20" iMac G4 Intel NUC Ivy Bridge AiO Mod (Videos)

A video demonstration of my updated iMac G4 mod/hack (NUC/Ivy Bridge Mountain Lion Hackintosh)

 

Part 1:

Introduction and General Overview (YouTube Link)

Part 2:

Turning It On and Testing It Out (YouTube Link)

So that pretty much completes this mod.  I have thought about new HD 21.5" LCDs to the top of the arm in a custom LCD case that mimics the iMac G4, but I am not sure that would add very much.  This monitor falls just short of HD and I have not had any issues with it in terms of quality.  Though its something to consider for the future.  I find that larger monitors start to look "awkward" with the base.  Although placing the Cinema Display on the top of the monitor worked.  It wasn't until I went back to the original that I realized it was "off".  It didn't droop or tilt, but it didn't move as smoothly as the original.  The neck was obviously designed very specifically for the native monitor.  This includes not only the weight, but the thickness and shape as weight distribution changes as you tilt and swivel the neck.  Unfortunately, without the R&D budget of apple, its hard to design a new neck, but the old one works beautifully with the native LCD.

I would still like to make this into a touchscreen and perhaps add an iSight.  The awkward size and Mac compatibility issue make this difficult.  While I have a capacitive screen that works, its thick and heavy and would require dramatic hardware changes (LED lighting with custom thin diffuser) or physical changes (altering the LCD case and front bezel).  I am still hopeful that touch films will eventually be readily available, adding touch capability of any size with negligible cha ges in thickness.

Anyway, I'll worry about that later and enjoy this computer for a while.  I have tons of pics from this and previous mods, as well as the ability to fill in gaps with surplus materials.  As such, I'm thinking about putting together a "Moving Picture" Video Guide.  Sort of a compromise between a written and video guide.  I'll be able to explain from start to finish, step by step, how to do this with audio and annotated pics.  Let me know if this sounds at all interesting or useful to anyway.  Thanks for reading/watching.

iMac G4 Ivy Bridge Hackintosh: Finishing Touches

Completed Mod

While the previous Sandy Bridge Mod worked fine, this board is simply a perfect fit.  It runs cooler, uses less power, keeps the optical drive, supports mountain lion, uses the native PSU (which not only ditches the external power brick, but it even provides 30 extra watts of power).  This is much more stable.  Only S3 sleep (S1 works fine) remains a problem.

A Great Fit

The two extra additions are the 12V to 19V upconverter, which powers the actual motherboard.

and the Wide Input PSU, which allows the peripherals (The optical drive and the Fan) to turn on only when the motherboard is on and activates the PSUs 24V line via its 5V switch.  Both these fit (although its tight) and work perfectly.

With the exception of some cosmetics, I have completed the back ports.  They include 4 USBs, though 1 is used by a small Bluetooth adapter, a 3.5mm audio jack, the native AC power plug, and a "fake" Firewire 400 plug.  Its fake because it isn't a true firewire cable, it is only connected to a 12V Molex/Ground, so it supplies only power.  This is for use with the Griffin ifire adapter which gets its power from firwire and its signal from a 3.5mm audio jack and has an apple minijack out for the apple pro speakers.  This is very much akin to the original apple pro speakers that came with the G4 Cube.  They used an external amp which plugged into a special "high voltage USB port".  So although the speakers are not directly plugged in like the original, with the iFire, no additional power source is needed.  I did not want to break open and try to internalize the iFire.  This would have wasted the valuable iFire and constrained this mod to only those speakers.  The iFire also allows lengthening of the speaker cable, which is far to short on the apple pro speakers.

Other small improvements include:
Using KeyMap4Macbook to allow the keyboard button to eject the SATA to USB drive.

Changing the Mac Mini Pic in Resources to the 20" iMac G4, so the iMac's pic displays in "About this Mac".

About this Mac

The Full View

I will do a video shortly and am hoping to combine old pictures and new pictures into a comprehensive guide for doing this, including parts list.

Almost all the shortcomings of my previous mod has been addressed.  I am really pleased with this and hope this is helpful to others interested in this mod.  Thanks for reading!

20" iMac G4 All-In-One "Genuine" Sandy Bridge Mod - Completed (With Video)

Finally, The Genuine 20" iMac G4 - All-In-One Sandy Bridge Mod is complete.  This is as close as I believe its possible to come to modernizing the original iMac G4.  It runs Lion, Mac OS 10.7 with only S3 sleep not working (S1 sleep works fine).  Wifi (using the original antenna embedded below the white plastic dome) and Bluetooth (via dongle on the back) work perfectly.  The power indicator and microphone on the Monitor Casing are also working.

