First post, by mustagcoupe
I bought a 2005 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.