[CUBE] Memory question

[James Norman]

On Saturday, February 7, 2004, at 09:45 PM, gooddog at interlync.com wrote:

>> heat sinks.  Ended up with a fried CPU, even with the fan (highly
>> recommend the Panaflo fan kit that comes with the Sonnet); second time
>> I just used a smear of thermal transfer paste.
>
> Why the fan? Is that necessary?  I was leaning toward the Sonnet 1.4 
> for price reasons.  Isn't the Cubes design enough to keep it cool?  
> I'm completely ignorant in this regard, so I'm quite willing to be 
> pasted.
>
With the PowerLogic I believe that they are using a lower power-draw 
processor so you can do quite well without the fan. The Panaflo fan is 
15 mm thick and Sonnet provide it with a small adapter which plugs into 
the DC/DC board. It runs at 2000 rpm and is very quiet, the main noise 
I get from my Cube is from the GeForce 3 video card fan.  The brackets 
are already there for the fan to be installed - it would seem that 
Apple's original plans included a fan for later inclusion as they 
upgraded the system.

> I've also heard that you need to have a Techician put in the Processor 
> Upgrade, that it needs to be done in what's called a Clean Lab or 
> Environment. What's that all about? Is that true?
>

Not true, the instructions are clear enough, and you can get even more 
information at http://www.cubeowner.com or http://www.xlr8yourmac.com 
just remember my tip about removing the foil, cleaning the faces of the 
heatsinks and using a smear of silicone thermal paste. Actually, the 
fan is more trouble, you have to take more of the cube apart but it's 
still easy to do (good grief, I did it!).

>>
>> Again, the 120Gb drive is a worthwhile investment, I have kept the 
>> 20Gb
>> drive and put it in an external Firewire enclosure.
>
> Great idea. Where does one get an external Firewire enclosure?

I got mine from eBay, but your nearest computer fair or dealer should 
be able to get one for you, a good source is Other World Computing 
(links from either CubeOwner or xlr8yourmac).  I'm not associated with 
them, just a happy customer.

>
>> >
>> > What I can't figure out just yet is if I can get by with removing 
>> the
>> > 32 mb memory and putting in a 512 mb next to the two 128s, bringing 
>> my
>> > memory to 800 mb.  This would seem, along with the processor upgrade
>> > and hard drive, to make the operation of the Virtual PC snappy and
>> > crisp. Is 800 mb enough for what I'm trying to do?
>>
>> Definitely ditch the 32Mb stick, 768Mb should be fine. I have 1.5Gb of
>> RAM now and I can't say that there was a huge difference in Xbench
>> scores between having 2 x 512Mb over 3 x 512Mb RAM, but that's not
>> really tested in Xbench in the same way as fooling around with
>> PhotoShop rendering.
>
> Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to putting this new 
> contraption together. It may take me some time to assemble all the 
> parts due to constrained finances right now, but it shouldn't take too 
> long.
>
> Mark
>

I can say that having lost skin on the cases of various PCs I've either 
built or repaired over the years, give me a Cube to work on any day.

Jim