The internal DVD burner can be ejected from te keyboard.  There is a powerbrick which plugs in via 4 pin connector to the center port on the rear of the iMac.  A Griffin iFire is used to connect the original Apple Pro Speakers.  The CPU fan is very quiet except under heavy loads.

This is the culmination of really all my previous mods and I'd like to thank all those who have helped me all the way and encourage all those who are thinking about resurrecting their iMac G4s to do so.

I have included a video on its features and demonstrating its use:

Rear Ports

Thanks for reading!!

20" iMac G4 "Genuine" Mod - INVERTER SOLVED

So That Only Took Me A Year! It was January 8th, 2011 when I documented in this post on my blog my frustration with the 20" inverter and my inability to get it to enable the backlights on the native LCD in any kind of reproducible way.

I believed that the LCD itself would not pose a problem and I posted the TMDS to DVI pinout in this post, though had not been able to confirm it until now.  And yes it does work.

The Apple Logo on the ID Tech 20" Panel

I had devised a work around using the LCD controller from the 20" Aluminum Apple Cinema Display, the mod was shown in this post.  The controller worked perfectly with the iMac's native inverter and LCD (with one addition).  This mod hooked up to an external mini has become one of my most frequently used computers.  It has several advantages in that it is VERY STABLE.  The reason its so stable is that it really is an apple cinema display masquerading as an iMac G4.  While aesthetically perfect, I am reminded of this every time I open the display preferences and Cinema Display is shown in front of me.  As a Computer User - It's the perfect solution.  As a Computer Modder - I felt somewhat defeated, in that I wasn't able to solve the problem.  But there was another problem, this mod was complicated.  The neck had to be rewired and components from an expensive cinema display had to be used.  I knew that this mod could not be easily replicated.

When I finished my 17" STEP by STEP GUIDE.  I knew I was going to get questions regarding to 20" and if such an easy approach could be used.  However, because of my cinema display mod, I now had information about the inverter that I had previously lacked.  I have never owned a working 20" iMac G4 and was therefore making (supposedly) educated guesses, while trying to figure out the inverter.  A damaged inverter later, I realized this approach was not great.  With a working inverter via the cinema display's controller, I finally had voltages to check and use as a guide.

So, using my new technique, once the pins were free (The LCD was wired up in just a few minutes).  I then tried a few different things using my new information.  And for the first time I had a 20" iMac G4's native LCD and inverter display a backlit video signal through the neck (hooked up to a mac mini via DVI) using only wires, connectors and power supplies.  The power scheme is much more complex than the 17", this is due to the higher power requirements of the 20" LCD.  However, this uses the same method for the LCD as the 17" mod and is quite reproducible.

For those who have followed this blog, you know that this has always been a frustrating shortcoming for me.  It has been a long time, but I am so excited to be able to share this with everyone.

Lion's Desktop

Identified Monitor as "iMac"

Needless to say, I will be posting a step by step guide for this.  And this mod will be done to completion.  In addition, I believe that I have now found a home for my KEEX-6100.  This will now form the backbone for a new iMac G4 20" All-In-One.  I intend to document the process, including adding the computer to the base for those that wish to do something similar.

Again, thanks for reading!

iSight G5 as external monitor with Camera/Mic

Using iMac G5 iSight as external monitor

First I would again like to thank Jean Luc for his assistance with the camera and the microphone.  I had not expected the iMac G5 iSight (which is the 3rd generation of iMac G5s) to be so radically different from the original G5.  For one it is substantially thinner and the entire layout is different.  Unlike the original where the lcd is contained within the front part of the case, the lcd of the iSight is attached to the back of the housing.  This arrangement leaves substantially less room in the case than the original.  This however wasn't a problem as I was using the same approach I had used earlier with the internals of a 20" aluminum apple cinema display.  Thus, all I needed was the LCD controller and inverter to fit behind the monitor.  The added bonus of the cinema display is that it has one cable that breaks off into power, USB and Firewire and gives you 2 powered USB ports.

