Someday I want to build a 4 GHz C2D rig and slap Tiger on it to see it fly to the moon.


My two 2007 MacBook Pros have fixed GPUs and run fine. I made it a point to stay clear from 2007/2008 MBPs which don't, since I hate ticking timebombs.
My 13" 2011 MacBook Pro has no dedicated GPU, has been rock-solid and runs Snow Leopard faster than greased lightning.

Some iMacs also have a history of GPU failures BTW.

Im interested in seeing how that would perform to. I have a computer that i use exclusively for overclocking and testing lga 775 cpus. I can toss an e8600 in it send it to 4ghz and install tiger for some testing. Is there an easily available tiger hackintosh image i can use. I looked into this before and i had trouble finding a tiger hackintosh install that worked with most people saying just go to leopard since the hackintosh scene had advanced by then.

The thing for me is that an imac is both easier to disassemble than most macbook pros and a lot of them had the gpu on a removable module so you can replace or repair just the module vs the whole logic board. I disassembled one macbook pro, i think it was the late 08 model and it was enough to make me swear off doing any more of them. The regular plastic macbook and most pc laptops come apart like a dream vs a 2008 unibody macbook pro. I have not had the misfortune to work on an ibook g3 though. I hear those are even worse.

 

[B S Magnet]

Someday I want to build a 4 GHz C2D rig and slap Tiger on it to see it fly to the moon.


My two 2007 MacBook Pros have fixed GPUs and run fine. I made it a point to stay clear from 2007/2008 MBPs which don't, since I hate ticking timebombs.
My 13" 2011 MacBook Pro has no dedicated GPU, has been rock-solid and runs Snow Leopard faster than greased lightning.

Some iMacs also have a history of GPU failures BTW.

I’ll second this.

I’ve owned my 2011 13-inch MBP since new (well, Apple refurb in August 2011), and aside from stuff I did to it, it has run flawlessly from the outset. It was my master thesis-field research and writing rig. It’s been my DJing rig. It’s been a work rig as well. The only thing I ever plan to do with it is to find a working logic board with a slightly faster i7 CPU (from either early or late 2011), as soon as I can find one cheap locally. Then again, from the day I bought it, it’s been running Snow Leopard non-stop (though in 2018 I did add Sierra as a secondary partition and still haven’t gotten around to updating it to High Sierra… but then again, I virtually never use Sierra anyway). It has only one quirk I’ve never resolved: if left running audio non-stop for over 13 days, the audio becomes crunchy and unlistenable until a fresh reboot.

I picked up my 17-inch 2008 MBP much more recently in a local trade, and only got it up and running last year after procuring a green-dot logic board. It has been a dream to use, and I only wish Apple had allowed the aluminium MBPs a brief moment to run a Core iX setup with Thunderbolt. That would, quite frankly, be everything I’d ever want.

I’ll agree how several of the aluminium and larger unibody MBPs have had far too many fatal issues with them, and things like the 2010 and 2011 models with the discrete, but flawed GPUs from AMD only add to its bad rep, along with the infernal retina displays of rMBPs whose replacement LCDs are prohibited by Apple to be purchased and whose un-upgradeable RAM is soldered in. I won’t even dignify the Touchbar-era MBPs as professional-level systems.

The thing for me is that an imac is both easier to disassemble than most macbook pros and a lot of them had the gpu on a removable module so you can replace or repair just the module vs the whole logic board. I disassembled one macbook pro, i think it was the late 08 model and it was enough to make me swear off doing any more of them. The regular plastic macbook and most pc laptops come apart like a dream vs a 2008 unibody macbook pro. I have not had the misfortune to work on an ibook g3 though. I hear those are even worse.

One more bit: I’ve never opened an Intel iMac (though that will probably come up eventually for me), but having disassembled Mac laptops from the clamshell iBooks through the rMBPs, the most difficult to deal with, for me, are the iBook G4s (and likely the ice-and-later G3s), followed by the 17-inch PowerBook, followed by dealing with the delicate bits and proprietary screw heads inside the retina MBPs. By the time of the rMBPs, the OEM keyboard isn’t held to the underside of the top case by 99 screws, but by rivets (!!!). Generally speaking, I’ve found the easiest to work with are, in no particular order, the clamshell iBooks, the unibody MBPs, the aluminium MBPs, and the 15-inch aluminium PowerBook G4 (whose internal assembly is, remarkably, different from its 17-inch sibling).

 

[mustagcoupe]

One more bit: I’ve never opened an Intel iMac (though that will probably come up eventually for me), but having disassembled Mac laptops from the clamshell iBooks through the rMBPs, the most difficult to deal with, for me, are the iBook G4s (and likely the ice-and-later G3s), followed by the 17-inch PowerBook, followed by dealing with the delicate bits and proprietary screw heads inside the retina MBPs. By the time of the rMBPs, the OEM keyboard isn’t held to the underside of the top case by 99 screws, but by rivets (!!!). Generally speaking, I’ve found the easiest to work with are, in no particular order, the clamshell iBooks, the unibody MBPs, the aluminium MBPs, and the 15-inch aluminium PowerBook G4 (whose internal assembly is, remarkably, different from its 17-inch sibling).

You had the opposite experience to me. I have a 17 inch 1.5ghz powerbook G4 and i didnt find it overly difficult to take apart, just kind of tedious. The 17 inch g4 is actually arguably my main ppc machine i use it all the time.

 

[Amethyst1]

The 17 inch g4 is actually arguably my main ppc machine i use it all the time.

You might want to consider joining Club 17

 

[philgxxd]

It has only one quirk I’ve never resolved: if left running audio non-stop for over 13 days, the audio becomes crunchy and unlistenable until a fresh reboot.

Did you try to disconnect WIFI. I have a gut feeling it could cause behaviour like that.

 

[B S Magnet]

Did you try to disconnect WIFI. I have a gut feeling it could cause behaviour like that.

Nope, that’s not germane here. It occurs irrespective of whether it’s connected to gigabit ethernet or to wifi. And, in fact, for the last project I tested using it (sending audio, via TOSlink, to my G5, the latter of which was set up as a streaming server), the MBP was networked only by gigabit ethernet.

The issue, still not pinpointed (but almost undoutedly related to networking), is something much more low-level with the hardware, if not both hardware and firmware. I first experienced it in 2012, the year after I bought it, and the same issue arises, like clockwork, to this day.

(Which reminds me of another annoying quirk, one harder to replicate, which that MBP has, but that’s for another thread.)

 

[mustagcoupe]

You might want to consider joining Club 17

I just did, thanks for pointing that out to me. Ive been lurking here for a while but never noticed that thread.