G4 Cube + Atom 330 CPU + Wiimote = Ultimate HTPC

[iLolige]

It's Pronounced Shas-e

[TacticalSkum]

apple = LOL

[MaaveMaave]

That's friggin packed in there. Nice mod.

[OnceAPunAThyme]

I love this kind of thing, have two old Mac Minis, would love to replace the motherboards with Nano-itx motherboards, though they are so underpowered, even the new AMD ones that offer 20% better performance than the Atoms. It's frustrating waiting for Nano-ITX form factor to catch on. I love what you've done, thank you for sharing, great stuff. Have you made many changes since you made this video?

[CliveAtFive]

@OnceAPunAThyme  Thanks! I haven't made any upgrades to the Cube yet, but I have performed (am performing) another mod you may be interested in... cliveatfive[dot]xanga[dot]com[­slash]tags[slash]xhack

[OnceAPunAThyme]

@CliveAtFive Good job! I wanted to make one of these out of wood, seriously, but couldn't find technical drawings or interest from my wood working friends. Glass was another possibility but the glass blower friend who was my brother's partner... they split up and... too expensive, anyway. I drawn to the idea of getting one and spraying the sides white, including the handles, and making the front slate-black.

[geekconnection]

my chalenge to you. put a gamecube in a g4 cube

[Macintosh3745]

you should have made it control ur lights :)

[Je44567]

I got mine done but could not make the touch sensor work (while in the acrylic). It worked great when outside the acrylic but it was just not sensitive enough somehow ... I am so envious of your switch I spent like 25 hr on that dam thing. Oh well I will be turning it on and off with the remote anyway. My setup/pics are on appletoaster com

[jubilantjeremy]

Looks awesome. Came across this while investigating building my own hackintosh, inside a G4 sawtooth case (as a workstation though, not as a HTPC).

FYI, "chassis" is usually pronounced as "shas-ee" (not chass-is)

[CliveAtFive]

@jubilantjeremy - I'm doing the same thing with an old Quicksilver case I picked up! Good luck to you!

"Chassis" yeah yeah, it's one of those things I know but it's ingrained in my head the wrong way from childhood. ;)

[experimental0000]

though since it is all mac, would it be possible to use mac wireless keybaord and mouse ? I know it's a hassle but might come in handy for you :)

[CliveAtFive]

@experimental0000 - Any bluetooth device should work just fine, including Apple's wireless accessories. One thing I'm going to try soon is syncing my iPod Touch to use as a wireless keyboard and remote.

[experimental0000]

awesome re purposing of an old computer alot of ingenuity to get the internals to actually fit in such a snug space would using a 2.5 inch laptop hdd have saved you any room inside? if not then the 1 TB was a good choice.

[CliveAtFive]

@experimental0000 - Actually, no. There was a place designed especially for a 3.5" HDD. I left that bay intact. If I had wanted to gut the entire thing and make a chassis from scratch, that might've been the way I'd go, but I wanted to keep as much of the original cube intact.

[experimental0000]

@CliveAtFive you did a great job at it, as I'm sure it wasn't easy on something that snug to begin with.

[Je44567]

Clive , great job on the HTPC! I have had the same thing brewing in my head for a few years and finaly started. I am running into the same problem as you with the Proximity sensor. While there is some good material out there for making the touch center work with PC borads you are the only person I have found that has relocated the main board and extended the sensor. Can you go into specifics on that? Not sure where the quarter comes in, I see the to leads at the bottom and perhaps a ring. Thanks

[CliveAtFive]

@Je44567 With the plug socket facing to the right, the top pin is +5V, the fourth is +3.3V and the fifth is GND. Here's the trick for when you move the prox sensor board: The metal ring that houses the LED is also the sensor switch. The screw that holds this board in place is GROUNDED and connected to the ring, so you must re-ground that ring in some way. OR, as long as whatever you're using for a switch is grounded, you'll be fine. Basically, you just need something metallic.

[CliveAtFive]

@CliveAtFive I used a US quarter because I needed something low-profile, and the same size as the circular spot for the prox sensor. I first grounded the ring, then soldered a wire between the quarter and the ring. Lastly, I wrapped the sensor board in electrical tape and shoved it into a nook. The quarter is also wrapped in tape, since the capacitance of your fingers will still affect the voltage of the quarter and trigger the switch.

Good luck on your mod! If you have more ?s, let me know.

[Je44567]

@CliveAtFive Awesome!! that's kind of that I was thinking, I saw that resistor leading to the ring around the LED and thought that might be it. I am thinking I am going to try to use one of those electrical connectors that are like a washer with a spot to crimp a cable for the extension. Also there is a guy on CubeOwner by the name of Paris that sells brackets to attach slim line drives in the optical bay. I got a slim line Blue ray drive to put in it for movies. Thanks very much Clive

[threeinchhammer]

Fantastic concept. Do you have plans online anywhere?