Using the Apple Cinema Display's components is something I highly recommend.  I realize that it is not the most cost effective solution, but it is not as bad as you may think.  As the cinema display's control board works with both the native 20" iMac G4 and G5 LCDs and the iMac G4's inverter (probably the G5's as well), you really only need the LCD control board, the wires, and the power brick.  With patience I have been able to get Cinema Display's with cracked screens and dented cases (but working internals) for under $50.  Also, the LCD controller itself is only $30.  Its the power brick that is the most annoying.  But, it is an elegant and stable solution for getting the 24V lines needed to power the 20" LCD and simplifies the wiring tremendously.

iSight Camera hooked up to internal USB

Getting the camera to work was quite easy after I found out it was a simple USB camera.  The standard Red, Green, White, and Black cables simply need to be spliced to a USB cable and then the camera is essentially plug and play.


I connected the USB splice to the USB hub of the cinema display which was internalized behind the monitor.

Pictured you can see photo booth running from the camera which is in the top of the bezel.

A USB sound adapter

A "TRS" ausio jack

The existing microphone required a usb adapter.  There are 3 wires which appear to be a TRS (Tip, Ring, Shield) arrangement, like a standard 3.5mm audio jack.   I chose this particular adapter as it stated that it was mac compatible,  though I'm sure plenty will work.  Though I believe this adapter oversimplifies the signal.  The brown wire of the microphone gets connected to the red wire (or ring), while the grey wire gets connected to the shield of the audio cable.  The tip of this (The white wire) was left unconnected.  Plug the audio cable into the USB adapters microphone port and then the adapter into the USB hub and now both the iSight's camera and microphone are operational.

One thing to note is that the existing speakers also can be connected to a TRS cable.  The Right speaker to the Red and Ground and the Left speaker to White and Ground.  This particular USB adapter is not an amplifier so the volume of the speakers was very low when I connected them to the headphone jack/USB adapter.  I am also using the Apple Pro speakers which I am quite happy with.  However, if you do get an amplifier, the existing iMac G5 speakers can certainly be utilized.

As a side note, as you can see in the picture I have mounted the mac mini underneath the right side of the desk.  The mount is great and comes with four USB ports on the front.

Using this version of the iMac G5 is certainly an improvement.  It is smaller, lighter, and easier to maneuver.  The addition of the iSight camera and mic allows me to ditch the logitech camera that did not really match the overall design.  The addition of the drive to the G4 and now the camera to the G5 allow them to be more than just monitors.  Each of them supplies something that is found on all desktop macs except for the mac mini.

There are certainly things I may tweak in the future.  But, to be honest, this is really about it for this project.  I would still like a touch screen option, but until a reliable, affordable, multi touch capable option that DOES NOT sacrifice the design aesthetic becomes available I am not going to pursue this.  It has been so much fun working with these computers, but using them with the new mac mini reminds me why I did this in the first place.  Both of these are beautiful to look at, have great ergonomics, and maybe this is just because of nostalgia - fun to use.

I am not sure what new projects to tackle next, but I'm sure something will come up.  In the mean time, I'm going to turn my attention to writing step by step guides for some of these mods.  But please feel free to ask any questions or leave any comments.  Again, thanks for reading!!

iMac G4 20" All-In-One ECX Mod - Completed



Left Side with computer on



There are still some small tweaks I may make, but for all intensive purposes this mod is now complete.  I completed the ports with one exception, I still haven't figured out how to handle the apple cinema display's power cable.  As it plugs directly into its power supply, there is no "female version" of this plug.  I think I'm going to experiment with different connectors, but for now the middle section with the power cables is unfinished.  I am also likely going to add an HDMI extender for "HDMI" out capabilities.  The onboard intel graphics are 1080p capable and I have included a bluray player, thus this computer may make a reasonable HTPC.

 

 

The power cables come out the back.There are 4 USB cables to the left.  The firewire ports are empty (may put HDMI out here).  To the right is an ethernet and Power LED, HDD LED.  The original power button is also operational.



The computer currently boots to windows.  As I explained in a previous post, the onboard graphics work, but with limitations on hackintoshes.  To get snow leopard on here, I would have to purchase a 1.8" SSD (it will not reognize the compact flash) - which I would be fine with as long as it was fully functional.  This appears to be a problem that many people in the hackintosh community are working on, so if a solution presents itself, its certainly first on my list to add.  As I am showing this right now to demonstrate a hardware hack, I again respectfully askto refrain from comments about how sacreligious it is to see windows on an iMac etc.

