forrest@sybase.com (01/03/90)
Last March I bought a 386 clone from HQ Computers (now called Hi Quality
Computers). I wrote a very positive summary of my dealings with HQ
that I sent to comp.sys.ibm.pc. I recently had more equally positive
dealings with HQ that I'd like to summarize.
My system was starting to display a couple of wierd intermittent
problems. One of the worst was that, when running the Landmark test,
my "speed" would vary considerably as if the clock speed were wavering.
I'm not talking about a small jitter. I'm talking about speeds going
as low as 6Mhz. Also, the computer would display a "Internal Stack
Overflow - System Halted" message and hang every now and then, even
when doing simple things like a DIR command.
Since I was going to be passing through Sunnyvale (about 30 miles
away) on a short trip elsewhere, I decided to stop in at HQ with my system
to see what they could do. They had moved since I bought my system to a
much larger building showing that they've had some degree of success since
last March. When I arrived the sales person (Echo Tsai) recognized me
right away. This was surprising since I'd only been in the place a
couple of time 9 months ago. I explained my problem to her and she
immediately took me to the repair area. One of the technicians, David,
stopped what he was doing right away and came over to look at my
problem. Fortunately, I was able to show him all the problems I had
been having. I was worried that the problems were so intermittent that
they wouldn't happen while I was at HQ but I got lucky. David suggested
that we replace the motherboard. This was fine with me. David said
that they didn't have same model of motherboard that was in my system
but that he'd use a newer model if that was OK with me, which it was
since the newer model was smaller than the older, used SIMMS instead
of DIPS, and seemed to be a newer design with a newer BIOS than the
older model (the motherboard is a DataExpert board). David gave me
a new board with 4 80nsec SIMMS since I had had 4 Megs of 80nsec DIP
chips before. He put everything back together and none of the symptoms
appeared. I've been running the system at home for several hours and
haven't seen any of the problems I previously had.
Needless to say, I was very pleased by this experience. I've always
thought that one very important way to judge a company is by what it
does when something goes wrong. HQ did exactly the right things, as
far as I'm concerned. They didn't make any excuses or try to jerk
me around. They did exactly what was necessary to solve my problem.
Although I am concerned that the problems occurred I don't blame
HQ at all for them and I would not hesitate to buy from them again
or to recommend them to my friends. Since HQ now advertises in some
of the nationwide computer magazines in addition to the Bay Area
magazines many of you will see their ads. I recommend that you
give them a call. I have no connection with them other than as a
satisfied customer.
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Anything you read here is my opinion and in no way represents Sybase, Inc.
Jon Forrest WB6EDM
forrest@sybase.com
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415-596-3422