Wow, you literally upgraded it to death. That's a pretty good achievement! Here's hoping you can work a small miracle and bring it back to life so it can minecraft once more.
@@Lampe2020 The joke is that 'correct' thermal paste application is infinitely contentious and that if he actually shows exactly how it is applied he'll get nothing but thousands of comments telling him that he did it wrong and arguing with each other about how to do it better.... If that was actually true it might be worth showing just to get TH-cam 'engagement' up for more visibility but it's much more entertaining that he censors it, anyways.
16:28 I think that's either a multilayer ceramic capacitor that shorted, or even more likely a ferrite inductor that saturated and overheated (L6 next to it should indicate an inductor!) You're trying to push more power through a PCB that wasn't designed for it and may need to find proper replacement components! If you can find a boardview fioe, it should be pretty trivial to figure out what component that was. If it's an inductor, I suggest upgrading it to one with a higher saturation current and seeing if it improves things. For projects like these, an IR camera to monitor component temperature during stress testing is a good investment ;)
i put a dual 1ghz into a quick silver. i bought a couple 7455A cpu's off ebay from china. they were like 6.00 each. the A variant has better voltage stability and easier to OC. i built a small external VRM off the 3.3v rail of a custom PSU for the system. balled the new cpu's onto the factory daughter card and got them to 1.63Ghz using a 155Mhz FSB overclock. i used a small CNC to mill a copper heatsink (cost me 30 bucks at my local steel yard for the scrap copper). i flashed a X800vivo into a X850XTPE for the system as well. it runs doom 3 at 50fps. i spent about 200.00 total including the factory dual 1.0 card i had to buy. minimal extra parts needed. took about 4 months to build
@@BK2Modder yeah, I've got some write-ups on 68K MLA, Reddit, maybe a video on here? And some TikToks. I intend to stream from it at some point but other projects are in the way
That's pretty cool! I've been wanting to overclock my lowly 2x450 to 500 for starters, but I really don't want to shorten it's life. Believe it or not I actually have a practical use case for it, I need it to use an old synthesizer card. Have to get my oc fix from old Phenoms and Athlons for now.
@@MandrakeFernflower I've noticed a lot of games pre 2013 are more CPU hogs than GPU hogs. Skyrim for example uses way more CPU resources than GPU. And I'm not even talking about modded Skyrim.
This is such a badass build dude. Love the G4 cube. Never knew they had dual CPU upgrades ever. I always thought that only existed on the PowerMac G5 and one of the high end Mac clones.
I finally got a cube about a year ego. Upgraded it in a safe way should we say to avoid blowing up the VRM module. CPU speed remains stock at 450Mhz. I will maybe get a safe 500 something mhz card soon. Maxed out the RAM, fixed the belt on the DVD drive, put in a 7200RPM drive in it and upgraded the GPU for a Radeon 7500 32mb so that it will work with aluminium cinema displays. So pretty happy with it's performance now.
You are very detailed and I am sometimes bored by the variety of details. I like the format and the knowledge of the subject matter, overall I really liked the episode.😍
That laptop didn't have enough power...SO I REWIRED IT! Dropped down to Sears, picked up a roll of coax cable, an air compressor and duct tape. That machine now runs Crysis better than any other. Oh, what is that, Randy? It's too fast? I'll dial that down a bit after I fix grandpa's hearing aid. I've got a pre-amp on that sonofab*tch. He can pick up Neptune on that thing. 😂😂😂
You pulled an Icarus ( many of us have including me ), but at least it's fixable! I can't believe you were able squeeze over 1300 on the bench with dual G4. Fantastic work!
Looks like you blew an inductor (aka coil, choke, etc.) A pretty common failure point, even when eXtreme upgrades aren't involved. Should be easy enough to replace, though I don't know what the value of the original part is, and I'm pretty sure they aren't labeled on the part itself. Afaik there are no schematics for the Cube out in the wild, so you might have to take an educated guess. If you have a donor board you can just yoink it off of there. Although, given the increased power demands of the upgrades you have in that thing, you might not want to go for a like-for-like replacement, but rather install a higher valued part to allow for more headroom.
