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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > AirPort killed my Cube, help!

AirPort killed my Cube, help!
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BrunoBruin
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Aug 18, 2001, 07:54 AM
 
I bought two AirPort cards with the brilliant plan of using my Cube as a software base station so I could surf wirelessly with my iBook via my cable modem. Installed the first card in the iBook, no problem. Installed the second card in the Cube...Cube would not start up. The power light flashed on when I touched the switch but went off as soon as I lifted my finger.

Took the card out, started it up... same thing. Panicked. Reshuffled cables and fiddled around and got the Cube to start up. Praised the gods of hardware, wherever they are.

Installed the FIRST card, from the iBook, in the Cube. Now the Cube power light and the light on the display come on, and the hard drive spins up, but no chime and nothing on the display. Take card out, Cube starts up.

Put card back in, same problem. Trying zapping PRAM but still no chime or start. Check the seating of the DC-to-DC card as I know this was an issue on early Cubes (mine is from January), but it seems to be seated okay. Issue is the same whether I use the power switch on the Cube itself or the one on the LCD.

Put second card in iBook, thinking perhaps it was a naughty card that had fried something in my Cube's AirPort connection; card works fine. Try putting it in Cube again; Cube dead.

Since purchasing my first Mac in 1985, make my very first call to Apple tech support. Talk to a very friendly and helpful person who walks me through all these steps again, plus taking out the battery to force the PRAM to reset. Same results: Cube will not start with card, starts fine without it. Cube has now been in and out of case so many times it no longer knows which end is up.

Apple tech suggests either taking it in for repair or sending it back to Apple. (It is still under warranty.) This is less than ideal, for several reasons, but it may come to that. Before I pack it up, has anyone experienced anything like this? And if so, is it fixable by myself, or a service shop issue?

My Cube is the 450MHz model, 30GB hard drive, Radeon, running OS 9.1 and AirPort 1.3.1. There is a firmware update for the Cube but I never installed it because I was afraid it would disable my RAM; it doesn't indicate anything about AirPort fixes anyway. I thought about reinitializing the hard drive and doing a clean system install but I think this is probably a hardware issue as I can't even get a startup chime.

Thanks in advance for any help. My Cube is chugging along happily, without its AirPort card and unaware of the trouble it is causing.
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vmarks
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Aug 19, 2001, 10:56 AM
 
Originally posted by BrunoBruin:
<STRONG>
My Cube is the 450MHz model, 30GB hard drive, Radeon, running OS 9.1 and AirPort 1.3.1. There is a firmware update for the Cube but I never installed it because I was afraid it would disable my RAM; it doesn't indicate anything about AirPort fixes anyway. I thought about reinitializing the hard drive and doing a clean system install but I think this is probably a hardware issue as I can't even get a startup chime.

Thanks in advance for any help. My Cube is chugging along happily, without its AirPort card and unaware of the trouble it is causing. </STRONG>
Please look carefull at the pin header that the airport card plugs into.

If you have a bent pin and the airport card is shorting the PCMCIA header when you insert the card, this might explain the failure you're experiencing. You can take tweezers or small needlenose pliers and straighten the pin if this is the case. IF you're afraid, send it to Apple and let them fix it.

If you don't have bent pins on the airport card header, then I'm a little confused. Besides just removing the battery to reset PRAM, look for a CUDA switch. Press it, and it will clear the CUDA, which stores information about powering on and off, and ROM-style information.

I recommend that you bite the bullet and do the firmware update. Do we have documentation on what the firmware update does besides the losing memory issue? It's a PITA but if the firmware update kills your memory, get new memory from the person that sold yours in the first place. Most memory resellers have been understanding about this.

You can email me for more help- [email protected]
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BrunoBruin  (op)
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Aug 19, 2001, 04:10 PM
 
vmarks, I think you are absolutely right. I did the firmware update (I have Kingston RAM so I wasn't TOO worried about it, I think most name-brand RAM was okay), and that went fine...except that it didn't fix my AirPort problem. So I took the card out again and peered into the header and there is a pin MISSING. I don't know if I broke it off myself the first time I tried to install the card, or what, but where my iBook has two solid rows of pins the Cube has one pin missing, right about in the center.

