gmc@ecsvax.UUCP (04/02/84)
ncludes at least on spare 5-1/4 Tandon floppy drive and two complete disk drive door assemblies for each two machines (We all know how great Tandon's door hinge design is, right?). Also, we provide spare RAM chips. This selection of spare parts is based on our own in-house experience, and the recommendations of the service departments at several IBM dealerships. I'm not at all convinced that it is correct, or complete. Unfortunately, when we provide these parts, we frequently have very little time for training personnel in-country in the common-sense procedures required to determine exactly * which * part is causing the problem. I am looking for two kinds of information to help with these problems: (1) information pointing to a good, simple guide to diagnosing problems, locating the malfunctioning componant and replacing it. I haven't seen anything like this in any of the computer stores, or in any of the book stores which handle microcomputer liturature. At the Institute of the Sahel, Bamako, Mali (French West Africa), I found two of their French IBM-PC's down and abandoned because they ceased to boot. The problems were simple, one broken disk drive door (thanks Tandon) and on malfunctioning A: drive. The machine with the bad A: drive had an expansion chassis with two 10 Mb hard disks. Come on folks, with a setup like that you only need one floppy drive anyway (this setup boots from the A: drive, not from the first hard disk in the absence of a DOS floppy as does the XT). All one had to do is make the B: drive the A: drive and the system was up again. Unfortunately, the people there had never seen the inside of a PC and were reluctant to touch something that looks that complicated. They need hands-on training and a good guide for use after we leave. They are, in most cases, perfectly intelligent enough to handle these simple procedures. (2) information suggesting the weakest componants in the PC/XT--those most likely to fail under normal use and those which are fairly easy to replace. I don't envision these people attacking a disk controller board with a soldering iron, but I can see them determining what board is causing the problem and then replacing the defective baord with a good one. Thanks in advance. I really appologize for the length of this item, but I wanted to make it clear what I was looking for. Please respond directly to me through Usenet mail or Federal Snail. Gordon M. Cressman P.O.Box 12194 Research Triangle Institute Research Triangle Park, NC 27709