[CUBE] Cube overheats

[Stephen Maris]

Randy, 48C is not that bad. 50C is considered a normal operating temp 
for many ICs. Check with your PC friends running a 1-2GHz Pentium 
what they are seeing.. I would say near 60C is getting too hot.

I don't believe overheating is causing your crash. I had/have  a 
similar problem with one of my CUBEs. it was the same symptom, when 
it was hot it would shut off. turned out, this is the result of the 
power switch on top, which is electrostatic sensitive. when I cooled 
the cube with a small fan blowing in the bottom, things ran. without 
the fan it would shut off.
With the case open, things worked fine. you can test this theory, by 
disconnecting the switch on top the cube and closing the case.

a comment below about blowing air 'down' the chimney is wrong. this 
is fighting the natural convection, which causes hot air to rise, so 
it would be fighting nature.

I have a small quiet internal fan installed, since I'm running dual 
500 G4s. they show also 48C at this moment.
There has been other comments about the electorstatic switch on 
top.there is a also a gasket from Apple that should fix most 
problems, but not all.
hope this helps.


>I recommend a fan.  You can get the Panaflo model which is extremely 
>quiet.  I have a noisy peecee case fan which I haven't bothered to 
>replace because I'm  hard of hearing.  48C is very hot.  Make sure 
>you have plenty of open space around the cube and the "muffler".
>
>One thing a couple of folks have done is use the Kensington Fly Fan, 
>which plugs into a USB port.  They snake this around and point it 
>down into the opening on the top of the box.  You could try any 
>little fan which is quiet and blow air under the box, just to see if 
>that makes it more stable.  If it does, you've found your problem.
>
>It may not be overheating which causes your crash, however.  There 
>are other possiblities.  For example, some of the early cubes didn't 
>have a bracket at the end of the video card which braced what is 
>called the "DC-DC board".  If you pull your core and turn it around, 
>handle up, look at the video card, at the corner away from the 
>connectors, there is (on mine) an aluminum brace which holds wraps 
>around the end of a wide, short board perpendicular to it.  If you 
>don't have the brace, that board can walk loose and cause crashes.
>
>The term "crash" is a rather loose term, actually.  Do you get mouse 
>freeze?  Screen going blank?  Sudden shutdown (power off)? Blocky 
>pixels overwriting the screen?  Sad mac with hex numbers?  Blue 
>screen of death?  Kernel panic?  Are you running mac os 9 or mac os 
>X?
>
>Some of the old macs played a sound of a car crash - I've never 
>heard it and I'd like to someday, if someone knows how to produce it 
>intentionally.
>
>On http://www.cubeowner.com there is a FAQ with lots of helpful information.
>
>On Monday, November 25, 2002, at 06:43 PM, Randy Spencer wrote:
>
>>I love the look of the Cube and wanted one since I first saw one, now that
>>they are cheaper I got one off EBay with a 17" LCD.  Problem is that I can't
>>get it stable, 8 months now and it still crashes all the time.  I put the 20
>>gig that came with it back in after the 80 gig Seagate gave up the ghost but
>>it's no better.  I spoke to the Geniuses at the Apple Store who pointed me
>>to the Temperature probe programs and the one in my Dock now shows me
>>running as much as 48 degrees.  With the case off and no number crunching
>>it's as little as 24 degrees (Did I mention that was centigrade?)  The
>>question is, what is everyone else getting?  Is the a cool running HD that I
>>should put in there.  I got the Cube because I didn't want a fan, so unless
>>you have a silent solution for that I am probably not interested.  Did I
>>read somewhere that there are Dual Processor cards from the other G4s that
>>can be used in our cubes?  Do they have a fan?
>>
>>   -Randy
>>
>>==

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Stephen Maris                Munich, Germany
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