I just got my hands on a G4 cube for 100 dollars from a local mac user. I have zero experience with Mac anything so I have been having fun fiddling around and playing with programs. I am on the lookout for an XFX 6200 card that I can mod to replace the Geforce 2 mx card in it. I don't think I will ever be able to upgrade the CPU though so it's really impressive to watch you do it. Love these videos. I can't wait to see what you do next.
Hi there. I just wanted to say how much I enjoy your videos. I love what you do to these old machines and your enthusiasm. Back in the day when Steve Jobs was sorting Apple out and they were producing (in my opinion) some of their best hardware, I was a massive Apple fan boy! 😅 Today I’m still loyal to Apple but the love for their products has died slightly as they become more mainstream. But I still own my iMac G3 SE from way back, and it still runs, but due to space constraints it lives in the loft as there is no room for it in my retro room. However your videos make me want to get it down and play around with it again, maybe even explore some upgrades. For the record my daily driver machine at home is my 27” iMac, while unsupported now with latest revisions of macOS, still serves me well. To be honest I do most of my computing on my iPad (like editing my TH-cam videos using DaVinci Resolve) and iPhones (filming said videos). Technology has moved on so much. Right, I’ll end here. Thanks for reading (if you made it this far) and keep up the good work. 😎👍
since you have a large heatsink you can use a thermal pad for the power delivery to keep all cooler and it will take some heat away from the pcb to and you will have a more stable and more performance from it😀
Cool video! My dad had a Mac G4 Cube back when they were current. It seems to me that he only had it for a relatively short time; maybe the VRM issue you mentioned was the reason why. I always thought it was the coolest computer he ever owned.
Got a quick question I have a iBook g3 that running tiger but the Wi-Fi module is not working. Is there a Wi-Fi adaptor that I can use that is supported for Mac OS Tiger?
That thing was running minecraft pretty well for a moment. Cool stuff! I wonder if the component failing was just due to age? Hope you can get it up and running smoothly and enjoy some more shenanigans with it OCed. Also nice to see a sponsor that's more relevant to the channel again. 👍
Recently got hold of a G4 Cube for a very fair price. Including a studio display. I have to say it's really the most awesome little computer ever. 😍 Would love to make it dual CPU!
Right around 14:37 you can hear a high pitch whine start to happen when dragging windows and moving mouse around and stuff. Wonder if the VRM board still isn't enough to supply two cpu's? Or just a mainboard fault from age or something...
Don’t worry, that’s just what happens if you push hardware from that time period a bit, just replace the part and take something with a little more quality as replacement and you’re good to go again.
I actually owned one of these when they were current, one of the stupidest purchases I've ever made lol. But I did love the little thing, and I used it as long as I could. I waited until the bell curve went back up and then sold it for almost what I bought for it over a decade previously as it had turned into a collectors item.
I know you'll get this figured out, Sean. By the way, I have the exact same model of USB speakers hooked up to my 10th gen Intel i7 laptop! I bought them at a local charity shop for the princely sum of $5. They aren't loud enough, though...
I had the newertech dual 7448 card. It was a beast but so not stable. 1.8ghz. Had to run a pc psu with an adapter (g4 tower) and have the door cracked open with a paperclip otherwise it would overheat and lock up 😂 I shoved a 7800gs in there too, bluetooth, usb 2.0, etc etc etc Totally normal computing. Edit: it started as a gigabit ethernet dual 450, but I decided to go with a digital audio later on. The gigabit ethernet had two gigs of ram, but it's bus speed was 33 MHz slower. Ultimately, I think the trade-off of 512 MB of ram for 33 more megahertz on the bus was a good one.
About the dipswitches: it occurred to me that the inversion that makes 0 into 1 might also make right into left? Or not--I have no topological imagination whatever, and get into trouble orienting maps.
The Cube was a cool idea, but not well executed. I get wanting it silent, but it needed better cooling and a way to REALLY max out its hardware realistically.
I just picked up a MDD and to my surprise it has the 2GHz card!!! I have a cube with a sonnett 1.2 and the good VRM so I think I’m goona swap it! I finally found the holy grail cpu card! (Not dual) and the entire machine was 100 bucks.
