Power Mac i5

[XCVG]

Power Mac i5 is an old Power Mac G3 Blue and White, partially gutted and converted to a modern PC. It retains as much as the original look as possible while being a practical PC. It is very modular and standards-compliant, so swapping parts is easy. The PC itself is brand new and quite fast and powerful (full specs are below). At some point, we decided to make this my dad’s new PC, so it’s outfitted accordingly.

I never thought I’d get a G3 Blue and White, but I got lucky and scored one (and a half-complete one) on Craigslist in mid-2014. Compared to webPC, this build was much more straightforward and made use of more prefabricated parts. It was a much easier build, though not without its challenges. Most of the work was done after I finished school for the year, and the project was completed at the end of June 2015. The end result is a practical, yet cool looking computer.

A full writeup with way more pictures is forthcoming. It will be posted on my website and I'll link each part as I finish it.

 

[Noah]

Nice! I've always wanted to do one of these, especially one with a paint job like this:
http://cdn.overclock.net/6/65/6571ea44_4459141636_5a68bd15c0_o.jpeg

Does it have the original fan that sat in the back? I vaguely remember that thing being a monster.

 

[XCVG]

Nice! I've always wanted to do one of these, especially one with a paint job like this:
http://cdn.overclock.net/6/65/6571ea44_4459141636_5a68bd15c0_o.jpeg

Does it have the original fan that sat in the back? I vaguely remember that thing being a monster.

Never understood the point of painting one of these to be honest. My philosophy is that it should look as stock as possible from the outside while still being practical. But to each his own- it does look pretty cool in its own way.

As installed, the fan in the G3 is completely useless. It's supposed to draw air from the back and blow it into the case or something, but actually just circulates warm air through the case. Later G4s have a hole in the side of the case under the panel for the fan to draw from and presumably work properly.

This one uses positive pressure cooling with two 120mm fans in the bottom of the case, exhausting through the power supply, original vent holes, and a slot above the I/O shield.

 

[BoFoSho]

Amazing work, loved the iMac G3 and I absolutely love this.
PowerMac G5 next? ;P

 

[XCVG]

Starting to write up the build logs:
Build Log 1: http://xcvgsystems.com/?page_id=294
Build Log 2: http://xcvgsystems.com/?page_id=310
Build Log 3: http://xcvgsystems.com/?page_id=319