FrankenYikes! Installing a Sawtooth Mobo in a Yikes! case

On the back of the sawtooth motherboard is a heatsink that's attached to the door caseback. It contacts U28 on the reverse side of the motherboard. That and it passes thry the clear latch-cover thingee. The B&W/Yikes don't have this square hole. Another thing is the alignment of the screw holes(?).

Hmm, also I believe the power-on board is a different design, the B&W/Yikes has a power connector going to it whereas the sawtooth gets its power from the motherboard. There's also the issue of the USB/Firewire/Ethernet ports. Deal with those as necessary.

Then there's the Powersupply issue. Both have a 20-pin connector and it'll fit it but I can't tell you if it's the same pinout. They both have a 200W capacity.

Although for the cost in time for this hack you may be better off finding a Sawtooth case with p-sup and power-on board then swap your drives over. But you know us Mac Haxxorz, doing something for the sake of doing it is 1/2 the fun!

Let us know how you fare! =)

-Dk

I did find the Apple Service Maual for the G4 line at http://www.eserviceinfo.com/download.php?fileid=8556 (an handy piece of G4 hacker info!). And another piece of info is that I actually have a Rev. 2 (or is it B) Sawtooth mobo, which accordingly uses the Rev.2 (or B) power supply, which is 237 w, instead of the 200 or 208 w power supply used by the Rev. 1 (or A) Sawteeth (sp ?) and Yikes! computers. The take apart diagrams in the Service Manuals even show the same part numbers. THe ohter thing is that the Yikes! case uses a removable i/o backplate, whereas from the Sawtooth on up, the i/o plate is actually part of the chassis. So I may be able to bypass the port geometry issue completely by just removing the backplate completely, and if I am really industrious, I could make one out of a piece of plexi or acrylic myself (seeing as I just got a Dremel tool for Christmas!).

The last issue is the CPU. The Sawtooth andd Cube share the same CPU design and I happen to have a spare 400 MHz CPU just sitting there from my hopped up PL 1.8 GHz Cube. So that should work (if I can find some of those damn CPU screws, tubes and springs!). What would be interesting is if I can actually used the PL 1.8 GHz upgrade CPU in my FrankenYikes!. I know it uses the VRM bypass line to power it directly from the Cube's power supply, but conceivably I should be able to power it using the power supple from the FrankenYikes! (assuming I can get a cheap 237 w power supply).

Does anyone know if I can just use an peecee ATX supply with a higher rating? I am assuming the the 237b w rating is kinda a minimum capability (not a max limit). IOW the board draws as much as it needs, it is not force fed, right? Since I can probably dig up a cheap peecee supply a lot easier that a cheap Sawtooth supply (so far the cheapest I have found is a refurb for $145 --- too much for a hacker like me!).

Anyway, we'll see......

If the Yikes power supply will work woth your Sawtooth mobo, that should be fine. The only thing off-hand I can remember about a Sawtooth needing a higher output p-sup was when installing an ADC monitor (which there was an adapter that would connect the extra power connector on the video card).

Your Cube CPU will work fine on the Sawtooth mobo. If you don't have the stock big-fin heatsink you'll need one or fab something. If you fab a heatsink, keep in mind the stock one was tapered to clear the upper drive bays.

BTW, does your sawtooth mobo have the 3 CPU daughtercard stand-offs? If not I've got a set from a dead mobo for a small $.

Accelerate Your Mac has some info on converting an ATX p-sup to the sawtooth. Here's the linkaroo...

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/ATX_G4_AGP_conversion/G4_AGP_to_ATX_case_pg2.htm

-Dk