As soon as I heard "overclock" I knew what was ahead. If I gave you a '74 Ford Pinto, you'd try to put a turbocharger and NOS on it, wouldn't you? You just can't help yourself.
I miss the days of thicker laptops and what not. These days it’s like “Oh look at my powerful Core i7 but there’s no way this paper thin laptop can cool it so it’ll thermal throttle the instant I turn it on”
Worse than that, they make sissy versions of the current CPU models, just for thermally insufficient laptops. So, they can claim "current model" specs, while knowingly giving us intentionally hobbled hardware!
I have been itching to build a cube PC encased in a 3d printed Borg shell with hidden green LED, it should be a miniITX board with a slim or pico PSU and it should be able to run OSX, Haiku and Win7, as well as any Linux, it must not run Win 10/11.
Are you even modding if you don't get a little Doo Doo stains either in your drawers or on your board? Looking at the Wiki I can now understand how 1.8 is crazy. Cool as heck thanks for the vid.
Wow, you literally upgraded it to death. That's a pretty good achievement! Here's hoping you can work a small miracle and bring it back to life so it can minecraft once more.
The deadpan thermal paste application censorship gets me every time 😂
I don't even understand why he censored it… What background knowledge am I missing?
@@Lampe2020 The joke is that 'correct' thermal paste application is infinitely contentious and that if he actually shows exactly how it is applied he'll get nothing but thousands of comments telling him that he did it wrong and arguing with each other about how to do it better.... If that was actually true it might be worth showing just to get TH-cam 'engagement' up for more visibility but it's much more entertaining that he censors it, anyways.
@@mrf160
Ah, okay.
@@mrf160 He applies it in an X shape, you're welcome.
16:28 I think that's either a multilayer ceramic capacitor that shorted, or even more likely a ferrite inductor that saturated and overheated (L6 next to it should indicate an inductor!) You're trying to push more power through a PCB that wasn't designed for it and may need to find proper replacement components! If you can find a boardview fioe, it should be pretty trivial to figure out what component that was. If it's an inductor, I suggest upgrading it to one with a higher saturation current and seeing if it improves things. For projects like these, an IR camera to monitor component temperature during stress testing is a good investment ;)
It’s an inductor, video caption said dosdude1 mentioned to him as much. Maybe dosdude1 could make it better…
Nothing wrong with trying to help! Many people listen to videos as they do things, making captions unreliable.@@JamesTK
If it didn't burn through any traces or melt them together, replacing the component might work.
@@JamesTK didn't realize! Nice to know :)
i put a dual 1ghz into a quick silver. i bought a couple 7455A cpu's off ebay from china. they were like 6.00 each. the A variant has better voltage stability and easier to OC. i built a small external VRM off the 3.3v rail of a custom PSU for the system. balled the new cpu's onto the factory daughter card and got them to 1.63Ghz using a 155Mhz FSB overclock. i used a small CNC to mill a copper heatsink (cost me 30 bucks at my local steel yard for the scrap copper). i flashed a X800vivo into a X850XTPE for the system as well. it runs doom 3 at 50fps. i spent about 200.00 total including the factory dual 1.0 card i had to buy. minimal extra parts needed. took about 4 months to build
sounds sick! do you have any photos or videos from the upgrade process or of the final product? Would love to see that G4 in action
@@BK2Modder yeah, I've got some write-ups on 68K MLA, Reddit, maybe a video on here? And some TikToks. I intend to stream from it at some point but other projects are in the way
That's pretty cool! I've been wanting to overclock my lowly 2x450 to 500 for starters, but I really don't want to shorten it's life. Believe it or not I actually have a practical use case for it, I need it to use an old synthesizer card. Have to get my oc fix from old Phenoms and Athlons for now.
@@beardedgaming1337 hope you put some stuff up here on TH-cam. The world needs to see it.
Awesome!
The finger placement over the "Fuckers Mint" sticker had me rolling!
😂🫧
"What do we have to lose? Just irreplaceable hardware..." *hesitates*
🤣 Love it! And all the vids.
You grew so much since last time you worked on that cube, from floating hands to full body!
a recap will bring it back
the cool thing i love about power pc is that how well it scales with clock speed unlike x86
You reminded me of Han Solo trying to open the door in Return of of the Jedi with the dip switches
They weren't switches, he tried to hot-wire the doors.
