Cube questions

J

JimNoble

Registered
I just located a nearly-new 450/DVD-ROM Cube :*)

Does anyone have any links and/or info regarding:

- upgrading the HD. Are there known compatability problems, or certain specifications (power/heat/physical size) that need to be adhered to?
- Can the video card be changed? Is it a Cube specific card?
- Is the Cube fully supported for Mac OS X?

Cheers,

Jim
 
In case anyone's interested, here's what I found out:

The HD can be changed. There's a quicktime video and instructions on the apple website detailing how the existing one can be removed, and the new one installed.

I probably put an IBM Deskstar 60GXP 60Gb unit in to replace the 20Gb one it has.

The graphics card can be replaced. Found some unconfirmed (by me) reports that you can use any Apple AGP card, but it needs the Cube faceplate (which could be from the card it ships with).

I found somewhere that is getting some 32Mb Radeon Cube specific cards in, so I've ordered one of those :*)

OS X support appears to be full in that it's now running 10.1.1 quite happily (and quickly, compared to my iMac :), with the single exception of the DVD player, which crashes every time it's run :-(

Any ideas there, people?

Jim
 
Answering my own question again - I downloaded the DVD s/w updater, and now it just quits because I haven't got the speakers plugged in :*)

Presumably that's what it was throwing a wobbly at before, only now I get a proper error message...

Jim
 
I heard that there were major problems with the Cubes because they overheated and then the cases cracked. Is that true? Isn't that why Apple discontinued production?
 
It was discontinued because they weren't selling and/or they weren't making enough profit on them, I would presume.

The "cracks" in the case were explained away as mold lines. I have on in mine. It's not a problem for me.

Jim
 
We have a G4 Cube... and those 'mold lines' were not on it when we bought it. Not sure what caused it to crack like it did, but it did and on the front no less. But, hey, it still functions just fine!

Although I consider myself a PowerUser... and have a G4/500 (top of the line a few years back) the Cube is a nice machine... I have no complaints.

Admin
 
Jim -

do you have new ideas or recommendations as to which graphics card would be a good idea to use as an upgrade? I would like my cube to take advantage of the upcoming MacOS X versions - I heard that the speed for instance can be increased by using at least a 32 MB video card....

Thanks a lot.

tallturtle
 
Originally posted by tallturtle
do you have new ideas or recommendations as to which graphics card would be a good idea to use as an upgrade? I would like my cube to take advantage of the upcoming MacOS X versions - I heard that the speed for instance can be increased by using at least a 32 MB video card....
Click to expand...

When 10.2/Jaguar is released, you will need a supported video card to take advantage of the speed increases that Quartz Extreme will bring. The standard 16Mb Rage 128 Pro tha most cubes shipped with is not supported (10.2 will work, it just won't be as quick).

Supported cards that you can fit in the cube are:

Apple OEM Geforce 2MX (32Mb and 64Mb Twin output)
Apple OEM Radeon 32Mb

Other cards will fit, but only the Apple OEM ones have the ADC connector.
If it came from or was intended for a tower, you will have to swap the end-plate on the card for the one in the cube.

You can find more details on www.cubeowners.com and www.cube-zone.com.

Jim
 
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