[CliveAtFive]

@threeinchhammer -- Thanks! The closest thing to "plans" would be my Xanga link in the description.

[haroahyuokei]

Wow this is AWESOME. And inspiring. One of my Cubes died recently and I've been hoping to get some ideas for giving it a second life. I skimmed your Xanga and I was curious if there were any obstacles to trying Mac Mini internals instead of the Atom motherboard?

[CliveAtFive]

@haroahyuokei : Yes. Price!

In all seriousness, there are still a few hurdles. One would be the DVD Drive, which would require a JAE50 cable (see my other video) or other hard-to-find adapter for the port to connect via an IDE cable -- OR -- if you have one of the newest fancy-pants SATA Mac Minis, ignore what I said completely.

Two, capacitance touch switch. I know at one point there was someone selling an adapter kit which would at least make recreating the power switch assembly(like I did)

[CliveAtFive]

a lot easier, but you'll still have to do a bit of soldering and hair-pulling.

Third, I don't know how handy you are with the rotary tool, but this was my first time using one and it was a bit of a challenge. Practice on scrap metal before you grind up your Cube.

Other than that, patience is the key. If you're having trouble, there are tons of nice folks around the web who are willing to help you figure something out. :) Good luck!

[CliveAtFive]

@haroahyuokei -- Price. =) I would've preferred to use Mac Mini internals, but it would've been too expensive to get one with a capable-enough GPU.

Glad you like the build!

[DeeJayBounce]

tjassis?

[SinnerBOFH]

Pretty freakking sweet!

[nidwannaya]

How hot does this system get?

And if you were to build one today, what components would you use?

Thanks

[CliveAtFive]

@nidwannaya -- It does get pretty hot. One thing I'd like to do is put a "silent" fan in the bottom to blow cool air up through the unit.

If I were to built it today, I would DEFINITELY use an i5-capable board, like the DH57JG.

[Gandhiablo]

You've created a monster!

A freak!

[CliveAtFive]

@Gandhiablo hahaha. I think she's beautiful. ;)

[hippievogelei]

a sonnet 1,7 ghz with 1.5gb ram and a nice hard drive and a geforce wouldnt be that slower,

[Smash4UF]

@ Cliveatfive:

I bought a gutted cube on ebay, was going to go the fishtank route but now im having second thoughts. if you were to do this again what kind of specs would you recommend? thinkin about givin this a go. I could care less if it runs osx or windows, long as i can play HD movies... HDMI out would be a nice touch.

[CliveAtFive]

Mini ITX mo-boards have come a long way in the year since I purchased mine. If you're not concerned with price, there are some great Core 2 boards with integrated NVIDIA 9xxxs and HDMI out. If you're just doing a media server, then it doesn't matter what OS you use, but if you're going to use it as a HTPC, I absolutely recommend using OS X's Front Row. It is absolutely super-slick. You can browse any other iTunes media library on your network, and since it works with a remote already, syncing a

[CliveAtFive]

Wiimote is a really natural step, (assuming you set up the Wiimote to the correct key commands). Also, the DVD ripping software available for the Mac are a cinch to use, compared to their PC alternatives.

Keeping these things in mind, choose your hardware carefully, as it might not be easily hackable for OS X. Check out "insanelymac" for some great OSX86 guides for a lot of different hardware profiles.

Good Luck! Send me a link when you get it all set up!

[MikeyLOVESkateboard]

HD?

[CliveAtFive]

Haven't tested anything in 1080p yet... I own no BluRay discs ;) the GMA 950, however, allegedly plays back HD, so...

[jbondarts]

Awsome setup. How much did this all cost? Do you have a breakdown by parts?

Thanks so much for sharing.

[CliveAtFive]

Cube Shell: $100 Atom 330 mo-board & PSU: $130 1Tb HDD: $75 2Gb RAM: $30 used Mac Mini slot-loading DVD drive: $30 Flexible PCI riser: $20 Wi-FI Adapter: $20 Bluetooth USB Adapter: $20 Wireless Wiimote LED bar: $25 Other Misc parts (switches, LEDs, etc.): $50 Construction materials (cutting discs, etc): $30 OS X, Leopard: $125 Total BoM: $655 One-of-a-kind computer: priceless! =)

[skipmeister123]

I'm planning out my next HTPC... will the dual core Atoms play HD content? 720p is good enough, but 1080p is preferable. I'm not sure if it's more cpu dependent or video card dependent.