I'm hoping the component failure is just due to age not due to the processor speed
I love how Action Retro blurs the application of thermal compound to the CPUs!
Nowadays you pretty much have to. People lose their $@!t if you don't do it exactly the way they expect.
More compound = More better 😂
@@rmcdudmk212 the bigger the glob, the better the job!
@@themantimeforgotx still funny though, lol
Instead of 29 comments there would be 100 complaining about the thermal paste :D
The fact that all this tinkering got this old Mac to run Minecraft at higher FPS than consoles over half a decade newer than it is wild.
Modded Minecraft Java version mostly eats CPU rather than GPU
@@MandrakeFernflower I've noticed a lot of games pre 2013 are more CPU hogs than GPU hogs. Skyrim for example uses way more CPU resources than GPU. And I'm not even talking about modded Skyrim.
This is such a badass build dude. Love the G4 cube. Never knew they had dual CPU upgrades ever. I always thought that only existed on the PowerMac G5 and one of the high end Mac clones.
There were dual CPU G4s, so it wasn't to crazy that some 3rd party made some
I finally got a cube about a year ego. Upgraded it in a safe way should we say to avoid blowing up the VRM module. CPU speed remains stock at 450Mhz. I will maybe get a safe 500 something mhz card soon. Maxed out the RAM, fixed the belt on the DVD drive, put in a 7200RPM drive in it and upgraded the GPU for a Radeon 7500 32mb so that it will work with aluminium cinema displays. So pretty happy with it's performance now.
You are very detailed and I am sometimes bored by the variety of details. I like the format and the knowledge of the subject matter, overall I really liked the episode.😍
Somehow this reminded me of the old "Home Improvement" TV show when Tim offered Randy to add "More Power" to his old laptop with the 030 chip...😁
I thought his laptop was PowerPC.
That laptop didn't have enough power...SO I REWIRED IT! Dropped down to Sears, picked up a roll of coax cable, an air compressor and duct tape. That machine now runs Crysis better than any other. Oh, what is that, Randy? It's too fast? I'll dial that down a bit after I fix grandpa's hearing aid. I've got a pre-amp on that sonofab*tch. He can pick up Neptune on that thing. 😂😂😂
You pulled an Icarus ( many of us have including me ), but at least it's fixable!
I can't believe you were able squeeze over 1300 on the bench with dual G4. Fantastic work!
Look forward to seeing this brought back to life!
This is exactly why I watch ActionRetro: ACTION! 🎉
Looks like you blew an inductor (aka coil, choke, etc.) A pretty common failure point, even when eXtreme upgrades aren't involved. Should be easy enough to replace, though I don't know what the value of the original part is, and I'm pretty sure they aren't labeled on the part itself. Afaik there are no schematics for the Cube out in the wild, so you might have to take an educated guess. If you have a donor board you can just yoink it off of there. Although, given the increased power demands of the upgrades you have in that thing, you might not want to go for a like-for-like replacement, but rather install a higher valued part to allow for more headroom.
Thank you for protecting my virgin eyes by blurring the thermal paste application! 😂❤
I just got my hands on a G4 cube for 100 dollars from a local mac user. I have zero experience with Mac anything so I have been having fun fiddling around and playing with programs. I am on the lookout for an XFX 6200 card that I can mod to replace the Geforce 2 mx card in it. I don't think I will ever be able to upgrade the CPU though so it's really impressive to watch you do it. Love these videos. I can't wait to see what you do next.
Man, how does dosdude1 know so much!? HAHA
That inductor likely overheated. If replacing it, might be a good idea to try a higher power rated one in it's place.
Looked like a SMD capacitor or resistor.
@@blubaustin1 Yeah, it looked like that to me, but what do I know compared to dosdude1? He's the one who identified it as an inductor.
LOVE the BUBBLES sticker IT IS FRENKING DESCENT
uh oh... magic smoke time!
Hi there.
I just wanted to say how much I enjoy your videos. I love what you do to these old machines and your enthusiasm.
Back in the day when Steve Jobs was sorting Apple out and they were producing (in my opinion) some of their best hardware, I was a massive Apple fan boy! 😅
Today I’m still loyal to Apple but the love for their products has died slightly as they become more mainstream.
