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Cube Owners: Artmix VRM II available, slightly updated
- Thread starter ried
- Start date
hyperneogeo
Well-known member
Well, I wanted to share my thought on this.
1) His shipping time is insane, even if he says it's in stock.
2) He does not respond to emails.
3) After using it a total of 3 times, the VRM started making a weird sound and smoke started coming out of the lucent BGA. There were multiple hot chips on the VRM. My cube is totally stock, no cpu/gpu upgrades. The PSU itself was fine.
After reporting this to him, he was silent, no responses from him. So I can't recommend this :/
1) His shipping time is insane, even if he says it's in stock.
2) He does not respond to emails.
3) After using it a total of 3 times, the VRM started making a weird sound and smoke started coming out of the lucent BGA. There were multiple hot chips on the VRM. My cube is totally stock, no cpu/gpu upgrades. The PSU itself was fine.
After reporting this to him, he was silent, no responses from him. So I can't recommend this :/
So something shorted out on your cube? Which one is the "lucnet BGA"?
It looks like stratos had them on ebay for a little while:
www.ebay.com/itm/334674973776
...I wonder what the story is there.
It looks like stratos had them on ebay for a little while:
www.ebay.com/itm/334674973776
...I wonder what the story is there.
AwkwardPotato
Well-known member
Almost certain the big Lucent chip on earlier G4s, such as the Cube, is the KeyLargo IC... 
Bumping. I ordered one. Received. Popped into a Cube with a Radeon 9000 and a sonnet 1ghz. Ran Quake 3 for 30 mins and my Cube shut off. Smelled burning. Great.
Unplugged everything. Radeon was hotter than hell.. clearly too hot for a Cube. So swapped to a GeForce 2. Stock VRM boots. So the logic board thankfully isn’t dead. Yes I have a fan installed.
Reached out to Artmix who asked me to ship it back for repair. Cost $50 CAD. This VRM is starting to feel real friggen pricy.
Still waiting for word on the repair.
Edit: He wants $50 USD for repair plus return shipping. Not cool. But.. what choice do I have? He’s the only name in the game.
Unplugged everything. Radeon was hotter than hell.. clearly too hot for a Cube. So swapped to a GeForce 2. Stock VRM boots. So the logic board thankfully isn’t dead. Yes I have a fan installed.
Reached out to Artmix who asked me to ship it back for repair. Cost $50 CAD. This VRM is starting to feel real friggen pricy.
Still waiting for word on the repair.
Edit: He wants $50 USD for repair plus return shipping. Not cool. But.. what choice do I have? He’s the only name in the game.
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Why do you think that $50 for repair is unreasonable? It seems very fair to me, and I'd be positively grateful to have that option had I cooked mine through what would ultimately amount to user error.
My cube has an artmix vrm (which has always worked perfectly) running a sonnet 1.8ghz and a radeon 7500. That configuration is hot enough. I bought a radeon 9000 at one point but decided it was a bad idea to try and use it in the cube.
Daniël
Well-known member
What's the user error here?
Ok, I admit that calling it user error is a little harsh, but @Mikeyy00 was seriously pushing his luck IMO. When I did my cube a did a lot of reading and it seemed the general consensus was that the radeon 9000 was a risky proposition in the cube so I didn't even try it. With the lesser hardware I did settle on I was very cautious of temps for a good while until I was confident that it was ok.
His complaint reads like he put it all together without much consideration, jumped into a demanding 3d game without paying adequate attention to the hardware, then got mad at artmix when it failed. Maybe that's not true, and he did do his due diligence, but honestly I feel that if had done so, he wouldn't be so quick to point the blame at artmix.
There is no approved hardware list published by artmix that guarantees their vrm will run a radeon 9000 and an upgraded cpu, nor any less formal claims made to that effect.
Repairing the VRM is a much less expensive option than replacing the entire Cube and the aftermarket Sonnet CPU. Is this not the case? I would still say that your mistake was a bargain.
To me, it sounds like the aftermarket VRM powered things fine. The problem was no cooling on the GPU.
If you look through the archives of cubeowner.com there are lots of threads on cooling video cards. It was also common knowledge over there that a base fan does almost nothing to cool the video card or VRM. This is also pretty clear if you just look at it.
I am a bit curious how a hot 9000 potentially BBQ’d the VRM then.
Yeah I’m annoyed. Maybe I’m the a-hole here. I’ll pay to get it fixed. Don’t have much choice really unless I want to eat $200+
Anywho. Gauging by the response here. I’m not being reasonable with him. Lesson learned about not using a 9000.
Yeah I’m annoyed. Maybe I’m the a-hole here. I’ll pay to get it fixed. Don’t have much choice really unless I want to eat $200+
Anywho. Gauging by the response here. I’m not being reasonable with him. Lesson learned about not using a 9000.
Daniël
Well-known member
If they do, I cannot find it on the listing for the PSU on their site.
Which, frankly, is the problem here, there are no general guidelines as to what sort of hardware can safely run with the new VRM module beyond "good for accelerator and large capacity HDD" (with large capacity HDDs having practically been obsoleted by low power SATA SSDs and converters).
I get it'll be far too specific to create a matrix with all accelerator and GPU options, but some guidelines would still allow buyers to be more able to consider hardware choices.
For $220 per unit, the three bullet points on their site are definitely not up to par to what is to be expected, even for a niche product like this.
I mean.. if he were to create a list.. would it really be that large?
There's only a handful of GPUs that fit the Cube.. 7000, 7200, 8500, 9000/9200. Geforce 2 MX, Geforce 3, 6200. Most are hard to find today.
CPU upgrades could be limited to single core models, (outside of custom modules created by members on here) it isn't a large list. Combine that with the virtual un-obtainium that most Sonnet/PowerLogix stuff is in 2023.
It'd require a bit of work.. but this thing would be half a page IMO. Heck, even a warning saying "any GPU that isn't a Rage 128, Radeon, GF2MX, requires active cooling".