[jojo1224999]

@skipmeister123 Get an Nvidia ION based Atom motherboard, its capable of playing 1080p video. But make sure you get one with an atom 330 because the 230 is really slow. The ZOTAC IONITX-D-E is one of the best boards to use because it has pretty much any connectors youd need for a htpc onboard and you can also over clock the cpu to 2ghz.

[skipmeister123]

Thanks, I appreciate the quick response. I'll look into that for my HTPC. The Zotac board you mentioned has the Ion, yes?

[Membrane556]

Another option is the Zotac GeForce 8200 ITX as a Phenom x2 will be a few multiples more powerful then the atom 330 but it all depends on heat.

It would still play HD codecs that don't have off loading to the video chip.

I would not stuff a Phenom or CD2 into an NES case.

If you're planning that then Atom or the Nano are really your only choices.

With Atom anything Ion based will get the job done.

The Nano based VIA VB8001 does have a PCI-e X16 slot though so you can add a better video card.

[thomasdimon]

It's more depents from video card... NVIDIA ION + Atom 330 = FULL HD Without any problems...

[itnt07]

this has to be the best g4cube mod ive seen...

you used a quarter with electrical for christ sake!...

[CliveAtFive]

Thanks =)

[Membrane556]

Not much of an upgrade I hope you used a dead cube vs destorying a working example.

A core duo or ion based board or even the gigadesigns dual core G4 upgrade would smoke the 945GCLF2.

Heck even some pentium M's are faster then a basic Atom 330.

[CliveAtFive]

Ah, a Cube purist. I like that. Rest assured, the Cube I bought on eBay was missing several vital parts despite having a working motherboard (which I still have, if you're interested).

[CliveAtFive]

Unfortunately, C2D boards were unavailable at the time I began this mod. Still this serves as a proof of concept for future Mini ITX mods, including w/C2D boards. Eventually, G4 upgrades (the preferred method, for sure) will fail to meet the needs of modern computing. The 945GCLF2 + Atom330, while on par with modest G4 speeds, is capable of natively playing HD content, running Leopard + Front Row, and doesn't produce a lot of excess heat - my primary objectives.

Thanks for your comments!

[adric22]

Compared to the original CPU in the Cube, the Atom 330 would be a HUGE upgrade..

[Membrane556]

It does score higher on xbench but it's not as large as an improvement as you'd think since Atom is an in order processor and the G4 an out of order cpu.

The stock G4 500 got around 33.35 on xbench while the 945GCLF2 usually scores around 51 to 53 on xbench.

Some dual core g4 upgrades can almost match a G5 and score over 100.

Ion probably would score much higher as xbench measures all aspects of a given Mac.

Adding a 7200 rpm drive also may help a little.

[Membrane556]

I had to do this in two pieces.

The biggest improvement is not the processor but instead the memory bus the Original G4 only had 133 SDR ram while the Atom board has DDR2. Even though the main CPU is too slow to really utilize that kind of bandwidth it probably really helps with DMA operations,allows the IGP still gain a respectable score and make operations that miss the cache a lot faster.

[adric22]

Well, I have several G4 500 mhz systems and I also have a hackintosh with an Atom 230. The atom does circles around the G4. And this guy has the Atom 330 so it should be even better.

[arstovicek]

Don't wait for people to ask about your wiimote activator script, just post it. Someone is bound to want to see/use it.

[Flclfan0066]

this is a pretty freaking sweet rig you have going here. and since it is in a G4 cube box it is technically legal :D because its apple labeled, and yes i know that really isn't a way around the eula but what ever.

[CliveAtFive]

Hahaha, I didn't think about the "Apple-Labeled" clause, but you're completely right. In fact, my next mod will also be "legit..." an ATX motherboard in a Quicksilver case!

Thanks for stopping by!

[karmatose23]

having done this, plan your cooling well before diving in. The G4 tower cases are horrible for airflow.

You might also want to look into an mATX board as it fits a whole lot easier..

[CliveAtFive]

I've read up on this mod quite a bit. I'm actually using a full ATX board I already have. There are only small corners I'll have to grind make room for it, but it will fit.

Also, not only is the airflow poor, but there isn't much room between the CPU and the PSU! My giant heatsink won't fit at all. That leaves only one option... H2O-cooling =D

[TheEgg185]

let me ask you somethin, clive. stupid question but do you have to have a wii (and turned on) to be able to use the wiimote. im guessing yes.

[CliveAtFive]

Actually, no! I purchased a wireless sensor bar from Wal*Mart. Others have made their own to work via USB or even candles. The latter isn't very practical, but all you need is two strong infrared sources. Wiimotes, of course, can be purchased at your local big box store and ARE required to communicate with DarwiinRemote. ;)

Thanks for your interest!