[Ph.D.]

Hello,

Just for your information: I tried an Apple Radeon 7500 in a cube, with the case off (it runs much cooler that way). You need the Radeon driver if you try this. During my tests, it would become significantly hotter than the Rage Pro, including its memory chips, though it wasn't clear that it became much hotter than a Rage kept inside the case. It worked nicely for hours at a time, but sooner or later I started to get screen artifacts, and soon after that, it would lock up. Curiously, it never did that while I was running games such as Deus Ex, but only while running general apps. I'm certain that if I had put it in the case, the problems would have become much worse.

After this experience, I think people using faster cards fanless are going to slag them. Looking at the cube, it's even unclear that adding a fan to the GPU will help much, since it's in such close quarters and there's shockingly little air circulation in that area. In fact, I think air circulation in that area was sacrificed for the cubes design by keeping the vent at the top the same size as the CD slot. There's no direct air inlet at the bottom, either.

While it felt snappier, taking it out wasn't a big loss for general use, and I'll take the stability of the Rage card over speed any day. Bottom line: These Radeon cards don't belong in cubes without additional cooling, and maybe not even then.

-Ph.D.

[MacAttack]

As a Cube owner, I'm curious - how did you do this caseless? If the bottom of the core was simply sitting on your desktop, then there will be heat issues still because cool air would not circulate through the enclosure. It's designed to convection cool from the air rising through the core vertically. That's why the cube is raised up two inches with the enclosure on.

Also, there is a connector in the Cube to add a fan. I wonder if with these two things in place, the 7500 would have worked more reliably.

[Ph.D.]

Hello MacAttack,

I had the chassis propped up so that nothing was blocked underneath. By the way, I've run it that way before, sometimes for days or weeks, because the slot-load dcrw was jamming and I couldn't get cd's out, otherwise. No problems, and it seems to run cooler that way, or at least the graphics card certainly does.

The cube was apparently built with the possibility of an 80mm fan in mind, but I believe this will mostly cool the CPU via the core heat sinks. If one wanted to cool a hot graphics card, I think it's desirable to have more air flow through the graphics card slot area. I'm not sure how this could be accomplished in a simple way.

-Ph.D.

[PowerCube]

I currently own a Cube 500 with an Nvidia GF3 card and a Tennmax lasagna cooler attached. While I have yet to experience any video anomalies, I am still worried, as I placed a temp probe above the video card cooling vent, and it registered approximately 150~160 deg F ! I am currently building a stainless steel "platform" to set beneath the Cube, as I plan on adding the Sonnet Duet card. This platform will be slightly larger than the cube itself, stand about 2" tall, and will house a 120mm x 25mm adjustable speed fan for forced air cooling. This way, with the forced air cooling, I will be able to get airflow throughout the entire cube, as there are holes near the video card, and with 80~90 cfm blowing through if I crank it up, I believe that will be enough to even remove the Tennmax, and place a large passive heatsink on the GPU. But what do I know,my ideas usually get me in trouble anyway. I guess I will find out soon enough!

[Macanoid]

Powercube, this might be a solution for you:
http://www.princeton.co.jp/contents/...0010270920.htm

[img]null[/img]

[PowerCube]

Powercube, this might be a solution for you: http://www.princeton.co.jp/contents/...0010270920.htm

Yeah, I remember seeing that somewhere before, but I want to make mine somewhat differently. Besides, how the hell do you even read the specs on that thing?

[joe]

Originally posted by Ph.D.:
<STRONG>Looking at the cube, it's even unclear that adding a fan to the GPU will help much, since it's in such close quarters and there's shockingly little air circulation in that area. In fact, I think air circulation in that area was sacrificed for the cubes design by keeping the vent at the top the same size as the CD slot. There's no direct air inlet at the bottom, either. </STRONG>

My Cube came with an Apple installed OEM Radeon (w/fan). It's not as fast as the 7500 Radeon, but it probably runs just as hot due to the larger die size. It's never had a problem even after hours of heavy Quake3 game play (at HQ or higher). However, there have been reports of non-fan Radeon's having artifact problems in the Cube as they heat up. So adding a fan will help with some graphics cards.

I agree about air circulation in the rear bay of the Cube (graphics card area). Even if you install the 80mm fan, the air flow is blocked from that area by the Cube's motherboard. BTW, I did install an 80mm fan as well as the Sonnet dual 500MHz G4 and 7200rpm WD hard drive (100gig). It's been very reliable and a real benefit especially under OSX. Quake3 frame rates nearly doubled (61fps vs 113fps in HQ). But part of that is also because for the last month, I've had an OEM GeForce3 installed in place of my OEM Radeon These days I run Quake3 at 1024*768 max everything (well beyond HQ).

