GeForce 3 failed; Cube upgrades

[Joel Pelletier]

Just a quick note: After less than 6 months in my Cube, my latest 
(and second) GeForce 3 has failed. I had removed the fan from this 
one, placed additional heat sinks on the memory chips, and (most of) 
a larger heatsink setup available commercially from CompUSA, Fry's, 
etc., for video cards around the processor (there is not enough room 
for the 'back' plate to get the heat-pipe installed, but it allowed a 
rather large heatsink on the top). This card ALWAYS ran hot (even 
without the 'fence', and with a quiet fan mounted under the Cube). 
Two weeks ago I noticed crashing problems, or problems loading some 
extensions, and after eliminating all software and memory 
incompatibility/defect options, switched to my backup OEM 16mb video 
card, and VIOLA - all is good. I even thought I had damaged my hard 
drive at one point, but that was not the case - the 120GB Seagate 
Barracuda V w/2mb cache is GREAT/QUIET/FAST! The GeForce 3 is just 
TOO hot in the long run, fan or not, and at the moment I find the OEM 
16MB card peformance to be more than respectable, although I may shop 
for a 64MB Radeon (don't need 2 monitors with my Cinema screen setup, 
just a pig for more VRAM).

BTW, why is Robert fucking with us? I sent him a Cube more than 6 
months ago for their Alpha testing, and was promised a dual 1.2 or 
faster upgrade card in the "near" future. He occasionally teases us 
with hints about this thing, but answers nothing. The last few list 
questions about possible new chip/dual 1.6 cards for the Cube brought 
only short responses from him asking WHERE we heard the rumor, but 
NOTHING responding to the actual question (like the Bush 
administration more interested in where the leak came from than ever 
actually responding to questions they do not want to answer). Well, I 
heard it directly from you, Robert, MANY months ago, and it's only 
because you won't return calls or emails anymore that I am getting 
frustrated. I need to render video FASTER, and am starting to run out 
of reasons to keep my Cube. If you can't comment officially on the 
list, write us back directly, ESPECIALLY the few of us who agreed to 
donate a complete, working machine to your company to help develop a 
future for the platform. Let's get on with this, please.

Joel Pelletier
joelp at joelp.com
http://www.joelp.com