6 Installation Guides

Airport Card

Hard drive

Modem

Optical Drive

RAM

Video Card

1 Disassembly Guide

Outer Case

1 Teardown

Power Mac G4 Cube Teardown

Support Questions

Tools

Common tools used to work on this device. You might not need every tool for every procedure.

T10 Torx Screwdriver

Phillips #0 Screwdriver

T8 Torx Security Bit Screwdriver

Troubleshooting ¶ 

Track down a number of hardware problems using the Power Mac G4 Cube Troubleshooting Guide.

Identification and Background ¶ 

The infamous Powermac G4 Cube, Apple's original failed attempt at a compact G4-based Macintosh. Released in 2000 at a cost of $1599, the cube was considered too expensive and too slow. Unlike many other computers, the Cube used passive cooling (no fan). This was a big mistake on Apple's part, because G4 processors run very hot!

The Cube boasted a 450MHz or 500Mhz G4 CPU, not very fast back when compared to the 1Ghz Pentium IIIs of the time. The Cube was virtually silent, except for the original 5400 RPM hard drives. After one year of production, Apple put the Cube "On Ice."

The Cube is also a popular candidate for MacQuariums. It has an internal fan hookup, but isn't used by Apple. You can buy a fan and connect it to the 12V 2-Pin connector, and find somewhere to put it in the Cube. This is a popular mod to cool overheating Cubes.

It was replaced by the Mac Mini in 2005, 5 years later.

Upgrades ¶ 

You can cost-effectively upgrade a number of components in the PowerMac Cube.

  • Memory: The PowerMac Cube originally shipped (M7642LL/A) with 64 MB of RAM. 64 MB, 128 MB, and 256 MB. The maximum amount of ram you can add is 1.5 GB.
  • Hard Drive: The PowerMac Cube comes standard with a (M7642LL/A) 20 GB (5400 RPM) hard drive. You could upgrade to a 40 GB (5400 RPM) or 60 GB (7200 RPM) even a 120 GB hard drive, but drives larger than 128 GB are not supported.
  • Optical Drive: The PowerMac Cube originally shipped with a standard optical drive 5X DVD-Drive.
  • AirPort: The airport (802.11b) for the PowerMac does not come standard, but it can be easily added.
  • Video Card The PowerMac originally shipped with an ATI Rage 128 Pro graphics card with 16 MB of SDRAM. You could also upgrade to a NVIDIA GeForce 3 video card with 64MB of SDRAM. Either video card occupies a dedicated "short" 2X AGP slot.
  • Modem The PowerMac shipped with an internal modem and 10/100Base-T Ethernet standard.

Additional Information ¶