But I still own my iMac G3 SE from way back, and it still runs, but due to space constraints it lives in the loft as there is no room for it in my retro room. However your videos make me want to get it down and play around with it again, maybe even explore some upgrades.
For the record my daily driver machine at home is my 27” iMac, while unsupported now with latest revisions of macOS, still serves me well. To be honest I do most of my computing on my iPad (like editing my TH-cam videos using DaVinci Resolve) and iPhones (filming said videos). Technology has moved on so much.
Right, I’ll end here. Thanks for reading (if you made it this far) and keep up the good work. 😎👍
wow that sure was one explosive finale
since you have a large heatsink you can use a thermal pad for the power delivery to keep all cooler and it will take some heat away from the pcb to and you will have a more stable and more performance from it😀
i wonder if you could run one at a lower clock and another at a higher clock? i doubt it would work though.
Love the Bubbles decal. It’s DECENT!
Put on an inductor with a higher power rating/lower impedance, or jump it alltogether. It might work just fine without the filtering.
5:45 beautiful case screw refactoring; in your face jobs, a couple of screws strategically placed go a long way towards extreme modding
@5:53 - lovely accidental convenient thumb placement, very artistic, very accidental.
Love it - no guts, no glory! 🤩
that component got scared and inked its self
Cool video! My dad had a Mac G4 Cube back when they were current. It seems to me that he only had it for a relatively short time; maybe the VRM issue you mentioned was the reason why. I always thought it was the coolest computer he ever owned.
Got a quick question I have a iBook g3 that running tiger but the Wi-Fi module is not working. Is there a Wi-Fi adaptor that I can use that is supported for Mac OS Tiger?
Yes, over clock and over power! Im here for it. 🥳
That thing was running minecraft pretty well for a moment. Cool stuff! I wonder if the component failing was just due to age? Hope you can get it up and running smoothly and enjoy some more shenanigans with it OCed. Also nice to see a sponsor that's more relevant to the channel again. 👍
Recently got hold of a G4 Cube for a very fair price. Including a studio display. I have to say it's really the most awesome little computer ever. 😍 Would love to make it dual CPU!
Right around 14:37 you can hear a high pitch whine start to happen when dragging windows and moving mouse around and stuff. Wonder if the VRM board still isn't enough to supply two cpu's? Or just a mainboard fault from age or something...
Don’t worry, that’s just what happens if you push hardware from that time period a bit, just replace the part and take something with a little more quality as replacement and you’re good to go again.
Hello! I have a question not related to the video : When will the Frogfind search engine not cut off portions off the site?
I have a cube but the optical drive failed. What should I do with it?
I actually owned one of these when they were current, one of the stupidest purchases I've ever made lol. But I did love the little thing, and I used it as long as I could. I waited until the bell curve went back up and then sold it for almost what I bought for it over a decade previously as it had turned into a collectors item.
Like to see a modern Mac mini board go in there.
I know you'll get this figured out, Sean. By the way, I have the exact same model of USB speakers hooked up to my 10th gen Intel i7 laptop! I bought them at a local charity shop for the princely sum of $5. They aren't loud enough, though...
Looking forward to the next part 👍
My Boy Bubbles... F'n Mint indeed. NS Proud
Feed ma kitties...😂 Gotta love Trailer Park Boys.
That was an interesting episode, hope you can bring it back to life, quite a rig there. No more jinxing.
I had the newertech dual 7448 card. It was a beast but so not stable. 1.8ghz. Had to run a pc psu with an adapter (g4 tower) and have the door cracked open with a paperclip otherwise it would overheat and lock up 😂
I shoved a 7800gs in there too, bluetooth, usb 2.0, etc etc etc
Totally normal computing.
Edit: it started as a gigabit ethernet dual 450, but I decided to go with a digital audio later on. The gigabit ethernet had two gigs of ram, but it's bus speed was 33 MHz slower. Ultimately, I think the trade-off of 512 MB of ram for 33 more megahertz on the bus was a good one.
I was worried you weren't gonna *THONK* the computer, but you delivered at 1:17. Thank you.
