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Motherboard Case Compatibility

cobalt60

Well-known member
Is there a centralized location that shows motherboard / case compatibility?
My current situation is I am looking for a case for a 7600 motherboard. Will 650, 7100, 7200, 7300, 7500 all work? How about 800, 8100, 8500, 8600? 9500 and 9600? G3 desktop, G3 tower?
I am curious about 68k models. If there's no centralized location, and the answer is somewhat complicated, I'll work on putting together a spreadsheet or something.
 

joshc

Well-known member
The 7600 shared a case with the 7200, 7300 and 7500 machines. That was called the Outrigger case and it was also used for the G3 desktop.

If I was you, I would find a nice PC case and fit it into that, with an ATX PSU and wire it up to the 7600's power pinout.

It does get complicated because of the rear I/O panels on Macs were part of the case, not a separate detachable piece like on a lot of PCs. There was no standard, Apple frequently changed what ports were on logicboards and the placement of them.

Generally speaking, if the ports line-up with the case, and the logicboard physically fits inside the case, then it's compatible. But some modding might have to be done to get things actually working.

There are some weird scenarios. Like the fact you can put a 840AV logicboard into a IIci case (you would need to cut the case for the ports) but it does physically fit, but the power supply needs a bit of modding to plug into the logicboard in that scenario.

So that's the other thing... Mac logicboards were designed mostly to only fit a small number of cases, as they were each designed for one case only (roughly speaking), and as such, things like speaker headers, power supply connectors etc were placed for that specific case design.

A 650 board fits perfectly in a 700 case, and the ports line-up, no modifications needed.

You could probably categorise models by case design, and in a lot of cases you'll find examples where they are cross compatible.

Here's a rough go from memory...

128K/512K/Plus - logicboards interchangeable between these, power connectors are the same, BUT Plus has different ports - so you need a new rear case OR you chop up the 128K/512K case to make the Plus board fit

SE and SE/30 - logicboards interchangeable between these, only caveat being the SE/30 has a different chassis (and some later SEs) so that vertical PDS cards can fit.

II / IIx / IIfx - logicboards interchangeable between these, share the same case and power supply

IIcx / IIci - logicboards interchangeable between these, share the same case and power supply

Here's where it gets weird... these models use a different style case, but the logicboards will fit into the IIcx / IIci / Quadra 700 cases...

IIvx / IIvi / Power Mac 7100 / Quadra 650 / Performa 600 / Centris 650 - all use the same metal painted case, same power connector/pin out, the only difference being the ports at the back on the IIvx/IIvi differ quite a bit from memory so some jiggery pokery might have to be done there.

So because of the formfactor of these logicboards, you can fit a Power Mac 7100 board into a Mac IIci case. WEIRD.

Classic / Classic II - logicboards interchangeable

Colour Classic / Colour Classic II / Performa 275 / Performa 575 / 550 / etc - these all use a weird logicboard with an edge connector and so boards from any of these are interchangeable. Although I have no idea what happens if you put a CC board into a 575, usually people do it the other way around.

Power Mac 6100 / Quadra 610 / Centris 610 / 660AV - Larger pizza box style case, logicboards can be swapped between these and they all use the same power pinout.

IIsi - This is a lone ranger, nothing else fits in this, just IIsi boards.

Mac TV - Another lone ranger, its a unique logicboard, BUT I am not certain if the chassis/case will take other boards with edge connectors like the Colour Classic and 575/550/520 etc etc. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable can fill in on those.

Quadra 900/950
- big Quadra, you can only fit 900 or 950 boards in here. BUT I have seen someone put a Power Mac board into one, but it required a lot of modding.

LC / LC II / LC III / LC 475 / Quadra 605 - the logicboards are interchangeable as the case bottoms didn't really change, but there is a small power supply difference between the 475 and earlier models.

LC / Performa / Quadra 630 - first model to use this case, a taller pizza box with CD-ROM drive. The logicboard is again one with an edge connector, but strangely I don't believe they support that many other logicboards. I think in theory you can put a 6200 logicboard into a Colour Classic, 575, or a 630, but again I may be wrong on that one...

That kinda covers the 68k era of stuff as far as I can remember, and I am not sure if it really answered your question,... I am less knowledgeable about the PowerPC era stuff really. But the same principles apply. Look at the physical case size/shape, the port orientation, and power/speaker connector placement, and it will give you clues as to what boards can fit where. But do be careful with power supply requirements - even in the 7xxx series of Power Macs, there were power pinout differences between those models !
 

Phipli

Well-known member
Is there a centralized location that shows motherboard / case compatibility?
My current situation is I am looking for a case for a 7600 motherboard. Will 650, 7100, 7200, 7300, 7500 all work? How about 800, 8100, 8500, 8600? 9500 and 9600? G3 desktop, G3 tower?
I am curious about 68k models. If there's no centralized location, and the answer is somewhat complicated, I'll work on putting together a spreadsheet or something.
I think you'd get it in an 8200 or 8500 case too. If you really wanted to. The connectors on the 8600 are rotated 90 degrees, but it is also pretty similar. The Power supply connector changes at some point in all these boards... of the top of my head, the number of pins changed for the 7300 and 8600... but don't quote me on that.
 

volvo242gt

Well-known member
IIvx/IIvi/P600 use the same port configuration as the Q650/700/800/C650 boards. They just don't have an ethernet port in place, so there's the piece of plastic that has to be knocked out. 7100 has the HDI-45 video port in the middle, with the ethernet port moved. So, some mods necessary to a non-7100 Wombat board form-factor case, like what's necessary to mod a 600/650/700/800 board into a IIcx or IIci case.

Re: swapping a 7600 board into an 8500 case, it's the reverse of what's been mentioned here: https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?thr...wermac-8500-motherboard-with-7200-case.42036/

-J
 

cobalt60

Well-known member
This is all good info. I am trying to avoid cutting plastic in case I or someone else ever wants the case in it's original form. I *might* consider doing a simple drill hole for small ports like ADB or maybe ethernet, but I definitely don't want to cut out a SCSI or VGA port out. Do drills work well on these cases?

How about motherboard mounting holes? Are these standardized across all the above cases I mentioned? If not, is it trivial to modify? Do those cases use standard standoffs, or are those molded plastic as well?

As far as power supplies, there's a good chance I'll just use a modded PC power supply, so no worries there. And as far as internal wiring, I can do that easily as well. Mostly I am just looking for nostalgia out of this, so I want a beige Mac case, with a rainbow logo, and ideally a PowerPC logo.
 

s_pupp

Well-known member
8600 logic board is compatible with 7300 case and power supply. After removing the blank inserts over the AV connectors, the 8600’s AV connector board can be installed in the 7300 case.
 
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