jonny@homxc.UUCP (01/13/88)
This one should blow a few micro minds. I've just gotten my SECOND replacement Amiga 2000 in a week! The first one put out loud disk head noises onto the RC sound jacks on both channels, but only when the external drive was connected (???). Family Computers in So. Orange, New Jersey cheerfuuly replaced that one with a second brand new 2000, and then the fun really began. Since the dealer had just gotten a shipment of internal 3.5" drives, I bought one figuring to replace the external drive so I could sell that with my old 1000. I followed the simple installation instructions to the letter and powered up with a workbench disk in drive one. The disk light came on and stayed on, but no telltale disk head noises ensued. The the screen flashed the workbench disk request icon -- recall that workbench was already in the disk drive. I powered down and tried it again, with the same result. Next I tried booting on some other disks, but got the same request for workbench. The second drive light never came on during any of this. And by the way, the first drive worked fine before I installed the second internal drive. So I started checking all of the electrical connections I had fondled one way or another during the installation. Can you guess what I found? There is a 34 pin ribbon cable connector next to the power supply. Since the jumper pins you connect to tell the system about the second internal drive are underneath this cable, I had to lift the female socket to install the jumper. The second time I lifted it I noticed that one of the 34 pins coming up from the motherboard had taken a hike. Can anyone out there guess where it went? Into the socket, of course. Permanently. It had sheared off completely at the base. No easy way to fix this one, so I called Family Computers, described the problem and arranged to pick up my third brand new 2000. Up to this time I assumed the pin had just been faulty and had separated when I pulled up the socket, but when I got to Family Computers, there was another irate costumer there for the same reason: I mean same pin, same malfunction. So the store manager started opening A2000 cartons. Guess what he found? Four more brand new 2000's with the same pin severed from the motherboard. You can spot the problem just by looking at the connector without removing the socket. In other words, at least six of the machines in his shipment came from the factory with severed disk pins. Who knows how many he sold with this little surpise inside? He finally found one machine, his last, from an earlier shipment that had all of its teeth, and both my internal drives now live happily together. But what does this say about Commodore's quality control and how on earth did this happen??? The 34 pins must have all been in place at one point, since in each instance the severed pin was found LODGED in the socket. Whatever this pin does only affects the pair of drives, since the single drive works fine without it. This is the insidious part for A2000 owners. Unless you open your machine and do a pin count you won't know you've whether you'v got the surprise model until you try to install the second internal drive, and if that's past the warranty period you'll have a little problem since these pins are part of the printed circuitry on the motherboard. My advice to all 2000 owners is to open your cabinets right away and check the 3.5 inch drive ribbon cable connector next to the power supply. Standing in the front of the machine, it would be the second pin in from the back, left hand row. If yours is gone too, take it back before the warranty expires, or you might as well install a can of dog meat where the second drive should go. Lastly, I would really like to hear from the Commodore staff who post to this news group. Do you folks know about the SEVERED PIN SCANDAL yet, and how for god's sake did this happen? How many machines have you shipped that are going to fail when the owner installs his second drive? And how pray tell does one manage to shear the pin off at the base after the socket has already been installed? It's caused me a lot of time, trouble and unholy aggravation, so I'd really like to know. This is one for the books. All of them. Jon Hill Bell Laboratories Holmdel, N. J. Rm. 3k-324 201 949-0117 The above does not represent my opinion, only the cold brutal truth. "I don't break the rules lady, I only try to make them!"