BTW, someone at AppleFritter installed the OEM Radeon7500 in a Cube along with neat pusher type cooling fan. He demonstrated this hack (and may others) on TechTV's "The Screen Savers" last month with very impressive results. I don't remember the guy's name off-hand, but it was cool to see Mac's being hot-rodded on TechTV A visit to applefritter.com should give all the details. So you can keep your 7500 in your Cube once you add the fan! I also highly recommend www.xlr8yourmac.com for highly detailed info (w/photo's) on how to upgrade your Cube with dualies, fans, etc. Regards............joe &lt;rabid Cube fanatic&gt;

[Macanoid]

Several weeks ago I replaced the fan on my Radeon with a passive heatsink. Must say I haven't had a single problem since. (Cube G4/500, 60 GB HD, 640 ram.)

[cjrivera]

I replaced my ATI Rage Pro card in my G4 Cube with an OEM Apple ADC Radeon (fanless, but with a heatsink exactly like the one found on the Rage Pro)

Thermoindock used to give me temps of 36-44deg C with the Rage Pro, but now I get 40-60deg C. with the Radeon. Despite the increase in temp, I've had no stability problems with the Cube.

The one thing this has made me do is put the Cube to sleep more to keep it cool. I don't play a lot of games, so I don't top out at 60C very often.

Is this too hot? I've read about adding a fan to the Radeon (after prying offf the heatsink), but I'd hate to do this if I didn't have to. There was a report in the XLR8yourmac forums where someone actually tested the heat differences between adding a fan and keeping a heatsink, and there wasn't much difference. Any ideas?

[Macanoid]

I can't get termoindock to work on my Cube. I contantly get a -1C message, and for some reason that doesn't seem right ;-)

[Parvulesco]

Originally posted by Macanoid:
<STRONG>I can't get termoindock to work on my Cube. I contantly get a -1C message, and for some reason that doesn't seem right ;-)</STRONG>

Your Cube must have a PPC7410 instead of a PPC7400 G4 processor, which runs a bit cooler than the PPC7400. (A relatively small number of Cubes used the PPC7410 instead of the PPC7400, especially the 500 MHz models made late in the Cube's life.)

The PPC7410 does not have the temperature feature that the PPC7400 has�no big loss, as the reading is, quite frankly, not very accurate�and the result using ThermoInDock with a PPC7410 is a reading of -1 degrees C.

[cjrivera]

Is there a program out there that can tell you if you have a 7400 vs. a 7410?

[Parvulesco]

Originally posted by cjrivera:
<STRONG>Is there a program out there that can tell you if you have a 7400 vs. a 7410?</STRONG>

I'm not aware of an OS X-native program that will do it, but Newer Technology's Gauge PRO works. It won't run in Classic�you'll have to boot directly into 9 to run it.

You can get it here.

[ 05-02-2002: Message edited by: Parvulesco ]

[Macanoid]

Originally posted by Parvulesco:
<STRONG>

Your Cube must have a PPC7410 instead of a PPC7400 G4 processor, which runs a bit cooler than the PPC7400. (A relatively small number of Cubes used the PPC7410 instead of the PPC7400, especially the 500 MHz models made late in the Cube's life.)

The PPC7410 does not have the temperature feature that the PPC7400 has�no big loss, as the reading is, quite frankly, not very accurate�and the result using ThermoInDock with a PPC7410 is a reading of -1 degrees C.</STRONG>

That's interesting news indeed. Any difference between the 7400 and 7410 as far as you know?

I did buy my Cube shortly before it was discontinued (500 MHz + CDR).

thanx

[BostonMACOSX]

So where do u find the OEM graphics cards with the ADC connection. I would like to upgrade my Rage Pro to something nicer.

Thanks

[cjrivera]

I got the Radeon ADC from Other World Computing.

If you watch some of the other Apple sites daily (like an obsessed idiot...like me) sometimes they post these things.

I'll see them on:

xlr8yourmac.com
dealmac.com
cube-zone.com

and probably a few others I didn't mention.

[Parvulesco]

Originally posted by Macanoid:
<STRONG>

That's interesting news indeed. Any difference between the 7400 and 7410 as far as you know?

I did buy my Cube shortly before it was discontinued (500 MHz + CDR).

thanx </STRONG>

Aside from lower power consumption/less heat, the 7410 has no significant differences from the 7400.

[Macanoid]

Thanks for the additional info - didn't know that!