Thursday, May 10, 2007

[Tech] C-VRM TECHNICAL FOUL...

As many of you know, I’m not the tech person here at YourMacStore. However, I do have a real concern for technical issues that may come up from time to time, and I want to make sure that we bring this information to you as we find it. One of the larger concerns that has come to our attention (4 times in the past month) relates to GigaDesigns’ C-VRM for the Cube. Now, the C-VRM is a wonderful piece of hardware, but like any piece of hardware, put into certain situations it can cause some severe problems. Now let me explain something first: This does not happen in all instances relating to the C-VRM. Please check with tech support either here at YMS or at the manufacturer before trying any fixes like this. Now that is out of the way, let me try and break this down…

Several of our customers have brought to our attention in the past month that their Cubes have had issues with not being able to boot up after installing the C-VRM. They would turn on their computer, it would start to boot, and then immediately shut down. Not cool. Usually if this would happen in 1 circumstance, it’s got to be a faulty C-VRM…we know, it does happen if rarely. But in 4 separate occasions in one month? At that point, we made a decision to try and help these folks fix the problem on their end if possible.

Now we know that in the past when there have been problems with the C-VRM it has related to a faulty or incompatible logic board…but after checking that against these folks’ situations, it didn’t match. When one of the customers sent their C-VRM back to us, it was tested and found to work just fine. Much head-scratching ensues at this point. Finally, after a couple of calls to the folks at Giga, we’re able to figure out what is going on. You see, the C-VRM has a safety circuit. This circuit detects power usage at startup that, if outside it’s parameters, causes it to shut down the computer to protect it. AHAH! Now after fully quizzing our customers…wow, all of them have the same processor! All the pieces are now quickly falling into place. The GigaDesigns 1.4GHz processor, the logic board, and the C-VRM are spiking their power requirements at the same time, and causing the safety circuit to kick in…there’s our problem. Now to fix it…

To fix the problem, it comes down to 1 of 3 things…either stop using the C-VRM, get a new logic board, or to change the timing on the processor. Since option 1 & 2 do not really help the situation, let’s look at option 3. You can easily overclock the Gigadesigns 1.4GHz processor to 1.5GHz…heck, it’s in their instruction book on how to do it! All you’d have to do is to alter the dipswitches from 1.4GHz to 1.5GHz. You may also need to alter other dipswitches. As it says in the manual, please contact Giga or YMS tech support before doing this. (Improper settings can result in fatal damage to your computer. Do not try to change it without tech support advice.) This will change the timing of the power spike from the processor, and keep the C-VRM’s safety circuit from kicking in and ruining your fun.


-Mike Leader

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