Mac Pro Ultra Mini: Making That Itty Bitty Computer A Reality

What happens when you update your laptop to the latest Apple MacBook on the market? You're stuck with an old computer that you probably won't get a lot of money for. Most of us are stuck with them and accumulate them. Others find ways to reuse them and recycle them. It's always galling to find out that the Mac you bought a few years ago is out of date and that you have to update. Wolphcry was given non-functional 13" MacBook. What was wrong with it you might ask? Apparently water had been poured all over it. Here you will find out how you can convert a 'dead' Apple MacBook to a Mac Pro Ultra Mini.

So, the Macbook was dead. Wolphcry took it apart and found out that the motherboard was still good, but everything else was toast. He used his electronic know-how to repair as much as he could. Once he added a new HD and some RAM, the little machine was up and running again. It didn't take him long to think about converting his little computer, which worked fine as a media computer, into the Mac Pro Ultra Mini. The trick was finding an external hard drive case that looked like a Mac Pro. For about $40, the Macally G-S350SUA Aluminum External Enclosure did the job nicely.

The most difficult part was actually fitting the motherboard into the enclosure. A lot of cutting had to go into this part, to make sure that the board fit in well. Then a lot of hard work went into making sure that everything worked well. This is a great little build that you can try if you have enough electronic acumen. We think that the Mac Pro Ultra Mini looks awesome and it fits really nicely in your living room, next to your HDTV.

Check out Wolphcry's step-by-step guide on how he completed this build and his flick photo set.
[via Wolphbite, photos by Wolphcry]

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