Finalman's PS4 PRO PC Case Mod

THE IDEA

This mod is to basically develop PS4 Pro adapter plate, hardware and wiring adapters that are able to be transplanted between different PC cases with no modification to the actual PC case or PS4 motherboard.

REASONS

1. Have a bigger style heatsink so that the PS4 APU runs cooler.
2. Allow the motherboard exposure to more air rather than being in close proximity to a heated metal chassis.
3. Motherboard steel chassis's rust and the rust particles fall on to the motherboard and can cause shorts.
4. Easily replace the internal motherboard clock battery.

PERCENT COMPLETE

95%

TASKS

Complete:
Create PS4 motherboard adapter plate

Prepare the APU heat sink
Create custom APU clamping hardware
Create a fan adapter cable
Create ATX power adapter cables
Create BT and WIFI Antenna PCI bracket
Find heat sinks for the APU Voltage Regulators
Find heat sinks for the RAM
Create PS4 to PC case LEDs adaptor
Create PS4 to PC case button adaptor
Build PC case rear IO connector plate
Create the Ethernet PCI bracket

Create the RAM heat sink Plate.

Not Complete:

Build the APU VRM heat sink mount.

Create fixed clamping hardware

Extras: (Not important so I might do later on)

Nickel-plate the RAM heatsink Plate.

PS4 MOTHERBOARD

Details:
The PS4 Pro motherboard measures about 240mm x 270mm and 1.4mm thick.

Differences:
There are currently 3 versions of PS4 Pro motherboard layouts. NVA-00x that ship with CUH-70xx PS4s, NVB-00x that ship with CUH-71xx PS4s and NVG-00x that ship with CUH-72xx PS4s. NVB and NVG motherboard versions have matching mounting hole locations. I will show you the differences in relation to NVA vs NVB\NVG motherboards. 

As can be seen in the following pictures there are 4 differences highlighted in red circles. The three lower circles are new standoff holes that were not present on NVA motherboards. The highest red circle on is the standoff hole for NVB/NVG motherboards has been moved about 1mm on the horizontal plane in relation to the picture closer to the APU area. The following pictures show those differences.

PS4 CUH-70xx NVA motherboard pictured.


PS4 CUH-71xx NVB motherboard pictured.


ADAPTER PLATE

Details:
The PS4 motherboard is to be mounted on an aluminium adapter plate measuring 244mm x 270mm (micro-atx motherboard height). The purpose of the adapter plate is to combine the standoff holes from the PS4 motherboard and PC case motherboard standoffs onto the one plate.

Orientation:
The PS4 motherboard will be oriented so that the rear ports will be accessible through the PC case rear IO port area.

Procedure:
I used the PS4 and PC motherboards as templates to drill the standoff adapter plate holes depending on the motherboard version. The basic process is as follows:

1. Clean the aluminium plate edges of any burs
2. Clamp the motherboard in place
3. Use a bench drill-press to lightly mark the standoff holes using the following drill sizes:

   4mm - PC

   3.5mm - PS4

   4mm - PS4

4. Drill the clamping hardware holes - See the text following this section for more info.

5. Remove the clamps and motherboard

6. Drill the marked holes all of the way through using the following drill sizes:

    

   4mm - PC

   3mm - PS4

7. Remove the burs from the drill holes

Drilling the Heatsink Clamping Hardware Holes:
To make sure the clamping bolts as close to centered as possibly on the aluminium adapter plate you can either:

Option 1 - Recommended
Create a custom spacer 6.5mm wide with a 3mm hole drilled through the centre. Place the spacer in each of the four motherboard clamping hardware through-holes before drilling a 3mm hole through the adapter plate.

NOTE: The 3mm drill hole in the middle of the 6.5mm spacer must be perfectly centered within the spacer.

Option 2 - Not Recommended

With the PS4 motherboard sitting on standoffs the shorter the better use a bench drill and a 6.5mm drill bit it is possible to drill straight down through each of the four motherboard heatsink clamping hardware holes. Use light pressure until the drill leaves a mark you can use a guide to drill all of the way through with a 3mm drill bit.

NOTE: ONLY USE IF you cannot make the spacers listed previously as this method is less accurate.

NOTE: If the drill grabs the motherboard clamping hardware hole it will widen out the hole making the centre mark less accurate.

NOTE: If the drill is bent it may result in out of place centre markings. The higher the standoffs the worse the issue can be.

Motherboard Adapter Plate.

Motherboard Mounted.

HINT: If using an adapter plate measuring 305mm x 270mm (standard atx motherboard height) for the best results position the PS4 Pro motherboard so that the Ethernet port is directly behind the top PCI slot before drilling the standoff holes.

HINT: For the most accurate standoff hole locations in the adapter plate get faulty PS4 and PC motherboards. Then grind the motherboard bottom till all of the SMD components and protruding through hole component legs are gone and the motherboard bottom surface is flat.

WARNING: YOU SHOULD WEAR A FACE MASK TO STOP INHALING PARTICLES THAT MIGHT CAUSE INJURY OR ILLNESS.

Grinded PS4 Pro motherboard.

Grinded PC motherboard.

