The
MAC/PC project or parts bin special (as we refer to it)
We love the way
MAC's look, when it comes to design the MAC has
always led the way particularly in case design so when we had
an old
MAC
G4 which was terminally ill laying around it seemed like a good
idea to re-cycle the case as a PC.
A
quick search on the internet reveals that a similar project
has been undertaken by some other enthusiasts with varying degrees
of success mainly due to the the choice of motherboard. Getting
this right will save you a lot of time modifying the case which
you really do not want to do as this is the key reason for
taking on a project like this.
Motherboard:
ASRock P4i65G
Whatever motherboard you select it will be in
the mATX format in our
case we like ASRock motherboards so we always have these to
hand and a quick search in the parts bin gave us a P4i65G which
is an Intel skt 478 which also has the option to overclock,
HT etc.
Processor:
Intel Celeron 330
The parts bin comes to the rescue again with a Celeron 330
which is the Prescott 2.66GHz version. In our experience a
good chip but it's locked so no opportunity to overclock and
it tends to run a bit hotter than the older Northwood versions
and it's not got Hypethreading. So if you have a Northwood
use this in preference it's a better
cpu for this application or find an alternative P4 which has
HT etc. P4's can be a bit hard to find now in the 478 skt new
so try Ebay or Computer Fairs as a source.
Memory
and Hard Drive: PC3200 & Maxtor 80Gb
The parts bin comes to our aid again here with a stick of memory
which is a Generic PC3200 512Mb ram and the hard drive Maxtor
80GB IDE in this case although the motherboard does support
SATA drives. A SATA drive might be a better choice just for
the cable which should be easier to thread through the cases
existing openings and fixing points.
Optical
Drive: LG Supermulti DVDRW
Yet another acquisition from the parts bin this LG is one of
our favourite optical drives the OEM version used here still
comes with Cyberlinks PowerDVD software bundled with it. Although
this one is Black colour does not really matter as the drive
sits behind a flap until the eject button is pressed.
External
3.5" bay: Your choice here
There is another bay below the optical drive which is 3.5"
in size, on the original MAC we think it had an optional Zip
drive (Now consigned to history), this is covered over by a
blanking plate on ours so some cutting will be needed to fit
anything in this bay. On ours we fitted a combined Card Reader
with external USB and Audio ports which came out of our parts
bin. We sometimes fit a combined floppy and card reader from
Mitsui to some of our Shuttles and IDEQ's which could be an
excellent option if you decide to use SATA drives just in case
you need
to upload
the
drivers
from Floppy.
Power
Supply: Sumvision 450W 20+4pin SATA
WARNING - The MAC power supply cannot be used without modification
to the wiring, the pin out is different to a PC ATX connector
so
we chose to replace it instead especially as it was not very
powerful
anyway. We chose the Sumvision because it was physically the
same so no case modifications were needed.
That
it in part 1, part 2 will cover the case dissembling and modifications
needed to physically fit the PC components. next page |
