geller@rlgvax.UUCP (David Geller) (02/05/85)
For those you of wishing to upgrade your PC's with hard disk drives I'd like to recommend to you that you take a careful look at some of the most recent magazine and trade journals. You will be surprised at how low some of the current prices are. I bought a 20mg drive for my PC two weeks ago for $849 (including controller and software) and I see that the prices have already plummeted to $795. Now is a great time to buy. Of course waiting will mean you will get even lower prices. You will have lost valuable time using your system, though. I should add that I bought a Microscience drive and Western Digital controller. I was able to bring up the drive in my PC with my AST 6-PAK+, TECMAR Graphics Master, Mouse card, and floppy controller with only my original 65 Watt power supply!!! That's the amazing thing. These new drives require very little power. Of course your system may differ. Clip on power supplies can be had for as little as $88 if you find your system can't come up with using the 65 Watt power supply. It's a joy having 20mg on-line. The drive has worked perfectly since I first installed it. If you would like more specific information or recommendations as to where you might pick these drives up drop me a mail message. You should also take a peek at the November 1984 issue of PC Tech Journal. The cover story is about internal hard disk drives for the PC. Have fun if you buy one... Your PC consumer advocate David P. Geller ..!rlgvax!geller
rsellens@watdcsu.UUCP (Rick Sellens - Mech. Eng.) (02/08/85)
Re: running a hard disk with the 65 watt power supply I added a 10 meg half height drive to my fully loaded, 64K mother board PC last June. I had no problem until I had had the machine on for about 3 hours when the system just crapped out. After a fair bit of messing around I found the following was the problem - When chips are hot they draw more current. - When the floppy drive starts up there is an initial high current transient. - If that transient goes over the power supply limits the supply will shut down. The result is semi repeatable crashes when the machine is hot and the floppy drive is accessed. The simple solution is more power. It can be either a replacement XT type power supply (big $), a "clip on" sold for just this purpose (smaller $), or even the power supply from an external floppy drive. I took the last course because a friend had an unused floppy enclosure that he let me have for next to nothing. I've been running this way for about eight months with no problems. Rick Sellens UUCP: watmath!watdcsu!rsellens CSNET: rsellens%watdcsu@waterloo.csnet ARPA: rsellens%watdcsu%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
geller@rlgvax.UUCP (David Geller) (02/10/85)
> > Re: running a hard disk with the 65 watt power supply > > I added a 10 meg half height drive to my fully loaded, 64K mother board > PC last June. I had no problem until I had had the machine on for about > 3 hours when the system just crapped out. > I purposely left my machine on one DAY to see if this would happen. It didn't. I recently hooked up my second floppy (it had been in the case but without power due to me having forgotten to purchase a Y-power cord) and everything still works well. Might there be such a thing as a "robust" power supply in the PCs? Might there be marginal differences in the PC's power supplies? I might add that I DON'T have an 8087 installed. I suspect things wouldn't come up if it were installed. I'm told it draws a hefty amount of power. david geller ..!rlgvax!geller