COOLING:

APU:

Due to the ability to easily adapt it to the PS4s clamp design I will be using either of the following.

Be Quiet! ShadowRock TF2 - Thanks to Firehuntah in the comments for linking to his project.

Or

Fujitsu-Siemens V26898-B854-V2.

Modified Heatsink with shortened legs.

Or

AliExpress heatsink.

Clamping

For best results preferably buy the X-clamp from CUH-700xx PS4 Pros. Connect the heat sink to the adapter plate using official x-clamp and created custom height spacers.

Order:

1. 3mm bolt
2. Adapter plate
3. Lower brass spacer. 3mm thread tapped through the centre. Use for all heatsink types.

7.3mm (H) x 9mm (W). 

4. PS4 clamp and motherboard backing plate
5. Upper brass spacer. 3mm hole through the centre. This measurement of spacer is only for flat bottom heatsinks like the Fujitsu-Siemens V26898-B854-V2. Other heatsinks types where the processor contact area is at a different level to the clamping hardware will require a different length spacer.

6.5mm (H) x 5mm (W).

6. Heat sink base legs / mounting hardware - Not Pictured
7. 3mm nut

Without Clamping hardware.

With clamping hardware.

WARNING: Care must be taken when inserting or removing the motherboard as it is more likely to flex when doing so due to the spring state of the x-clamp. Proper procedure after placing the motherboard is to mount the heatsink then tighten the four heatsink bolts. Then bolt the motherboard to the adapter plate standoffs. Removing the motherboard should be done in the reverse order.

Fan:

Pinout: Top - Bottom, Same for all PS4 Pro motherboards.

Red - 12v

Black - GND

Blue - PWM (Speed)

I have made up a custom cable to allow the PS4 to run 4 pin PC fans. The PS4 does not have the fan RPM wire that typical PC fans have so I have left that pin unconnected as can be seen in the following picture.

RAM:

In order of preference.

1. Custom RAM Heatsink Plate:

I have decided to make custom RAM heatsink plate. Mine will be 135mm (Front USB to Rear ports) x 130mm x 1mm thick copper plate. I drilled the standoff holes. Marked the outline of the x-clamp and cut the x-clamp shape out of the plate. I will be DIY nickel plating the copper plate.

Mounting order:

1. M3 bolt 20mm in length
2. Motherboards Adapter Plate
3. M3 standoff 6mm in height
4. M3 washer 0.5mm in thickness. Used to spread out the compression force on the copper plate.
5. Copper RAM heatsink 1mm in height. I now have a 1mm gap between the RAM modules surfaces. 1mm thermal pad or thermal putty will be used to sync them together.
6. M3 nut 2.5mm in height. Thread bored out with 3mm drill. Also used to spread out the compression force on the copper plate.

Total height = 10mm. Same height as the PS4 motherboard standoffs.

2. Small Heat sinks:

Use heat sinks on the RAM chips.



NOTE: Heat sinks mounted with double-sided thermal tape can and do fall off either due to low quality thermal tape and/or poorly cleaned RAM module surface before heat sink attachment.

3. NVA EMI Shield
NVA motherboards you can use the RAM heat sink \ shield that came with that PS4 version. The RAM heat sink \ shield from NVA motherboards is not compatible with NVB \ NVG motherboards due to a moved hole location and collisions with SMD components.

The thickness of the RAM shield is 0.5mm so that needs to be taken off of the 8 adapter plate standoffs around the APU area to make them the correct height.

Because of the replacement custom clamping hardware I needed to drill 10+ mm (fixed in place way) holes in the RAM heat sink \ shield directly below the clamping bolt heads otherwise the  standoffs would collide with the shield.

NOTE: The 5th hole circled on the left side does not need to be modified. I did that earlier before finding out about the collision with components as mentioned above.

NOTE: Not Optimal because the design of the RAM heat sink \ shield traps the heat inside a cavity causing heating of the motherboard which intern raises the temperature of the APU because it is directly above in the center of the RAM chip area. Only use if you have no heat sinks to put on the RAM.

APU VOLTAGE REGULATORS:
The PS4 motherboard has 6 APU voltage regulators each measuring 6mm x 6mm.

NVA Motherboards:

I'll probably just use Enzotech MOS-C1 heatsinks.

NVB/NVG Motherboards:

Either use Enzotech MOS-C1 heatsinks or use a single heatsink to cover all six six regulators.

To cover all of them with a single heatsink it needs to be at least 70mm in length and no wider then 6mm if using 1mm thermal pads due to surrounding surface mount components. A wider heatsink can be used with 1.5mm thick thermal pads to clear the surrounding surface mount components.

I will be creating a triangle cut-out of aluminium or acrylic (for the see-through look) that attaches to three standoffs that secure to the three motherboard mount holes surrounding the APU VRMs. Then I'll secure the heatsink to the triangle cut-out. The heatsink will then have thermal pad/s or thermal putty to transfer the heat.

NOTE: I am doing it this way as I don't want the heatsink to be able to detach.

Southbridge and Southbridge VRM:

To be added...

PC CASE

Although my mod is not specific to an individual PC case I have chosen to use the Deepcool E-Shield or D-Shield.

