Before You Trash It

Before disposing of an Apple Performa 6400 or Power Mac 6400 or Power Mac 6500 you will want to pull the really unique speaker (subwoofer) from the case. Collect two of them and you might really have something.

Getting into the case is not straight forward. They don't build 'em like they used to, which is good in this instance. Skipping one of the following steps will not speed things up!

1. Remove the front façade, starting at the bottom. Release the two bottom tabs and pull very hard.
2. Pry-off the small front façade, staring at its side-seams.
3. Remove the screw from the top-back; slide the top façade off by pushing to the back.
4. Lightly pry-up the 2 centimeter tab molded into the plastic panel's front edge on the computer's right side façade. Now slide this panel off  by pushing to the back.
5. Remove the nine Philips-head screws from the steel side panel.
6. Remove the side panel by sliding it to the rear about 1 centimeter and then lift up.
7. Remove the four T-10 screws from the bottom. These have rubber bushings that are worth saving too.
8. Release the red and black speaker lead wires. It is attached, by just friction, to the small printed circuit board (PCB) near the top-rear of the computer.
9. Remove the speaker and fish out the lead wires.
10. Done.