So this case I have documented before as being one of the hardest Apple cases to do a decent conversion on.
Reasons for this you can read about here: Which G3:G4 to mod?
I have made various attempts at overcoming the problems in the past.
My first attempt was a full ATX conversion to the case where I basically stripped everything off the door side to leave a flat panel and then mounted my ATX board inside the case on a motherboard tray that sat on top of my drives and PSU. It was quite a nice looking mod. and I also managed to fit a Corsair 100 in there to cool it all – this is still (in my opinion) the only way that I would ever attempt a full ATX insertion into a Mirror drive door case.
FULL ATX MDD CONVERSION
My second attempt was based on the realisation that if you buy an old G4 (e.g. AGP type) then you can modify the MDD door using the old G4 door as the inner door skin – i.e. the MDD has two panels on the door originally (inner and outer) so you need to drill out the rivets holding the two panels together and remove the inner skin and then take the door from the old G4 [which is just a single panel door] and use that as the new inner skin for the MDD. Of course this also involves adapting the hinge (as they are different), drilling the old G4 door so you can rivet it to the MDD outer panel and various other bits and pieces. The result is shown in this YouTube video:
Uses AGP door as inner skin
This is quite a successful conversion but I am not 100% happy with the fact that the plastic panels cover up a huge gap between the metalwork at the back of the case. Also it pretty much requires the use of either the original PSU case or to re-wire the original PSU (can be done!) for it to work out okay.
My third attempt is probably the most “pretty” and fits the style of the MDD quite well. Unfortunately there is a severe compromise that prevents me from releasing it as a kit – I could not find a way to fix the PCI-e cards into position and the standoffs needed to be super short. So short in fact that the door panel had to be lined with insulator so that the bottom of the motherboard did not short out and there would be almost no room for CPU cooler backplate fixings. All this came from the fact that the right hand side of the MDD if not cut back just did not leave enough space for my conversion type.
So my latest [fourth] attempt at converting the MDD case comes at the problem from a different perspective: can we, using basic tools and parts, convert the MDD back so that standard PCI-e cards and an ATX power supply can be mounted in the same way as for the other G4s to make it be a more user friendly finished product?
To be continued in my next post…….