The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very, very brightly, Action Retro.
That case it has been in before looks very cool!
At least it appears to be a part that you have a hope of sourcing a replacement for.
Inductor turned into a fuse!
😂😬
Yesss dual cpu g4 cube!
The blurred out chips while thermal paste is applied 😂
Dual 1.8GHz PPC G4 Killed G4 Cube!
No no - TH-cam did. :)
@@stevef6392 Well, TBH, TH-cam is good at killing all the fun stuff, so...
Beautiful , just beautiful.. keep building your dreams. No... Our dreams my brother!
About the dipswitches: it occurred to me that the inversion that makes 0 into 1 might also make right into left? Or not--I have no topological imagination whatever, and get into trouble orienting maps.
Thank you for your sacrifice!
Can I use the PowerPC Macs today for internet and email?
Always love learning about new stuff lol I always wanted that cube mac but was too expensive for me in that time when I was in high school.
Amazing. I always wanted a cube. I know its been done, but would be great to put my M1 mini's mother board into a cube, be such a nicer case...
Great video!❤
I like how the Mac Mini is just a compressed Cube.
Could you find enough aftermarket parts to make a whole new G4 cube?
Why block out the layering of the thermal compound? Was that a joke?
Where did you find that awesome unix shirt?
"Rock solid!".... SAME, tbh.
Have you ever wondered that almost all of your iMac/PowerMac collection listed on the MorphOS compatibility list?
it was like watching a deadlifter breaking the world record several times in one contest.
Have you thought about putting an
Apple Silicon Mac Mini in one of those cubes?
You can definitely replace that tho given the melty outcome of the current one you may want to figure out its specs and find a much beefier one :P
The Cube was a cool idea, but not well executed. I get wanting it silent, but it needed better cooling and a way to REALLY max out its hardware realistically.
**Herd** ... Is that Bil Herd, a former Commodore engineer, and a Hackaday editor?
this card been very limited and only a few managed to get one back in the day so congrat
yeah it needs water cooling to keep the CPU's cool, or a giant heat sync to disperse that heat
"Perhaps the most beautiful ever production computer" EH, SGI might argue that...
I’d want mine painted like a Borg tactical cube! If I had one, that is. 😊
Sad we cannot get these cards at a reasonable price that is awesome what you did
I just picked up a MDD and to my surprise it has the 2GHz card!!! I have a cube with a sonnett 1.2 and the good VRM so I think I’m goona swap it! I finally found the holy grail cpu card! (Not dual) and the entire machine was 100 bucks.
As soon as I heard "overclock" I knew what was ahead. If I gave you a '74 Ford Pinto, you'd try to put a turbocharger and NOS on it, wouldn't you? You just can't help yourself.
I feel bad for you! If it really is just a single capacitor, or resistor it should be fixable, though!
Looking forward to the repair video :3!
Now you finally can make the fabled G4 Fishtank
7:51 - Room for one more processor sitting there.... just saying... v3 maybe?
I miss the days of thicker laptops and what not. These days it’s like “Oh look at my powerful Core i7 but there’s no way this paper thin laptop can cool it so it’ll thermal throttle the instant I turn it on”
Worse than that, they make sissy versions of the current CPU models, just for thermally insufficient laptops. So, they can claim "current model" specs, while knowingly giving us intentionally hobbled hardware!
WoW Sean that is a Epic score that Dual CPU
It looks like it was some inductor that got fried. Probably replaceable.
2 CPUs 1 Cube sounds awfully familiar....
I have been itching to build a cube PC encased in a 3d printed Borg shell with hidden green LED, it should be a miniITX board with a slim or pico PSU and it should be able to run OSX, Haiku and Win7, as well as any Linux, it must not run Win 10/11.
lets hope you can shove more powerful stuff in there
Are you even modding if you don't get a little Doo Doo stains either in your drawers or on your board? Looking at the Wiki I can now understand how 1.8 is crazy. Cool as heck thanks for the vid.
Plenty of power - perhaps better cooling across the cpu module?
I wish that one day someone makes a H264ify port to PPC macs.
I think it would help for these veteran machines can play YT videos.
Another great video, thanks dude
BIG, BIG, G4, BIG G4, BIG G4!