I reanimated my Cube - just thought I'd share [Archive]

livingfortoday

Nov 7, 2006, 02:29 AM

Well, I don't know if the Cube counts as a collectors item yet, as it's still a G4, but tonight I took my broken Cube out of the closet, took it all apart and replaced a ton of parts... and made it live again! It made me really happy to see it flicker back to life (but not hear, for it's silent) after almost a year now of being dead. Turns out that some of the 4-pin power thingies had stopped working, and the IDE cable also didn't work, which is why nothing was working before.

Anyways, I still need a new hard drive for it (there's a WTB thread in the Marketplace if you have one!) but it'll be really nice to have my old 450Mhz G4 Cube sitting on my desk again, humming away.

Just thought I'd share.

MAcNIAC

Nov 7, 2006, 04:20 AM

Well, I don't know if the Cube counts as a collectors item yet, as it's still a G4, but tonight I took my broken Cube out of the closet, took it all apart and replaced a ton of parts... and made it live again! It made me really happy to see it flicker back to life (but not hear, for it's silent) after almost a year now of being dead. Turns out that some of the 4-pin power thingies had stopped working, and the IDE cable also didn't work, which is why nothing was working before.

Anyways, I still need a new hard drive for it (there's a WTB thread in the Marketplace if you have one!) but it'll be really nice to have my old 450Mhz G4 Cube sitting on my desk again, humming away.

Just thought I'd share.

nice!
things go retro pretty fast dont they? - it's a lot bigger than a mini:)

chaosbunny

Nov 7, 2006, 04:24 AM

That's great!

Cubes are really awesome computers! Mine is 5,5 years old now and still gets "wows" and "boas" when friends come to me and see it. :)

It hase a safe place on my desk (and in my heart). I still use it almost every day, and with 768 mb ram it has no problems with tiger at all. Unfortunately with shipping and everything, upgrades are too expensive here in Austria.:(

Have fun with your baby!

Mord

Nov 7, 2006, 06:56 AM

I always get nice reactions to my cube when people walk into my dorm room. sitting with it's studio display, original speakers keyboard and mouse.

Whenever I fiddle with it something always goes wrong but with some jiggery pokery I can always make it flutter into life, there's nothing like a good bong after hours of trying to figure out what's wrong, I once found a dead wolf spider in the thing.

dmw007

Nov 7, 2006, 08:02 AM

Congrats and good job on bringing your Cube back to life livingfortoday. :)

livingfortoday

Nov 7, 2006, 09:13 AM

I always get nice reactions to my cube when people walk into my dorm room. sitting with it's studio display, original speakers keyboard and mouse.

Thanks guys. Yeah, the plan is to restore it to its original looks, and pick up a Studio Display for it along the way. Maybe give it a modest speed bump to keep it semi-current.

IJ Reilly

Nov 7, 2006, 10:20 AM

Nice work. :)

When it started up for the first time, I hope you did the appropriate Dr Frankenstein thing and shouted, "It's alive!"

Now that the Cube is working, I'd recommend finding a nice quiet 7,200 RPM hard drive. I like the Seagate Barracuda.

Old Smuggler

Nov 7, 2006, 10:27 AM

Theres nothing like a good bong after hours of trying to figure out what's wrong

I totaly aggree :D

livingfortoday

Nov 7, 2006, 10:30 AM

When it started up for the first time, I hope you did the appropriate Dr Frankenstein thing and shouted, "It's alive!"

I don't know if my neighbors would have appreciated that at 3am, but if I get it all fixed up 100% again, I promise I will. I'll also add some maniacal laughter for good measure.

4JNA

Nov 7, 2006, 08:13 PM

congrats. love to see old hardware go back to work! :)

if you need a hard drive, or an old school ACD, or the 'wild eep' sound, let me know...

best of luck.

Spock

Nov 9, 2006, 09:58 AM

I totaly aggree :D

You beat me to it!! I would love to have a Cube to play with they look fun to mod.

dmw007

Nov 9, 2006, 10:49 AM

. I'll also add some maniacal laughter for good measure.

