prove@batcomputer.UUCP (02/19/87)
As my contribution to the "mail-order reviews", I have a few good things to say about pc's limited. I bought one of their turbo machines (6.7mhz 8088) and a 10M Microscience drive about a year ago. The machine has worked well, housing a lot of wierd cards (hercules mono, ast ems, 68020, ) with no problems to speak of. It is more ibm compatible than the Zenith 151 that I had before, and has more slots. The drive on the other hand, was crap. After a few days of work, it developed an intermittent high pitched squeel (like chalk on a blackboard). I sent the drive back and they replaced it, and the new drive had the same problem. Tried once more: same result (1 of the drives actually survived for 9 months). I checked (not trusting mail order places) and the replacement drives were different units. With the warranty almost up and the manufacturors warranty long since expired, they have agreed to replace the thing with a Tandon drive. Throughout this ordeal they have been very helpful, promptly replacing defective drives, calling me long distance at their expense, and not questioning my hearing. It really is not even their fault, the Microscience drives are worthless. Their tech support is very good, and toll free. I'll buy my next machine from these guys. As for PC Network: I bought a Seagate 225 from them and it came with incorrect docs. Hook it up according to the docs and it would not work. After a few days of trying to reach them (at my expense) one of their tech support people told me how to configure the controller (the docs were out of date).
andys@men2a.UUCP (02/22/87)
I currently own a Microscience 10 MB Hard Disk, and a Toshiba 86 MB one. My microscience developed the same squeal in the same amount of time. The reason; There is a small protrusion from the center of the spindle motor, which spins with the platters. There is also a grounding strap, attached to the PCB, which presses against that spinning protrusion. As the mating sufaces glaze over, they begin to squeal. It is definitely annoying. The fix: Get a long thin knife, and bend the copper grounding strap AWAY from the protrusion so as to reduce the pressure with which it presses on that protrusion. It should rest LIGHTLY on it. Presto! No more noise, and you wind up with a VERY reliable, low-power, drive. (I've done this to at least 4 of them in customer-owned Kaypro 10's and PC's, all at least 2 years ago, and no complaints of any kind since.) I wish the unreliability of the Tandons had not been as much of a problem as it was! I hope the gentleman who chose the Tandon in lieu of a quiet Microscience does frequent backups! --andys@men2a.UUCP
geller@eli.UUCP (02/25/87)
In article <215@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, prove@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Roger Ove) writes: > > ...and a 10M Microscience... > The drive on the other hand, was crap. After a few days of > work, it developed an intermittent high pitched squeel (like > chalk on a blackboard). I sent the drive back and they replaced > it, and the new drive had the same problem. Tried once more: > same result (1 of the drives actually survived for 9 months). > I checked (not trusting mail order places) and the replacement > drives were different units. I am amazed you didn't even try to pleasantly call Microscience and find the solution. I did. It was VERY easy. They were VERY pleasant and told me that the static discharge conductor - a little itty bitty piece of copper that makes contact with the axel, if you will, of the drive can get dirty and cause this noise to occur. This little piece of metal can be seen on the underside of the drive. Microscience had run tests prior to these happenings and concluded that the static discharge conductor was not required. The technician said "just bend it till it breaks off." I did. The drive stopped making noise! I should say that I was concerned before I found this out. I even suspected that the problem was a noisy power supply and replaced that device (how foolish). Anyhow, I have had a Microscience 20 Mbyte disk drive running for 2 1/2 years. After the 2nd year the noise started and it was soon fixed. I highly recommend their products. David Geller Electric Logic, Inc. Washington, D.C.