fish@gemed.com (Mark Fisher) (06/07/90)
I bought a 20Mhz 386 machine from them back in March. I sent it back. It is now June and my charge card still shows a $25.00 dollar balance from them. My experience with them was a nightmare. They sent the machine without a hard disk and sent a NEC 2a instead of the 3d I ordered. Getting this straighten out took somewhere between 20 and 30 phone calls. Most of those calls were spent not getting through to who I wanted to talk to. They don't return calls. My experience has been to take what they say they with a grain of salt until it actually gets done. As the man from Missouri said - you got to show me first. As far as the machine goes. I never got the opportunity to power it up since no hard disk came with it. I did take the case off and look inside. The SIM memory boards were located such that they blocked putting 3/4 or full length boards in most of the slots. The BIOS chips were not fully seated in the sockets. And the case was flimsy and warped a little bit so that it made it really hard to take on and off. I ended up buying mine from Gateway 2000 and I am very happy. The price from Gateway is about the same and the quality and support are orders of magnitude better. You might get lucky with PC Brand. I was not lucky. I don't really mean to rain on thier parade, but I sure feel like it was a rip off. -- // Mark M. Fisher // fish@gemed.ge.com // uunet!crdgw1!gemed!fish // sun!sunbrew!gemed!fish
elh@caen.engin.umich.edu (Ed_Han) (06/11/90)
In article <FISH.90Jun7102720@his.gemed.com> fish@gemed.ge.com (Mark Fisher x4-6553) writes: >I bought a 20Mhz 386 machine from them back in March. I sent it back. >It is now June and my charge card still shows a $25.00 dollar balance >from them. My experience with them was a nightmare. They sent the >machine without a hard disk and sent a NEC 2a instead of the 3d I >ordered. Getting this straighten out took somewhere between 20 and >30 phone calls. Most of those calls were spent not getting through to >who I wanted to talk to. They don't return calls. My experience has >been to take what they say they with a grain of salt until it actually >gets done. As the man from Missouri said - you got to show me first. I have a nightmare with PC Brand too. They have a tech. guy called Karl never remembered the service he promised me, even outragely told me "You are let down if you send the machine back -- because ...", Well, it was the third time I have to pay for shipping and they still have my PC. What else could I do with the machine beside sending it back? Junk it? It's still under their one year warranty. > >You might get lucky with PC Brand. I was not lucky. I don't really >mean to rain on thier parade, but I sure feel like it was a rip off. ditto for me. >// Mark M. Fisher >// fish@gemed.ge.com Ed_Han@ub.cc.umich.edu
rschmidt@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (roy schmidt) (06/14/90)
In article <1990Jun10.175505.21209@caen.engin.umich.edu> elh@caen.engin.umich.edu (Ed_Han) writes: >In article <FISH.90Jun7102720@his.gemed.com> fish@gemed.ge.com (Mark Fisher x4-6553) writes: >>I bought a 20Mhz 386 machine from them back in March. I sent it back. >I have a nightmare with PC Brand too. >>I sure feel like it was a rip off. >ditto for me. >>// Mark M. Fisher >Ed_Han@ub.cc.umich.edu Now, maybe we shouldn't hit a dealer when he's down, but maybe we can save someone else the *pain* of buying PC Brand. I bought a 20 MHz 386 from them over a year ago. I still have it, but... Soon after receiving the machine, I obtained a hard disk from another source, and popped the top to install it. Shock! Gasp! There was a 386-16 chip on the motherboard! There were 100 Nano DRAM chips! Further, the pages in the TRUMP motherboard manual about compatible memory had been ripped out. I called PC Brand. "Oh, well, the 386-16 is running at 20 MHZ, and that's OK, it can do it, we tested it. Look at the ad again, we didn't say 386-20, we said 386 _running at_ 20 MHz!" What about the ad saying zero wait states? Isn't 100 Nanos a little slow for that? "Well, you have to put in more memory and install interleave, then it will run at zero wait states. Check your manual." I tried, the pages are ripped out. "Well, those pages weren't important." _I_ think they are! "Then we'll send you another manual, and you can see for yourself!" (Of course, I _never_ got a new manual, despite repeated calls to geeks that didn't even know what motherboard they were using!) I also discovered that the cables they use are inferior. I have had two of them fail -- that is, the edge connector socket slowly loses its grip on the card edges of drives, requiring disassembly of the computer, jiggling (or replacement) of the cable, and a reboot to continue. Hey, but why complain? It was cheap, right? Then how come Gateway and others are cheaper??? I guess we're all in the same ol' ripped-off club. You guys out there in netland, CAVEAT EMPTOR!!! ----------------------------------------------------------- ^ Roy Schmidt | #include <disclaimer.h> | | Indiana University | /* They are _my_ thoughts, | | Graduate School of Business | and you can't have them, < > Bloomington | so there! */ X ___________________________________________________________ X