The AirPort card comes on a board that includes a header, I assume for machines that don't have the on-board connector. If I'm feeling brave, or foolhardy, I might try to swap them -- it's just held on by two little Philips screws. If not, at least I know where to direct the repair shop. Thanks again, I bet that is the problem!
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vmarks
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Aug 19, 2001, 08:07 PM
 
Originally posted by BrunoBruin:
<STRONG>vmarks, I think you are absolutely right. So I took the card out again and peered into the header and there is a pin MISSING. I don't know if I broke it off myself the first time I tried to install the card, or what, but where my iBook has two solid rows of pins the Cube has one pin missing, right about in the center.

The AirPort card comes on a board that includes a header, I assume for machines that don't have the on-board connector. If I'm feeling brave, or foolhardy, I might try to swap them -- </STRONG>
If you're real brave, you can try and swap them, or at least see that the mountings and appearance of the Cube one matches the one off the airport carrier card. If you do this yourself, you want it to appear as if it was like that all along, so no one can say you voided warranty after a simple observation.

Your cube is under warranty. If you can convince the service guys that you're no dope, and you didn't cause this, I'd be tempted to say, get it fixed under warranty.

Just out of curiousity, look in the pcmcia airport cards and see that the pin isn't stuck in one. other than that I'm not sure what to say; at least now you know what went wrong.

Good luck!

Victor Marks
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BrunoBruin  (op)
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Aug 19, 2001, 08:22 PM
 
Actually, after a quick investigation, it looks like the headers DON'T match -- the header in the Cube is backwards compared to the carrier card. In other words, the card is seated in the carrier with the SN sticker facing out; in the Cube, the AirPort sticker faces out. It was worth a look, but probably easier just to haul it in for service and let Apple worry about it.
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vmarks
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Aug 19, 2001, 11:09 PM
 
Originally posted by BrunoBruin:
<STRONG>Actually, after a quick investigation, it looks like the headers DON'T match -- the header in the Cube is backwards compared to the carrier card. In other words, the card is seated in the carrier with the SN sticker facing out; in the Cube, the AirPort sticker faces out. It was worth a look, but probably easier just to haul it in for service and let Apple worry about it.</STRONG>
Nonetheless, a pin missing is a pin missing. Sorry it wasn't convenient to replace. The pin layout is symmetric, top row is the same as bottom row-

I haven't looked at the connector on the carrier card (that accessory that comes in the airport card box) in about three months, so my memory is hazy, the only thing that makes the connector specific top-to-bottom is the first half-inch of the card is notched differently on one side than the other- this keeps you from inserting it upside down and shorting out the pcmcia bridge. If this is what's blocking you, you can shave the restricting side of the pins-side of business down to let you plug the card in 'so-called' upside down.

You can make this work. It's just a matter of where you draw the line to being more effort than spending time having the machine in warranty service.

Victor
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BrunoBruin  (op)
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Aug 22, 2001, 01:53 PM
 
Well, I thought the idea of kludging the pieces to make the card work sounded a bit too dodgey for me. After making FOUR calls to my local Apple reseller, and talking only to people who couldn't answer my repair question and leaving voice-mail that has NOT been returned, I called Apple and asked them to send me a box. If I had just done that in the first place my Cube would be in Cupertino right now!
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vmarks
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Aug 22, 2001, 02:41 PM
 
Originally posted by BrunoBruin:
<STRONG>Well, I thought the idea of kludging the pieces to make the card work sounded a bit too dodgey for me. After making FOUR calls to my local Apple reseller, and talking only to people who couldn't answer my repair question and leaving voice-mail that has NOT been returned, I called Apple and asked them to send me a box. If I had just done that in the first place my Cube would be in Cupertino right now!</STRONG>

Still, at least you've got a cube... I have a G4/400 tower, and the truth is, when I get home, I'm inspecting the airport slot... I've never used it because I was saving the airport cards for the laptops!

I wonder if all my pins are there!

Don't you have an AASP locally you can take it to? they should be able to service it versus sending it back to the homeworld, er... cupertino..
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BrunoBruin  (op)
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Aug 23, 2001, 11:35 AM
 
I have a G4/450 here at work -- I should have checked to see if the connector was the same! The iMac, unfortunately, doesn't have the built-in connector, you have to install the whole carrier card.

The place that has STILL not called me back IS my local AASP -- how bad is that?! My packing materials arrived from Apple and I'm just going to keep telling myself all will be well. I must say, both the people I talked to at Apple were very helpful and polite, which made me feel somewhat better.
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