Mac mini hardware into an iMac G3?

[mx-v]

Just pondering. Have this been done before? How hard it could be?

The old iMacs CRT is nice and the thing looks good. Older minis are not expensive and it looks like fitting the guts of the mini into the iMac would not be real hard.

What do you think?

 

[LCGuy]

The hardest part would probably be coming up with a custom wiring loom for the display. (assuming you want to keep the iMac's display) Another issue is that the mini will need to keep its power adapter, meaning you'll still need two power points - one for the iMac power supply, one for the mini power supply.

 

[Scott Baret]

Just to verify--you're going to transplant into a slot loader, right?

 

[MacJunky]

meaning you'll still need two power points - one for the iMac power supply, one for the mini power supply.

Unless he did a custom cable wiring the AC side of the adapter to the AC plug on the inside of the iMac. Presuming of course that the Mini's brick will fit inside the iMac along with the Mini and not cut off all the space for the Mini's rear ports&vent. *shrug* I do not know how big the Mini's brick is.I am just going to go ahead and say that you will likely want a fan blowing air out of the top of the iMac.. SL iMacs needed them in stock config and it certainly will need it with a Mini in there.

 

[LCGuy]

Slightly off-topic, one thing that always surprised me about the slot load iMacs is that no third party companies ever made fans for them. The early compacts had issues with overheating just like the slot load iMacs, and they had all kinds of solutions available to them such as the System Saver and FannyMac (lol), whereas the slot load iMacs didn't have anything of that sort. Around 2001 - 2002 I did work experience at an AASP and I remember they always had slot load iMacs in for repair, due to the APV board or Down Converter Board overheating and therefore failing. I know Steve hates fans....but really, building a machine like that with no fan...what a stupid idea.

 

[waynestewart]

The tray loader had a standard Mac monitor connector inside it and has a fan. Adding a slot to access the optical drive would be easy or just use an external firewire burner.

 

[Gorgonops]

Since no one has mentioned this yet... (and questions like this come up a lot, so maybe there should be a FAQ or something.)

The monitors inside the G3 iMacs are not "normal" Multisync monitors. They're simplified fixed-frequency units that only support a few oddball resolution/refresh rate combinations. (640x480@100-ish Hz, 800x600@86-ish, and 1024x768@70-ish.) They cannot sync to "normal" VGA rates, and they do not have standard VESA DDC lines to communicate their strangeness to a standard video card. The motherboards in these systems can support normal monitors, which is why ATX-style hacks work. It's the original wiring harness that informs the motherboard to use custom video modes on the stock monitor. Wiring up to a Mini could technically "work", but you'll need a software hack to get picture. (It might *possibly* work if you picked something close to the original mode, like 1024x768@70hz and fiddled with whatever adjustment pots the monitor might have.)

I seem to recall someone doing a hack like this with a Mini-ITX board and Linux at some point, but Linux is "easy" because it's pretty trivial to use a custom X11 modeline. (Old versions of Linux which ran on iMacs usually have an appropriate modeline present in their default XF86Config files.)

Edit: I suppose it's also worth noting that the original monitor is the most failure-prone component of an iMac G3. There's no telling how long a hack like this would last. You'd probably be safer using the guts of a high-quality stand-alone triniton monitor if you could find one in good shape that would fit.

 

[zerotypeq]

I remember seeing somebody doing a micro-atx hackintosh mod using the original CRT. I'll try finding the link as I can see that being helpful for you.

 

[G4foreva]

Sorry, threadjack, but i didn't think this warranted a new thread.

This is a pretty cool idea, but I'm still a noob on the tech side. If I wanted to do this but remove the CRT and and put an LCD or something in it's place, what do you think the major problems would be? The iMac CRTs give me a major headache, all CRTs seem to trigger migraines in me, but I love the iMac formfactor and would love to have one.

 

[Gorgonops]

This is a pretty cool idea, but I'm still a noob on the tech side. If I wanted to do this but remove the CRT and and put an LCD or something in it's place, what do you think the major problems would be?

The biggest issue would be finding an LCD that nicely fit the original opening in the bezel, and doing the "carpentry" work necessary to make it look good. The iMacs had "15 inch" displays, but that was the diagonal measurement of the tube, some of which is covered up by the plastic around the edges. The hole itself is around 14" diagonal (I don't have an iMac anymore to measure exactly), and even though the iMac used "flat" CRTs the edges are slightly bowed, rather than *flat* like an LCD.

Thus to make it look original-equipment you'd have to find a 13 or 14 inch LCD monitor (14 inches wasn't *terribly* uncommon as an entry level size around 2003 or so, but you'll have to look for it), carefully skin it and construct mountings to fit it into a gutted iMac case, and then see if you can cook up some sort of curved (and smoked?) piece of glass or plastic to put in front of it to preserve the "stock" look.

(If you don't care about it looking *exactly* stock I imagine a black matting adapting from the original edges down to a slightly smaller LCD would do.)

If you're looking to preserve the original iMac motherboard then the most straightforward thing to do would probably be to make the wiring harness from an "ATX conversion", remove the original power supply and analog parts, and sub a less dangerous ATX supply into the space freed by removing the CRT.

 

[G4foreva]

Thanks, this has seriously got me thinking. If I were to completely remove an iMac's guts and replace them with a 14" iBook, screen and all, I think that'd be pretty sweet. Take some fancy shoehorning, but I think it can be done. If only iBooks weren't still so bloody expensive.