Any of those Cube upgrades fanless? And lot of other questions and issues.....

jet powersjet powers
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I haven't been able to find the definitive answer to this. Now that employment is a likely possibility (fingers crossed), I think the time has come to put together the pimp-Cube.



-Best available fanless AGP card

-Best available fanless cpu upgrade

-big-ass quiet HD

-RAM by the bucketfull

-Combo drive (is this even possible? Surely some of the slot-loader iMac combo drives must work)



Suggestions? Helpful hints.



ting5, who buys for looks

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    badtzbadtz Posts: 949member
    Hope this helps........ <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />





    best agp video card w/fan ::: gf3



    best agp video card w/out fan ::: gf2mx



    fanless processor upgrade ::: i guess none. When you do an upgrade, it's highly advisable to mount a 80x80x15 [or25mm] fan @ the bottom to promote air circulation up & down the middle of the cube [thru the top vents]



    quiet HD ::: the absolute quietest is the Baracuda IV [but you'll be sacrificing some performance, mainly on STR] I would go for the WD1200jb [actually, i DID go for that one ]



    RAM ::: there's three sockets, 1.5gig max. So the max per slot would be 512mb. I'm getting Kingston 512mb @ cl2 [make sure the ram height doesn't exceed 35mm and no more than 16 chips on the ram]



    combo drive ::: MCE & [that company that sold the eMac superdrive upgrade] are planning on making a combo drive compatible with the cube, but @ this VERY moment, none are available. You either get the cd-rw cube, or dvd. Or external firewire......





    Here's my specs ::::



    stock processor [sold the sonnet duet i had, waiting for some benchmarks on the 800mhz/1ghz upgrades that are coming out]



    ram - soon the kingston 512mb



    hd - wd1200jb



    bottom mounted fan - papst variofan [a panaflo would also do]



    video card - i have a gf3 [but not installed]. after jaguar i'll decide if i'll keep it, or go for the gf2mx [fanless] depending on how it does. [since i won't be playing games]. that way, i'll only have that ONE fan @ the bottom instead of two.... [vid card fan + bottom fan]



    combo drive - waiting for a company to make it, so i can ditch my cd-rw



    think that's about it???



    hope that helped! :cool:
  • Reply 2 of 6
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Does it get too hot inside a Cube if you have the stock processor and a GeForce 2MX? I heard that the GF2 wasn't really designed to be for the Cube, but it fits anyway... and as such, it has a smaller heatsink than may be necessary and no fan. Just wondering, 'cuz Cubes are pretty cool and I wouldn't mind having one myself.



    As long as we're on the subject of video cards, anyone mind me asking how much a GeForce 3 would cost, and where you could get one? My brother was wondering and he can't seem to find much in the way of online resources about it.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    badtzbadtz Posts: 949member
    The GF3 is not very common [even online].... I might be selling mine after Aug. 24th..... fyi



    The GF2mx does have a smaller heatsink, but even w/out the bottom mounted fan, it should run & be fine [even 24 hr. operations]...



    If it were me though, I would remount it with better thermal paste & maybe a better/bigger heatsink
  • Reply 4 of 6
    stepsonstepson Posts: 95member
    I have a cube with the stock 450Mhz G4, 1.5GB of ram, a GeForce2 MX, and a SeaGate Barracuda IV (80 gig). No fans whatsoever! Everything has been working great for at least 6 months now. I don't anticipate any problems either ... I do plan to upgrade to maybe the 800Mhz PowerLogix chip ... Although at that point, I may really be pressing my luck, so then I may add a fan.



    If apple introduces some really kick ass PowerMacs on the 24th, maybe I'll get one of those instead and leave the cube as it is. Would probably make a nice little server. Its awesome as is though, other than getting kinda slow ... TOTALLY SILENT!
  • Reply 5 of 6
    thereubsterthereubster Posts: 402member
    Go to Cube-zone.com or cubeowner.com for best info on cube upgrades. There is still no benchmarks on Cube upgrade cards yet... Is everyone waiting for someone else to buy one... Grrrr THe Seagate is the best drive for silence my 80gig maxtor makes a very annoying high pitched whine when working hard. I will be plonking a fan in when I get my 1ghz upgrade card but that wont be for a while I imagine...
  • Reply 6 of 6
    overhopeoverhope Posts: 1,123member
    My specs:



    Stock 450Mhz processor



    GeForce 2MX graphics card



    40GB IBM DeskStar (yeah, yeah, I know)



    1.5GB RAM



    Internal DVD-ROM drive



    Firewire CD burner (bus-powered)



    Assorted Firewire & USB peripherals



    Bottom-mounted Panaflo 80x80x15 fan plugged into the DC-DC converter so it goes to sleep with everthing else.





    I felt the fan was necessary after running with the GF 2MX video for a few days: I don't play games on my Cube, but the back of it was rather warm with that baby in there, so the fan was my next addition. I haven't had a crash in weeks...



    Last I saw, the Powerlogix 1GHz cards haven't actually shipped yet, but I know for a fact that more than a few people have them on pre-order. Just as soon as I see a postive report, I'll be getting one: the way I see it, any fan-reliant processor installation requires a whole new heatsink (ie, the middle of the machine!) purely to get it in there, but I dare say plenty of fan/heatsink paste experiments will be taking place in order to avoid making too much noise.



    I had my Cube rendering CGI for 18 hours solid, of which 8 I slept through. And my bed is above my Mac...



    [ 08-06-2002: Message edited by: Overhope ]</p>
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