P-M Cube *56k beware

M

mad3d

Gawd
Joined
Feb 21, 2002
Messages
794
Back in high school I used to program on the Mac G4 cubes...good looking machines with horrible performance (I'm not a mac man, what can I say). Jump to 2004. IBase released its P-M mini-itx motherboard that could just barely fit inside the cube. The P-M Cube project was born.

Specs:

1.7 P-M Dothan
1 Gb Kingston PC-2700
200 Gb Seagate 7200.7 HD
M-Audio Firewire 1814 Sound
GForce 5700LE 128 MB Graphics (it was between this and the Radeon 9100)
Intel 802.11 b/g minipci
...and of course the IBase MB890 (with gig-E, firewire, usb2, pci, mini-pci, etc.)

The only major problem was trying to mount this beast in the cube with drilling into the cube's walls. That was solved with the magic of another part of my childhood...Erector Set.

Pictures:

DSC_0001.jpg

The weird thing in the pci slot is on of those flexible extender deals.

DSC_0002.jpg

A shot with some erector frame attached and the uber-powerful gforce graphics card.

DSC_0005.jpg


DSC_0014.jpg

The harddrive frame.

DSC_0015.jpg

Harddrive put into its frame.

DSC_0018.jpg

I forgot to put in a power button, so I had to take everything apart and start again. Since I'm cheap and lazy I soldered the wires directly onto the motherboard header and liberated a pushbutton from an old joystick I had lying around.

DSC_0019.jpg

Ready to go in the cube.

DSC_0027.jpg

Everything fits. Gotta love the postal tape for the ccfl invertor.

DSC_0029.jpg

And now...the P-M Cube !!!

This was a fun project, but sadly not what I need lying around right now. So now I have to find someone to buy all the hardware I used (except the cube case itself) so I can buy myself a dual proc computer.
 
The only good price I could find it for was on ebay, but I think there are a few ibase retailers in the US. OT: That chip you're selling is quite insane!
 
mad3d said:
The only good price I could find it for was on ebay, but I think there are a few ibase retailers in the US. OT: That chip you're selling is quite insane!
Click to expand...

The FX-53? It sure is, I'm surprised nobody wants it, though :(
 
Undertheradar, the card is pci so the extension is for pci. You can find agp right angle adapters and stuff like that pretty easily though (in fact, if you want one just pm me and I'll give you the one I have).
 
That's friggin' cool. Despite not being a Mac person, I've always like the G4 cube style since I first saw one at CompUSA some years ago.....

I take it you wound up gutting a working cube, rather than finding a burned out one?
 
mad3d said:
Undertheradar, the card is pci so the extension is for pci. You can find agp right angle adapters and stuff like that pretty easily though (in fact, if you want one just pm me and I'll give you the one I have).
Click to expand...

how much you want for it?
 
lamarth said:
That's friggin' cool. Despite not being a Mac person, I've always like the G4 cube style since I first saw one at CompUSA some years ago.....

I take it you wound up gutting a working cube, rather than finding a burned out one?
Click to expand...

I have a feeling he picked it up on eBay, or created it out of parts he has.
 
ScHpAnKy said:
I have a feeling he picked it up on eBay, or created it out of parts he has.
Click to expand...

I suspect the first, as I looked around on Ebay and found a lot of working cubes but no burned out ones or 'case only'. I did find someone selling the innerds from a cube... gee, wonder who could that be... :rolleyes: :D
 
I may eventually "edit" that emblem to be a little more representative of what I think of macs... picture maybe a worm or something coming out of it.
 
The heat dissapation is horrible - I'll have to install an 80mm fan in there or something. I was thinking of trying to make some sort of large heatpipe deal or maybe watercool it, but that will have to wait for a few weeks while I find some money :) . Thanks for all the nice comments!
 
So the unit is sold? That's too bad. I would have liked to have heard how much you were asking. :(
 
nice setup Mike, wish you could have brought the whole thing completed to work.
 
I just got rid of a pretty big erector set a couple months ago, I had no idea they would be useful for case mods :mad:
 
Nice mod - even though it's a shame it's not a Mac anymore, there's a certain charm about G4 cubes I can't explain ^^;

Also, I've been looking @ G4 cubes too, and prices are outrageous ( like, 600$ for an old 400MHz, 1000-1500$ for an upgraded one :/ )
 
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