FINALLY I am getting a new mac... A Cube!

jeremiah rich

Okay. So I have had it with the sufferings of being on and old Beige G3/333. Gone are the days of OSX 10.2 and my frustrations. I just made a deal with someone to trade my video camera (A sony TRV 25) for a G4 Cube. Should be arriving tomorrow. It has AppleCare until May of this year, so I was wondering if there are any things I should look for in case there is something wrong with it I could get checked out. (Like any common problems or something.) I will have OSX 10.3 on it, running at 450 mhz, but I plan to eventually buy a processor upgrade for it. The good thing about it for me is that it will be something I can take to college as a result of its size. So, if you guys have any tips on upgrades to buy or things to watch out for, please let me know! (This is the DVD model btw. I would not mind at all getting a Combo drive for Cheap... But who am I foolin'?) EEk! Cannot wait until tomorrow!

messiahtosh

Quote:

Originally posted by Jeremiah Rich

I will have OSX 10.3 on it, running at 450 mhz, but I plan to eventually buy a processor upgrade for it. The good thing about it for me is that it will be something I can take to college as a result of its size. So, if you guys have any tips on upgrades to buy or things to watch out for, please let me know! (This is the DVD model btw. I would not mind at all getting a Combo drive for Cheap... But who am I foolin'?) EEk! Cannot wait until tomorrow!

I have the exact same machine downstairs, its a great little set up that runs surprisingly fast even compared to my 500 MHz faster G4 which runs at 1 Ghz. You might want to look out for a bad DVD drive, mine makes loud noises, though it hasnt failed, it is loud....which goes against the whole point of the Cube's design, I know. Overall though, its a great machine to do some video editing and web surfing on, it can handle most stuff pretty well.

paul

WACH OUT FOR CRACKS!!!!!

dmband0026

Cracks pffft. There aren't any cracks. I've had the same setup your talking about for the past three years now and I love it even more today than I did three years ago. I have a FW CD-RW drive and I upgraded the HD from the stock 20gb to an 80gb a few months ago with no problems with the old drive, I just needed more space. Although the machine won't scream, it holds its own. I don't really have the money for a new computer now, and even if I did, I don't know if I would get one because the Cube is such an awesome machine. Remember though, any upgrades you do internally (save for the HD if it is 80gb or below and RAM) will require cooling, in other words, you'll need to install a fan. Head over to CubeOwner.com for more info on the Cube. Hope you enjoy your new Mac

jeremiah rich

I am wondering.... Does the Cube support a 250 GB harddrive? 'Cuz that is what I would like to put in eventually.... Thanks!

macanoid(tm)

The one thing I would check is if the machine has a graphics card with 32 MB such as a Radeon or GeForceMX. If you want to use OS X's Aqua Extreme you need at least one of these cards.

jeremiah rich

It only has a Rage in it. But ya, I am hoping to get some sort of a better graphics card for it. If anyone can point me in the right direction that would be cool. I am going to attempt to flash my Geforce 2 MX/400 but it is only a single head card and I doubt it will work anyways. Thanks!

mattjohndrow

i dunno if you are interested in an upgrade like this, but check it out:



http://www.macsonly.com/pl800.html

mattjohndrow

check this out as well:



http://www.2ndchancepc.co.uk/g4-mac-upgrade-guide.html

jeremiah rich

Thanks for the links and stuff guys. The part on the speakers where the USB cable connects seems to have frayed. Also, I have some cracks in the case (especially around the screws). It is under Applecare until May of 2004. Anyways, how do I transfer the Applecare to my name? I am sure the speakers will be covered... (Am I right?? Heh.) but I am not so sure about the case. They most definitely are not just mold cracks or whatever, I can feel them when I rub my fingernail over the spots. Well, I guess that is all for now. Thanks for the help! Loving the Cube and Panther!

dmband0026

No. A 250 gig drive WILL NOT work in a Cube. The ATA controller cant handle it. The largest you can do is 140. The ATA controller on the Cubes can do up to 137 gb of storage, even if you partition, all the tricks have been tried and it will not work. So if you go 140gig, you'll be minus 3 gigs of space, plus all the space lost to formatting. And if you go above 80 (you can pull off 100, but it's a stretch) you'll want to do additional cooling. As for the graphics card, I highly reccomend that you go to Cube Owner and check out what they have to say about upgrading cards. You can't fit any card into a cube, so be very careful. If you go with any new graphics cards you'll need cooling too (there are a few that don't require it, so be careful) Congrats on your new machine! Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed mine.

jeremiah rich

Shoot. The drive thing is a real bummer. I knew about the graphics cards thing, but its frustrating. I was planning on throwing a 250 GB drive in it for storage. So when I am at college I can have a 250 in it and use my laptop alonside it. (The Cube would be the storage "hub" of sorts.) Oh well. A 120 is still much larger than the current 20 that is in it, and that I have been using in my Beige G3. It is too bad really that a 160 cannot work, as Office Depot has a sale on them for 90 after rebates this week. Oh yeah, anyone have answers to my Applecare question? Thanks again!

luca

I don't see why anything above 80 GB would require extra cooling - heat generated depends on the rotation speed of the drive, not on the capacity of the drive. Anyway, a 120 GB would work fine. A 160 GB would work as well, but it wouldn't use the full 160 GB - it would format down to 128 GB of usable space (whereas a 120 GB will go down to about 112 GB).

stoo

Could you attach a larger hard drive via Firewire? I assume that you'd just need a large drive capable ATA <-> Firewire bridge.

jeremiah rich

I am running an 80 external right now. Thing is I want to have everything in just the Cube unit for coillege. Oh well, looks like that probably is not possible to do. Right now I am simply trying to find the right Radeon 7000 to flash and put in the Cube.