G4 Cube FireWire issue

[rcrook9190]

Hi folk,

Been steadily working through the issues with my cube. Two things now haunt the beast

1. The DVD drive eject is not powerful enough to eject the disk. It tries but the disk gets hung up on the foam insert of the case.
2. Neither FireWire port seem to work. With the DVD drive being a dick I tried targeted disk mode and found it doesn't work. Nor does the Cube recognize anything I plug into the ports. Its not reporting errors its just not seeing anything,

Any hints on how to tackle either of these issues would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Randall.

 

[François]

1. The DVD drive eject is not powerful enough to eject the disk. It tries but the disk gets hung up on the foam insert of the case.

This is a common issue with Apple slot-loading drives of that era. The drives in G3 iMacs have the same problem. See this thread on this very forum!

2. Neither FireWire port seem to work. With the DVD drive being a dick I tried targeted disk mode and found it doesn't work. Nor does the Cube recognize anything I plug into the ports. Its not reporting errors its just not seeing anything,

I have a Cube that was given to me with the same problem. One of the symptoms was that the Cube took a very long time to boot. But looking at the Cube logic board, the damage was obvious:

I replaced the blown capacitor, but that was not enough to repair the logic board. I think the chip to the left of the blown capacitor has overheated and need to be replaced. (at the time, something like 10 years ago, I found it was easier to just buy a replacement logic board on eBay: they were easy to find and relatively cheap)

 

[This Does Not Compute]

Is the bodge on that chip from the factory, or a repair done afterwards? Can't say I've ever seen anything like that before.

 

[rcrook9190]

This is a common issue with Apple slot-loading drives of that era. The drives in G3 iMacs have the same problem. See this thread on this very forum!


I have a Cube that was given to me with the same problem. One of the symptoms was that the Cube took a very long time to boot. But looking at the Cube logic board, the damage was obvious:

View attachment 9984

I replaced the blown capacitor, but that was not enough to repair the logic board. I think the chip to the left of the blown capacitor has overheated and need to be replaced. (at the time, something like 10 years ago, I found it was easier to just buy a replacement logic board on eBay: they were easy to find and relatively cheap)

I will have a close look. Thanks.

 

[François]

Is the bodge on that chip from the factory, or a repair done afterwards? Can't say I've ever seen anything like that before.

It’s from the factory, later Cubes don’t have it, but the chip (a voltage regulator) has a slightly different reference (LM2679 vs LMJ2679).