PC in an iMac?

[bgibbz]

Hey,

 

my 21.5" late 2009 iMacs harddrive recently died, and because I don't use that machine anymore, I see no reason to fix it. I was prepared to drop it off at free geek or something, but I couldn't help my self from completely tearing it down first. I whipped out my shiny ifixit pro tech tool kit, and about 2 hours later I was left with this. 

 

Spoiler

I noticed that the interior of the case was actually quite big, and then a crazy idea dawned on me - what if I could build a small PC inside of the case? Now obviously there are several issues with that, including space, mounting points, and connecting the lcd. I did some crude measurements, and I do believe that there is room to fit an itx board in the case, and using a pcie extender I could fit a small gpu to the side or above it. The psu would be outside of the case, and I would have to find a board with sideways sodimm memory slots in order to fit the ram. To mount the board, I am thinking I can design and 3D print a sled of sorts, essentially it would have holes to screw it to the standoffs that are installed in the Mac, and also have standard mini itx mounting points to attach the board to. I would cut out slots in either the side or bottom of the case to put the I/O through, and because the gpu would be connected to the monitor inside of the case, it would not even need may external I/O ports. The CPU would be cooled probably by a single rad AIO cooler with rad mounted outside of the case, and i would probably put an AIO gpu cooled card inside with the rad also mounted outside of the case. The biggest challenge I can foresee would be connecting the display to the gpu. The display has 4 connectors on it, a thermal probe (we don't care about this one), an edp (embedded display port), led power, and vsync. The power and vsync cable both connect to a small inverter card that excepts a 4 pin power input. I would reuse the inverter, but probably have to wire up some cables from the new PSU into the 4 pin connector in order to power the inverter. Also, while edp carries the same signals as DisplayPort, from what I have read, it is very difficult to wire the cable into a DP connector. This is a highly theoretical build, as I am only 16 and although I have experience with basic electrical engineering, the amount of work needed to wire up the panel is probably beyond my skill level. I still am considering trying at least, and I was wondering if you guys think they this idea could be possible. If I can manage to get this to work, I think it could look pretty awesome! If anyone has any other idea or criticism of this build, please share it! 

[DisconnectedYT]

Looks like a great idea but can it run crisis?

[Hero7750]

Or just get a windows AIO?

[Mug]

iMac conversions that I've seen have used something called a Pico PSU which might come in handy for you. My advice would be to not bother with the graphics card though, too much heat.

[bgibbz]

2 minutes ago, Hero7750 said:

Or just get a windows AIO?

Lol I have a machine, this project would just be for the hell of it

[bgibbz]

23 minutes ago, Mug said:

iMac conversions that I've seen have used something called a Pico PSU which might come in handy for you. My advice would be to not bother with the graphics card though, too much heat.

Yeah, probably a good idea to omit the gpu. Never heard of pico psus, il look into it, thanks!

[jrhackjr]

@bgibbzHow did the hack go? Hope you're well.