pete@slack.UUCP (Pete Ashdown) (07/14/88)
---------------------------------FLAME ON--------------------------------
Let me paint you a gruesome story of the horrors of having something go wrong
with your Amiga while living in Utah.
Almost a year ago, after generously donating my Amiga system to a local user
group, I brought home my system and set it up. ACK! There was something
definitely wrong with my display. My clean white had been invade by a blueing
agent and my solid colors were bleeding a slow red death across the face of
my monitor. I decided it was time to visit my friendly neighborhood Amiga
repair shop. But where was it? I called the great Commodore in the sky and
requested some help in finding a repair center. They gladly suggested that
Armadillo Brothers were more than qualified to rectify my situation. So I
packed up my monitor and carted into their place of commerce. So shocked
were they! They did not repair monitors! All they repaired were the main
units. Apparently, they did not want to get involved in the black arts of
monitor repair. So they quickly shuffled me out the shop and told me to call
Commodore again. So I rang up another long distance bill to find the next
repair shop on the list. Ahh! Wasatch Electronics was the name. I called
their shop, finally, after about 30 rings, they bothered to answer the phone.
I asked if they repaired Amiga 1080 monitors. Surely they did! So again, I
packed up my monitor and drove it 30 miles to their humble shop. He said it
would be done over the weekend. When I returned that Monday, he told me that
they did not have an Amiga to test it out on. Apparently he was going to get
one on loan in order to test it. He said it would be done in another week.
So I returned again seven days later. Upon arriving, the friendly repair man
told me that he couldn't see anything wrong with the monitor. I asked him if
I could set it up and show him what was wrong, but alas, he didn't have an
Amiga on loan that day, so he couldn't.
Desperate and aggravated by the situation, I dived into the monitor myself to
see what I could do with it. I was working for a PC repair shop at the time,
so I figured with a little help from some of the other techs, we could fix it
up fine. Instead, we managed to bungle it beyond belief. The convergence is
off, the screen is bent downwards, there is a prominent white line on the
left side, and a nice purple splotch in the lower right corner. My treasured
composite modes that I used to use for playing a VCR on are totally messed up,
even though they were fine to begin with.
All of the above took place over a period of a month during July 1987. Early
June 1988, my friend's 8520's in his Amiga died. Him being a total novice at
repair managed to break a pin in a socket on his 1000 motherboard. He
obviously needed to get a professional to fix his machine. So I offered to
let him use my Amiga whenever he wanted in exchange for letting me use his
good monitor, while I sent my monitor and he sent his computer back to a place
known as "D5 Associates" in Mass. (a long, long way from Utah). They had a
prominent ad in Amazing Computing and I figured that they would be more than
capable to fix my monitor and his computer.
Just today, one month after sending it away, did we receive our equipment.
This was after about 6 long distance phone calls. During one phone call, I
found out that my explanatory letters were thrown away (I had one copy of
each taped to each box), and they couldn't see the original bleeding problem
that was the cause of all my grief. They did state to me that they fixed the
degaussing problem and the convergence looked great. I asked about the
composite modes and they told me that they looked fine too. I told them that
if they wanted to see the bleeding in action, the best way was to take a large
green brush in DPaint and move it over a red background. They said they would
take a look at it.
As I look at my monitor now, it looks exactly the same as when I sent it off.
It smells like someone dumped an ashtray into it and actually the colors are
a little worse. My friends Amiga came back, but the UPS gorillas managed to
drop his machine, so it is broken again. D5 has stated that they will fix
his machine for free, but what am I to do? Obviously they couldn't do
anything with my monitor. Even though anyone with two eyes can see that it
has serious problems. I know 90% of fixing my monitor is adjustment, but it
seems there isn't anyone in this universe who is capable of doing that. I
have tried calling Commodore to see if there is anyway I can get my monitor
exchanged or repaired by the factory for a price. They tell me to see my
local repair centers. I ALREADY HAVE!!!! I am getting so sick of this I
could puke. The worst part of it is, is the fact that I am working for an
Apple repair center now. They may charge outrageous prices for repair, but at
least they get things done. I payed $70 to get my monitor 'fixed' and it
looks like they simply messed with the front panel controls.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!! Someone somewhere tell me what to do! Is there not
a capable repair center in this country? Does Commodore really not give a
damn about the customer 90 days after they have purchased an Amiga? Please
do not shatter my faith in the Amiga system. Someone help me.
))))) "It is almost impossible to draw a heart on many computers."
)o.o( - Atari "Computers For People"
|___| <-- Looks stupid? It is!! YOU try and draw "Bob" in four lines!!
(\/ [pete@slack.uucp] [uunet!iconsys!caeco!pedro!slack!pete] slack=Amiga