Good idea, a true mad scientist always has to do that. :D :)

IJ Reilly

Nov 9, 2006, 11:27 AM

Don't forget the white lab coat.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/jdc6/young_frankenstein.jpg

blakespot

Nov 11, 2006, 04:50 PM

Have a look at this mod:

http://www.123macmini.com/macminicube/

blakespot

IJ Reilly

Nov 11, 2006, 05:44 PM

Have a look at this mod:

http://www.123macmini.com/macminicube/

blakespot

Yuck. :(

ReanimationLP

Nov 12, 2006, 12:20 PM

*snickers*

Reanimated. ;)

Hows that video card working out for ya?

dmw007

Nov 12, 2006, 12:49 PM

Have a look at this mod:

http://www.123macmini.com/macminicube/

blakespot

That was a pretty cool mod. :)

livingfortoday

Nov 12, 2006, 01:01 PM

http://www.123macmini.com/macminicube/

That's pretty cool, I think, and I had thought about going that route, buuut... the Cube is just too cool in its natural state. I plan on keeping it stock and silent, and using it as a mainly OS 9 machine. Oh, and playing Civ III on it all the time, since I can't play that on my Mini. I just need to get a cool ACD for it, and I'll be set.

Sawtoothdude

Nov 12, 2006, 06:41 PM

Good luck with your cube. Cubes are awesome enough said.

pdpfilms

Nov 12, 2006, 07:15 PM

Have a look at this mod:

http://www.123macmini.com/macminicube/

blakespot

I'm impressed... that's a lot of work, and it looks like it turned out really well.

livingfortoday

Nov 13, 2006, 07:08 PM

Well, thanks to some great forum members, I now have a hard drive and RAM for the Cube, but I also have a new problem. For some reason the Cube can boot from CD when there's no hard drive present, but when I plug in the hard drive, it can't boot from CD and just gives me the flashing question mark folder icon. I tried booting it up in target disc mode, and it shuts itself off completely when I do that.

Has anyone experienced these symptoms before?

Edit: And I know the drive works, I just plugged it in to my Powermac and reformatted it, so it's not the drive.

nhamze

Nov 13, 2006, 07:52 PM

I had that exact same problem just yesterday I was using a 120 gig seagate barracuda, I tried every combo of jumper settings and after a few hours I gave up and put the stock one back in. Let me know if you figure it out

livingfortoday

Nov 13, 2006, 08:20 PM

I had that exact same problem just yesterday I was using a 120 gig seagate barracuda, I tried every combo of jumper settings and after a few hours I gave up and put the stock one back in. Let me know if you figure it out

Okay, I got it to work. I had to put the hard drive in Slave mode in order for it to be seen. Also, it still won't boot from my Panther disks, but it will work with Tiger, oddly enough. I really don't get why, but then again, my Cube's always been a bit eccentric. So. There we go. You might wanna try your drive with the jumpers in slave mode, if you haven't.

ReanimationLP

Nov 16, 2006, 05:48 AM

Cable select should fix it.

I know thats what Apple recommends all hard disks be set to. Give that a try. Worked for me on my iMac 350.

livingfortoday

Nov 16, 2006, 01:16 PM

Cable select should fix it.

I know thats what Apple recommends all hard disks be set to. Give that a try. Worked for me on my iMac 350.

Yeah, that was my first choice, actually, and I remember than in the past the Cube's drive was set to it, but for some reason it didn't work this time. It's humming away happy now in Slave, though, so I'm not complaining!

Killyp

Nov 17, 2006, 04:34 PM

Cable select should fix it.

I know thats what Apple recommends all hard disks be set to. Give that a try. Worked for me on my iMac 350.

I was having that issue yesterday too. The 10gb drive in my G3 iMac died, so I whipped it out and stuck an 80gig in there instead. :D

Couldn't get it to see the drive though, figured it out in the end, cable select mode to format the HDD, Master mode to install it onto...