POWERING:

See my other blog here for instructions on how to power the PS4 with a PC ATX power supply.

REAR IO PANEL:

Made using a PC IO panel and adding a 1mm thick piece of aluminium with the PS4 rear ports cut out of it. Extremely hard to get it looking perfect so I did the best that I could.

PORTS

HDMI

I will be able to use the following HDMI extension adapter to suit. The PCI bracket HDMI cut-out was done by myself. This will be attached to one of the PCI slots.



Optical Audio:
I will be able to use the following Optical adapter to suit. The PCI bracket cut-out was done by myself. This will be attached to one of the PCI slots.

USB:
Depending on the PC case I will be able to use the following adapters to suit.

USB3 to USB3 PCI bracket.


USB3 Angle adapter.


USB3 to USB3 Pin header.

WiFi/BT:

I have mounted 3 antennas on a PCI blank bracket using U.FL to RP-SMA pigtails and RP-SMA antennas.





ETHERNET:

I have custom made a Ethernet bracket. I pulled the RJ45 port from an old laptop, cut the square hole out of a PCI bracket blank and soldered the port to the PCI bracket. I then soldered an 80cm Ethernet cable to the RJ45 port pins. This will be attached to one of the PCI slots.

NOTE: If you  used an adapter plate measuring 305mm x 270mm the PS4 motherboard should be placed so that the Ethernet port is directly behind the top PCI slot. Cut a hole in a PCI blank bracket in the correct spot to make it look neat and proper.

Without PCI Bracket Blank.


With PCI Bracket Blank.

DISC DRIVE:

Due to the size of the Blu ray drive in the PS4 it is not able to fit into the 5 1/4 inch drive bays. Also the disk drive circuit board is incorporated into the motherboard therefore it does not require the actual disc drive to be attached to launch games and apps unlike the earlier model CUH-10xx and CUH-11xx PS4s that do. It's coming to the end of the PS4s life cycle so I will be using PS4s without the disc drive as my PS4 Pro motherboard is jail-breakable so I no longer need the disc drive.

BUTTONS:

Power Button:
The PS4 motherboard uses 6 pin 0.5mm pitch ribbon cable headers for these buttons. The two center pins are connected to the power button and the other four pins are GND. I have made the following adapter to suite the PC case buttons.



LIGHTS

Case LEDs:
The PS4 motherboard connects to LED PCBs through a 6 pin 0.5mm pitch ribbon cable. NVA motherboards use LED-001 PCB and NVB \ NVG motherboards use LED-002 PCB. They appear to be cross compatible with the other. The only difference I have noticed is the LED colour order \ location.

The PS4 case LED PCBs are supplied with 5 volts before going through a resistor. To use the PC case LEDs I need to have resistors on each circuit before the PS4 LED resistor on the PS4 side to protect the PC case LEDs.

PS4 LEDs to PC case LEDs:

1. Blue - PS4 Blue LED
2. White - PS4 White LED
3. Green - Solder a 330 Ohm Resistor to the marked point on the side of the resistor and Connect to PC the front panel Power LED cable. Solder to the other point and connect to the PC front panel Power LED cable.
4. Red - Solder a 330 Ohm Resistor to the marked point on the side of the resistor and Connect to the PC front panel HDD LED cable. Solder to the other point and connect to the PC front panel HDD LED cable.

LED-001 Side A PCB.

LED-001 Side B PCB.

LED-002 Side A PCB.

PICS:

PS4 PRO: Old MicroATX Case.









CLEARANCE ISSUES

1. The fan header is the highest object on the bottom of the motherboard at 6mm so you need at least that amount of clearance between motherboard and adapter plate.

2. The ram chips including their solder balls stick out from the motherboard about 1.5mm. Therefore I need to factor in their height as well as the height of the ram heat sinks I intend to use, which will intern give me the standoffs required height dimension.

Working out the heatsink clearance:

The height of the PS4 APU core above the PC case standoffs will be 1.6mm (adapter plate thickness) + 10mm (PS4 motherboard standoffs) + 1.4mm (PS4 motherboard) + 2.4mm (APU Core (H) above motherboard) = 15.4mm.

The height of the Intel CPU IHS top above the PC case standoffs is 1.5mm (PC motherboard) + 8mm (CPU IHS (H) above motherboard) = 9.50mm.

To find out if the chosen heatsink will still fit height wise into the PC case you must subtract 9.50mm (PC CPU core height) from 15.4mm (PS4 APU core height) = 6.4mm the PS4 APU core is higher than PC CPU core height.

Then take 6.4mm off of the PC case CPU heatsink clearance specification to get the maximum height value for the supported case heatsink clearance height specifications and choose a cooler height of that amount or less.

MEASUREMENTS

Just some PS4 Pro measurements that might help someone out.

• 2.4mm - Approximate height the APU core is above motherboard

WHAT I STILL NEED TO KNOW

To be added as required.

MENTIONS

Id like to thank the following people for their input.

ep-game-supply - Over on eBay - For getting me some parts.
JMAGG - Over on YouTube for his information on ribbon cables.

FOR SALE

More Updates to follow...