The drive is a "killer" in this mod.  Any slim or non-powered drive tray is not able to push open the door.  The drive probably occupies 60% of the "usable volume" of the entire dome and it has been the first thing to go in most iMac G4 mods.  Because of the ECX board I was able to spare the drive and use a bluray to boot.  Although optical media is getting somewhat useless, its still one of the signiture features of this computer.  And if I do go the HTPC route it will be a valuable addition.

I also need a proprietary adapter for onboard audio.  If I use HDMI out for an HTPC I won't need onboard audio and I have a griffin audio adapter which allows me to use the native speakers, so its not a necessity.

As you can see this is certainly NOT a hard core gaming computer.  But it is a good machine on par with the current generation of mac minis.  It is noticably faster than the (2 generations ago) mac mini that I currently have hooked up to my touchscreen mod.

I highly recomend this mod.  Even if you could get the native inverter working with an external power source you would still need to manage a 24V, 12V 5V, and 3.3V lines.  The LCD controller for the apple cinema display does it for you.  Except for that this is really no different than the DVI hacks for the 15 and 17".  This is much easier than the previous mod as you do not have to do any cutting or modifying of the case itself.

The 3 things that do concern me about this mod are

1) Not a touch screen - to keep the weight neutral and the mod as close to original as possible I did not go the touchscreen route.  I am currently experimenting with optical sensors.  If I could incorporate these into the bezel it would be essentially weightless and would save me from having to put a poor resolution piece of plastic in front of the monitor display.

2) No Snow Leopard - I didn't want to put a troublesome video work around on just to say its Mac OS X.  I'm going to keep my eyes open and maybe Lion will be different or maybe the next generation of ECX board will have a different graphics option.  And that brings me to #3...

3) The future of ECX boards.  I love this form factor.  Its not only perfect for this mod but I could see doing a lot with it.  The board was developed with the intention of having the power of a mini itx board in a smaller form factor.  But, this is the only small form factor board that I've found that uses something superior to an Atom processor.  As these boards are not mainstream, there is no guarantee that they will be upgraded to anything like sandy bridge architecture.  While I was hoping to see the next generation mini become "smaller", for my purposes they actually became "bigger".  Yes they are thinner, but they are now actually harder to fit within the iMac G4 shell.  But, for now I'm going to enjoy this mod.

I hope people find this helpful and I would love to see people replicate or improve upon this mod.  Starting out I did not think a core 2 duo all in one was possible with the native iMac shell - especially not the 20", but here it is.  As always, I welcome all questions and comments.

Thanks for reading.

Apple cinema display/ iMac g4 Mod - Videos

The first video is an overview and general appearance

The second one demonstrates the mod being used

Completed Mod - The 20" iMac G4 / Apple Cinema Display Touch Screen Mod

I am thrilled with how this mod came out.  Not only does it look great, but I really believe that it will stand the test of time.  It is rock solid stable and an absolute pleasure to use.  And to be honest, relatively speaking, the mod was not that difficult.  It can be done in a few days.  For those interested, I can give very detailed instructions.

OK, I wanted to make it this all-in-one BADLY! But, after almost shorting out my itx mobo, I was in no mood to open the mac mini up and put it inside.  That said, the older generation mac mini would likely be superior to the mini itx in terms of fit.  However, the new mac mini is a no-go without serious modification to the internal faraday cage.  For now I am going to keep the mac mini external.  I may revisit this in the future, but for now, I put the power adapter, touch controller, and usb hub into the base.  I was also going to add the griffin powerwave adapter, but am considering trying to track down an iFire adapter (if the price isn't astronomical).  They both power the Apple Pro Speakers. but the iFire doesn't require external power.

Here are several additional pictures:
    The ports on the back are simply a USB (to connect the USB hub), an AC cord (the cinema display power adapter is at the top of the dome), and a DVI.


The 5 wire touch screen cable is still a little but of a work in progress.  I'm confident that Ill be able to hide it under the front bezel, but I am likely going to have to cut into the ribbon cable.  Because I do not want to damage the 20" touch screen, I have purchased, a much smaller 7" 5 wire resistive touch screen to experiment with.  But for now, this works fine.

This mod has really been my favorite so far.  It feels exactly like the original iMac to me, plus the touch screen.  This was certainly not the direction I expected to go when I restarted this project, but am very happy where I wound up.  Again any comments or even constructive criticism would be appreciated.  Thanks again and happy modding!!!

Update: Touch Panel wires hidden under bezel