rolee@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Profess'nal Agitator) (04/27/91)
This is addressed primarily to the Commodore people:
I purchased an A3000 25/50 through our math department about two weeks ago.
When it arrived two Tuesdays ago (16th), I spent the better part of last
weekend retrieving the necessary cables from the local dealer, and trying to
mount a Plus 105Q drive that I had cannibalized from my now-sold A2000.
After posting to this newsgroup for some help, and despite following the
instructions that the manual claims will work, I finally gave up Monday
morning and took it in to a service center to be done, thinking it would
take, at most, an afternoon to complete. I was told that my main problem
was controller incompatibility (the drive had been mounted to an ICD
Advantage 2000 controller, which was sold with the A2000) and it should be
ready by 2:00 pm that afternoon.
Now, it is Thursday, and the serviceman wants to charge me $45/hr x 20 hrs =
$900, just to get a drive mounted! He says that since I am a student, he'll
knock off 50%, but this is after he previously told me that he wouldn't go
over $100.
These are my main questions:
1. Is this problem covered under warranty?
I think it should be because Commodore made a claim (in the manual) that I
would be able to attach 7 SCSI devices to the built-in controller, and yet
the system failed when I attempted to install one. Each of the drives
worked fine individually, but they refused to daisy chain. The problem did
not lie in either the terminator resistor packs or the SCSI id. Remember, I
did spend a whole weekend over this, so don't flame me for overlooking these
possibilities.
2. Is there any specific name I can call at Commodore, either West Chester
or their West Coast distributor?
3. What can I do about getting my computer back?
It is past 5pm here right now. But, tomorrow morning, I will be making
calls to the local Better Business Bureau, and talking to school
administration officials about this. The serviceman claims that he had to
do something about ``resetting the matrix'' and all sorts of other things to
the motherboard, and that these adjustments are not covered by the
warranty. That sounds like a load of bull to me. I have owned the computer
for less than a month. Hell, it's been on for less than a day. I am not
about to spend $450 just to get a lousy drive installed, much less the
original $900.
I have also been told that the $100 limit he quoted me earlier is a verbal
agreement, and that the serviceman is bound to it. Furthermore, any attempt
to change that agreement, required that I be notified, which, of course, I
was not. I will gladly pay $100, maybe even $150. That seems reasonable to
me even if it did seem as if the serviceman didn't seem to know completely
what he was doing. He told me that he has been talking with Commodore
service all week, which doesn't inspire a great bit of confidence on my
part, in his abilities. This also worries me that unkosher things may have
been done to my CPU because of possible serviceman incompetence.
Any help from a Commodore employee would be deeply appreciated.
And for any Claremont College net.readers, be wary of Technical Services on
Padua (in Upland).
Thanx in advance,
Agitator
#->
"Caltech -- A Division of rolee@hmcvax.bitnet // BITNET
Harvey Mudd" rolee@jarthur.claremont.edu // InterNet
-------------- R E M E M B E R B E I J I N G ------------\\-//------------
IBM PC - Who wants a politically correct computer? \X/ Only AMIGA!
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Roderick Lee "The Professional Agitator" Harvey Mudd Collegerolee@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Profess'nal Agitator) (04/28/91)
Thanx to everyone for all their support and advice for my earlier posting.
To all those technician and service-oriented types, I thought I'd post a
rundown of the invoice, so I wouldn't have to mail each of you individually.
System Diagnostic
Problem Tracing
Configure Dual SCSI Drives
Hard Disk Configuration
Hard Disk Prep
Low-Level Format Drive #1 under KS 2.0
Low-Level Format Drive #2 under KS 2.0
Configure Terminal Resistors
Prepare Correct Matrix Tables
Add/Update File System under KS 2.0
Partition All Drives under KS 2.0
Set Drive Reselect #1 to "Off"
Set Drive Reselect #2 to "On"
With the exception of "Problem Tracing," which he claims to have taken up
the main brunt of the twenty hours, the rest of the work sounds as if it
could be done in under two hours.
Several of you have said that the "Matrix Tables" are a red herring. He
claims that these tables need to be reset on each SCSI device whenever a new
one is added to a chain, which sounds like a load of bull to me also.
Incidentally, he says he used to work for Aegis Development, and was the
co-developor of Sonix. (He disclosed this information to us after he felt we
were questioning his experience with Amigas.) I did not get his name, but
his initials are PB. I'm sure someone on this net could glean the name from
that info and possibly tell me more about his background.
Thanx again for all your support,
Agitator
#->
"Caltech -- A Division of rolee@hmcvax.bitnet // BITNET
Harvey Mudd" rolee@jarthur.claremont.edu // InterNet
-------------- R E M E M B E R B E I J I N G ------------\\-//------------
IBM PC - Who wants a politically correct computer? \X/ Only AMIGA!
============================================================================
Roderick Lee "The Professional Agitator" Harvey Mudd College