Mac Gutted

A pictorial adventure in removing the innards of an Apple Macintosh Performa 6400/180.

Machine Statistics

WTF?!?

Okay, I'm sure a lot of questions are entering your mind. Most important is: is he on crack? No, wait, actually, it's probably: why? Well, my friend Tim Swindoll and I (Nathan Johnson) took the Mac apart to answer several questions. You probably won't understand it by the time you get done reading this and looking at all the pictures. That's why it's crazy. So, just sit back, relax, and read on.

The biggest reason I wanted to do it was to find out why it's so darned heavy. The whole thing weighs about 45 lbs. I had once taken the motherboard and all the drives out and it still had to be about 35 lbs. What else could be in there that weighs that much? The power supply, perhaps? Probably not. The other nagging question was: can I do it? Apple really didn't want man to get into this machine. Scary.

I just happened to trick Timmy into helping me rip the sucker apart. It was sort of like peeling an artichoke, I imagine (though I've never done it). It's just one ugly layer after another. I don't suggest trying this yourself, but I can tell you that the only two tools you'll need are a phillips head screw driver and a putty knife. To start, unscrew the mobo (motherboard) and pull it out the back. Next, have your friend push up on the two plastic clasps in the front at the bottom and use the putty knife to gently pry the front plastic cover off. Use a similar prying technique to remove the plastic cover of the front of the extra drive bay at the top. The very top plastic cover then slides off forward and the two sides do the same thing. You might need to unscrew some screws or push some clasps (or tabs or whatever) along the way. Basically, if you see something preventing something from moving, unscrew it (or press it). The back was probably the hardest to get off. There are several plastic tabs you have to press and some screws to unscrew. Look at how it is attached carefully and be gentle, it could break easily. After you have all of the plastic off you are left with a metal case. One of the sides should unscrew (4 screws in the corners). Don't be fooled, the metal case doesn't pull off, it slides off. Once you get inside, just start removing stuff (don't forget to mark some of the cables, like the one leading to the volume controls in the front and the one leading to the video out at the top in the back). You wouldn't want to forget where something goes. Man, this is nuts.

The Mac booted up and worked just fine when we reattached everything outside the case. Most of the weight is due to the intense amounts of plastic and metal in the case as well as the huge black plastic thing at the bottom. That thing contains the speakers and subwoofer. The Mac has onboard sound, so it doesn't really need that unit, just some speakers plugged into sound output jack on the back of the mobo. Ultimately, I would love to find a better case to put it in (since I have yet to get it back in successfully without having cables hanging where they shouldn't be (like where the mobo slides in). A light case with easy access to the internals (like a PC ATX case) would be great. If you have any suggestions for a case, e-mail me.

The Image Gallery

Here is a picture of the empty case. Notice the big black sub and speakers unit at the bottom.

Wow! Welcome to Macintosh. It boots even with it's internals strewn about. I never realized how much our carpet looks like cooked ground beef.

It booted totally and worked just fine. That's running Mac OS 7.5.3, by the way.

Here's a close-up of the internals and how they connect. The motherboard sort of 'plugs into' the drive cables and power supply (note the plastic strip at the end of the mobo with all of the cables coming out of it).

This is a nice distanced shot of the Mac running with it's guts hanging out.

Here is a picture of a 6400 (ripped from MacintoshOS.com because I didn't take a picture of mine before I started). Oh, and I meant to do that. Haha (click the picture...make sense now?).

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