[Cube] I joined with a dead cube.

[Morning, A.J.]

Quoth Lou Hosta :

> I'm brand new to this list.  I've had a Cube (note the past tense)
> that I really enjoyed using.  One sad day there was a thunder way off
> in the distance, somewhere that wasn't even close to my house.
> Anyway, there was a phone line surge that killed my poor Cube.

    There are several ways to protect against a surge through the phone line
whacking a modem (and other internals). The very best is simply to unplug
the line, but... A very cheap and easy safeguard is simply to tie the phone
line (where it comes out of the wall) into a knot.

    That won't fix your dead cube, but it might help prevent it from
happening again. 

> It has a 450 mHz processor with almost 1 gig of RAM and everything else
> is original as the day I bought it.  I took it to an Apple Store and
> got a quote on what it would cost to get it fixed. For a new Logic
> Board ($627.72), New Rage 128 Video Card ($147.4), and a new DVD-ROM
> Optical Drive ($296.47) and labor ($90.10) the grand total comes to
> $1161.69.  OUCH!!

    Whole cubes sell for as little as $400 if you watch out for 'em. Prolly
more cost-effective to look for one in half-decent shape and Frankenstein
it. 

    For less than that Rage 128, you could get a pretty nice video card
upgrade. 

> Does anyone have any suggestions, ideas, input like going on to eBay
> to get spare parts.  I'm a bit apprehensive to do this so if you have
> had any experiences buying logic boards via eBay, I would like to
> know about it.

    I've bought some parts through OWC (links on Cubeowner.com) and been
quite happy with them. There's also on any given day someone, somewhere,
with a bunch of excess parts to sell off.

Cheers,
A.J.