iMac G4 20'' back to life!

[CooperBox]

Pssst….

Just picked this up in Oklahoma today. Fully functional. And after some evaluation, I have every intention of doing a feasibility study of what it would take to use M series components, and even eventually find a retina resolution display for it if possible. Haven’t decided if I would execute on that, but I really would like to know what’s possible.

I even still have a set of Harman Kardon sound sticks that go with the design.

Prior to doing your feasibility study for future mods, I suggest you start by maxing out the memory to 2GB and installing an SSD. Then with Sorbet Leopard on the drive you will see what these G4 iMacs are really capable of in 2022 especially surfing the internet with ease.
Please keep us updated of any future mod progress.

 

[gagigu]

@Hello There!

Long time nothing happened. Meantime I moved to a new home and had plenty to work on my new job. Now I had a few days off and can tell you more about my project.
Since a few months I stayed in contact with @PML7554 and he offered me his service to convert an original iMac G4 motherboard with the ports so I can use it for my conversion. He did:
- 3x USB 3 extensions
- Ethernet extension
- I/O power button extension
- Audio 3.5mm jack extension
- Audio 2.5mm speaker extension (incl. powered amp)
- USB-C extension for future upgrade for an M1 Mac Mini.

This looked like this:

So I built in my modified board into the G4's base:

Had to solder the AC/DC and power chord of the Mini's PSU to the power cable of the G4:

And tried to fit in all the internals incl. motherboard of the Mini inside the G4. Unfortunately I noticed I need some new cables as my SSD won't stay in position and the audio jack and HDMI cable are too long so I need some with angled plugs. So this is the update so far, it's not finished but will be soon!

 

[connor55]

Are you doing this with a drive in it? if so, its Very easy to run out of space. Looks good though!

 

[gagigu]

Are you doing this with a drive in it? if so, its Very easy to run out of space. Looks good though!

No unfortunately not as the 2012 Mini board is too big for that. When I find a cheap M1 one I'll replace them and hopefully will add a DVD drive to it.

 

[gagigu]

So I put everything inside the G4 case and closed it. It ran maybe 1-2 hours and I noticed screen started flickering and it was getting hot inside the case. So i shut down the computer and decided to disassemble it again. Maybe a 2012 Mac Mini quadcore isn't the best solution for this project, so I'm getting rid of the little one and will save for a M1 Mini for this project.

 

[crawfordifland]

@gagigu I'm a little confused on how you wired the original G4 power cable to the M1 Mac Mini's PSU...is this basically it? Just a simple splice of the wires?