If you don't know how to unmount the Cube, there is an
excellent "how to" on MacBidouille (installation d'une
Radeon 9000).
On the picture below of a Cube with the stock Rage 128
Pro you can see the VRM (inside red rectangle) that we have to move
to another place.
Sideview of VRM: the VRM is inserted in the big
yellow connector (on the right) on the motherboard.
The black cable (on the left) powers the HDD and the DVD.
The orange cable goes to Airport card. The black on the right is the IDE
cable.
the VRM itself :
Be careful. To take the card of you have to release the latch
:
You can see here that Radeon 8500 is too wide to fit in
the Cube without relocating the VRM:
We will put the VRM in the hole between HDD and DVD :
But, before achieving that, you have some work.
You first need the correct cable (30 pins). I had the
chance to find one on eBay for a few bucks some years ago (I didn't
have the Cube yet).
Unfortunately the connector wich will be connected to
the VRM looked like the one on the left. I had to make some surgery
to give it the correct look (on the right). I even had to file the
connector near the wire (really near) so that it fits perfectly.
I chose to put the cable there. I had to cut it in two
parts (uh... three parts, in fact).
And the cable comes on the other side.
The VRM will be put in skew for a better cooling.
You can see here the bezel, with the holes and the insulator.
I insulated the back of the DVD too.
Here is the card mounted :
The card has to be fixed with a metal screw and a plastic
screw.
You have to find something to put betwen the card and
the bezel so that nothing touches.
I had of course to cut the screws and also to file the
heads to allow a 3,5" HDD to fit in place.
The wire was protected with big tape, to avoid deterioration
when inserting or removing the body of the Cube.
Final result : card doesn't touch anything and has plenty
of space for a better cooling.
