kt4@prism.gatech.EDU (Ken Thompson) (04/02/90)
I had a good experience with PC Brands. I ordered a 386 25 Mhz system
without a monitor with 4 megabytes of memory. They quoted two weeks delivery
and it was delivered as ordered in just under two weeks and works fine.
Ken
--
Ken Thompson GTRI, Ga. Tech, Atlanta Ga. 30332 Internet:!kt4@prism.gatech.edu
uucp:...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!kt4
"Rowe's Rule: The odds are five to six that the light at the end of the
tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train." -- Paul Dicksonjdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck) (04/05/90)
In article <4041@nmtsun.nmt.edu> nigel@nmtsun.nmt.edu (Nigel Sharples) writes: [deleted story of multiple interactions with dealer over floppy drives] > I went through two boxes of high density disks - Sony and TDK. Out of > these 20 disks, only 4 managed to format without bad sectors. Most > had around 9k of bad sectors. The bad sectors always occur at about > the same location on the disk, you can hear the drive marking off the > sectors when it's about 95% - 99% complete. Sure sounds like a floppy > drive problem, right? But each drive had exactly the same symptoms!! > So is the problem more likely to be the controller? I tried these > same disks in a different machine, they formatted just fine. > >Based on this experience, I would recommend that everyone stay well away >from PC Brand. It's too bad that these kinds of experiences are so common. The problem you describe almost certainly was not due to any hardware or software failures at all, but rather to incorrect configuration of the floppy drive. The floppy drive is not sensing the high density hole on the diskettes, and the software is trying to format the diskettes for 1.44 meg, when electrically the drive is set for double density 720k diskettes. There is a jumper on most 3.5" drives which determines whether the drive senses the diskette type or not, and most likely in each case the drive was set wrong. Maybe the guys at PC- Brand are testing with 720k dikettes, and are not noticing the problem...or maybe they are not testing at all... Anyway, the problem could have been resolved without having to send the system back and forth, if only the right information had been provided at the right time. In general it is better not to ask your dealer for support. Just bring them into the picture when what they sold you is beyond hope, when you need to get them to replace it. Save youself the grief and just find a helpful PC guru over the net to tell you what to do :^) -- John Dudeck "You want to read the code closely..." jdudeck@Polyslo.CalPoly.Edu -- C. Staley, in OS course, teaching ESL: 62013975 Tel: 805-545-9549 Tanenbaum's MINIX operating system.
gregj@microsoft.UUCP (Greg JONES) (04/07/90)
In article <FISH.90Apr1135345@his.gemed.com>, fish@gemed.com (Mark Fisher) writes: > > If anybody out there has had a positive experience with these guys, > please post it. It might help restore my faith in them. PC BRAND > advertises heavliy in BYTE and PC Magazine. I have not heard any > thing about these guys on the net. > About six weeks ago I ordered a 386/33 from them. It took about 4 weeks to arrive instead of the 2 they said, but they claim that's because the hard drive was backordered (supposedly Miniscribe went bankrupt, so they switched from a 110MB Miniscribe to a 200MB Conner drive). Curiously enough, the Conner drive was actually cheaper. They did charge my credit card twice, which spawned a threatening letter from the bank before they managed to cancel the duplicate. I've had no problems with the system -- everything arrived together, all the components I ordered, etc. Extra hardware (mouse, Video 7 V-RAM VGA) were preinstalled and worked fine. OS/2 1.2 and HPFS haul ass. The manuals are in somewhat broken English, obviously translated, but readable. I suppose we need to wait for a few more people to respond before we know whether you were unlucky or I was lucky. uunet!microsoft!gregj
dsew@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (David R. Sewell) (04/08/90)
Where there's this much smoke there must be fire (not just flames...). My experience: Last summer I ordered the PC-Brand 386SX that was for a couple months being advertised in PC Magazine as a 386SX-20. I was naive enough to assume that the 20Mhz rating was legit. The computer arrived with the wrong case style & wrong floppy drive size. I shipped it back at their expense (they sent a credit check for UPS fees); the machine I had ordered came back in a reasonable time. But of course it wasn't the machine I'd ordered. By then I had read in the computer mags that 20Mhz SX chips hadn't shipped yet. I ran Norton SI, which showed a speed rating corresponding to a 16Mhz machine, which is what it obviously was. I phoned customer service & told them this; response, "Oh, your sales representative must have told you that there was a mistake and we were only shipping the 16Mhz machine. They told everybody." Well, no, I insisted, I hadn't been told. After conferring with my sales rep she came back and offered me a $295 refund on what I had paid, which I accepted since the system was doing what I wanted it to do & I couldn't bear the thought of shipping the whole $!%#@! thing back again. After about two months and a couple more phone calls to Customer Service the $295 credit finally showed up on my VISA statement. Now I should have been less naive about clock speeds before ordering, but we're not all computer pros. I have wondered since if there aren't people out there who ordered what they thought was a 20Mhz machine & never learned that it wasn't. The cumulative force of all these stories is upsetting. Would it be worth making a copy of this whole thread and mailing it to, say, PC Magazine's Advertising Manager? (I'd be willing to do so, but wouldn't want to if any of the contributors had objections.) -- David R. Sewell || Internet: dsew@uhura.cc.rochester.edu English Department || UUCP: rutgers!rochester!ur-cc!dsew University of Rochester || BITNET: dsew%uhura.cc.rochester.edu@uorvm Rochester, NY 14627 USA || ===========================================
andyross@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Andrew Rossmann) (04/09/90)
>Item: 10149 by fish at gemed.com (9 responses) >Author: [Mark Fisher] > Subj: PC BRAND Mail Order experience >I ordered a 386 20 Mhz 4meg with a 120 mb RLL drive from PC BRAND in >Chicago IL on thursday March 15. .... >..... >If anybody out there has had a positive experience with these guys, >please post it. It might help restore my faith in them. PC BRAND >advertises heavliy in BYTE and PC Magazine. I have not heard any >thing about these guys on the net. >// Mark M. Fisher >// fish@gemed.ge.com >// {uunet!crdgw1|sun!sunbrew}!gemed!fish Was it PC BRAND (or was it under a different name) that went through Chapter 11 a year or 2 ago because of problems like everyone has been telling? I also though they had problems with billing before shipping, and other nasty things like that. If not, I believe it was some Chicago company that used a sort of 'club' type system, where they prices listed were for cash if your were a 'club' member, otherwise you typically had to pay 8% or more extra. Andrew Rossmann andyross@ddsw1.MCS.COM
ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown) (04/09/90)
In article <261fa5d8-27a5.10comp.ibmpc-1@ddsw1.MCS.COM> andyross@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Andrew Rossmann) writes: } Was it PC BRAND (or was it under a different name) that went through }Chapter 11 a year or 2 ago because of problems like everyone has been }telling? I also though they had problems with billing before shipping, and }other nasty things like that. } If not, I believe it was some Chicago company that used a sort of 'club' }type system, where they prices listed were for cash if your were a 'club' }member, otherwise you typically had to pay 8% or more extra. That was PC Network, and the prices listed were "wholesale" and members paid 8% above that. By the time you added the 8% margin, the price was frequently more than other places were charging. -- {backbone}!cs.cmu.edu!ralf ARPA: RALF@CS.CMU.EDU FIDO: Ralf Brown 1:129/46 BITnet: RALF%CS.CMU.EDU@CMUCCVMA AT&Tnet: (412)268-3053 (school) FAX: ask DISCLAIMER? | _How_to_Prove_It_ by Dana Angluin 20. by vehement assertion: It What's that?|is useful to have some kind of authority relation to the audience
mvolo@uncecs.edu (Michael R. Volow) (04/09/90)
No, that was PC Network that was reorganized. M Volow, VA Medical Center, Durham, NC 27705 mvolo@uncecs.edu 919 286 0411