rich@aoa.UUCP (Rich Snow) (03/28/91)
I am about to buy 3 - 33MHz 486 boxen. Anyone have '486 tales
of woe or the like? Favorite brands?
I am trying to avoid sticker shock and may go with a Gateway
or Dell or Zeos, but am considering also AST and HP (if I can find
a local dealer).
Requirements:
160 Mb IDE drive.
16 Mb ON THE MOTHERBOARD
Wietek slot
reasonably well known BIOS
Email, if possible...
I will summarize if there's a large clamoring of interest...
-thanks!
-Rich
Rich Snow AOA-----------------*
(617)864-0201
...!{decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbn!aoa!rich
aoa!rich@bbn.com
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Tear here, do not bend fold mutilate mulch or otherwise stain this
"paper-free" electronic missive.marshall@wind55.seri.gov (Marshall L. Buhl) (03/30/91)
rich@aoa.UUCP (Rich Snow) writes: >I am about to buy 3 - 33MHz 486 boxen. Anyone have '486 tales >of woe or the like? Favorite brands? Wow. Me too. >I am trying to avoid sticker shock and may go with a Gateway >or Dell or Zeos, but am considering also AST and HP (if I can find >a local dealer). I've had a Dell 433E desktop PC for about three months. It's a very nice machine. I've been doing business with Dell for about 3.5 years. I used to buy Compaq. Compaqs are WAY overpriced, no more reliable than anyone else and have the worst support imaginable. I have about two dozen Compaqs. Never again. I've bought PCs from IBM, Compaq, Dell, Everex, Sperry, Dolch and Isotropic. Dell has better support than all the others combined. I have 9 Dell's (1-286/8, 2-310, 4-325, 1-433E, 1-433TE). I've had some problems with them and Dell has always made my problems go away immediately with no fuss. I have 50 PCs under my control of various makes and have had problems with all of them. Dell has been the best at resolving them. I had a 40 MB hard drive go out in a Compaq 386/16 in the middle of a field test and it took 2 months to get it replaced. The test was over before the system was returned. We spent nearly a million dollars on that test. This is NOT an uncommon occurance. I've done business with several Compaq dealers and the story is always the same. Support sucks. Last Friday, I ordered a Gateway 486/33 for a home PC. I had been thinking about it all week. Their systems are a lot cheaper than Dell's. The salescritter called me Friday and said that I could get the 33 for the same price as a 25 if I ordered it that day. I had already made up my mind, so I said OK - such a deal. He said I would get it this week. Last night (Thursday) I got a letter from them thanking me for my order of a 486/25. It also said they expected to ship it today (Friday) and that I would get it NEXT week. Well, I had already withdrawn $4405 from my account on Wednesday for a cashier's check and was losing interest. This ticked me off. A week's interest is enough to buy lunch. When I asked the salesperson why he put me down for a 486/25 instead of the 33 I had asked for, he said he was so used to thinking that $3995 meant a 25, that it confused him. It seems obvious to me that he was thinking more about how much he'd make than getting me what I wanted. I also read their warranty agreement. I had always thought they had a similar agreement to Dell's. It isn't even close. With Dell, I call them up and say I need a new widget. They air freight it out to me the next day. Xerox comes by and puts it in for me and takes the old part with them. I pay for nothing and don't have to pack anything up or do any of the work. With Gateway, they send you a new widget. You do the replacement yourself. You pack up the old part and ship it insured at your expense. You also have to drive down to the shipping store to send it off. If anything happens to it in shipping, it's your fault. The wording of the warranty is obviously written in lawyerese and comes off mean-spirited. They say they won't cover: damage during shipment damage caused by disasters damage caused by unauthorized attachments, alterations, mods damage caused by abuse etc... I've cancelled my order. Dell just replaces problem parts. They don't ask questions. Once, I had been swapping boards on a Dell 325. After working on it, the floppy drives no longer worked. I swapped them and their controllers with others and the problem didn't go away. I called Dell and told them I needed a new motherboard. I told them I had been working on the system and may have caused the problem, but was unsure. I have done that sort of thing a zillion times over the last five years and had never messed anything up before, but one never knows. The Dell tech on the phone said not to worry - they'd take care of it. The next day my problem was gone. It cost me nothing, but a little time. And I didn't have to swap the motherboard myself. The friendly guy from Xerox did it for me. I had been planning on buying two high-end Dell 433s for work. I had already done the paperwork and was waiting on a signature. After going through the personal business with Gateway, I mentioned to my users that the Gateways were cheaper and had higher resolution montors. I was unsure of Gateway, but I knew folks who had them and loved them. We have about twenty of them in other parts of the Institute. I asked my buyer about his experiences and he said we had recently received a DOA monitor and he had been trying to get through to Gateway for a week without luck. I don't think he was willing to stay on hold for the 5-10 minutes it takes to get through. Other than that, he has no complaints. My users said to forget the Dells and get them Gateways. Then this thing about the wrong machine and the difference in support came to light and they're going to think about it over the weekend. They've been burned badly by Compaq and they like the way Dell takes care of them. They like the idea of saving money, but when it's crunch time, you cannot afford delays in service if you have a problem. The Dells aren't more expensive just because of the superior support. They also make better (?) systems. They engineer their own PCs rather than buying off-the-shelf parts. Their full size desktops have EISA buses instead of ISA. This adds a lot to the cost. I think it's thousands. They also use 15 Mbit ESDI controllers rather than the 10 Mbit cards Gateway uses. My 350 MByte drive is FAST. Noticably faster than the one I had in my old Dell 325. It used a 10 Mbit card. Dell does have a tiny 486/33 called the 433P. It has only three slots, has an ISA bus, one internal drive and two open to the outside (one 3.5" and one 5.25"). This leaves no bay for an internal tape drive if you want both size floppies (I do). They also make a midsize box that has 5 slots, two internal bays and three open to the outside. This would be perfect for me, but they only have them in 386s right now. They are also ISA (I have no EISA cards), so they will probably be just what I need when the 433D finally comes out. At least, I hope they're coming out with one. They currently have a 325D and a 333D. Do you hear me Dell? I'm waiting. I highly recommend Dell. It's true, you do pay some for the name. Not nearly as much as Compaq or IBM, but some. Not all the mail-order houses are going to survive the recession. Dell will. I don't know about the Gateways, Northgates, Swans, Zeos', etc. They also have the best support in the business. Read the reviews. Dell always gets top marks. I think they deserve them. You also mentioned HP. HP makes first rate stuff. I've been using their computers and output devices for two decades. I'm very happy with HP. Unfortunately, HP stands for High Price. Last spring I got prices for a big server. For similarly configured systems (all 486/25) the prices were: Dell $12K Compaq $19K HP $24K These were real prices - not list prices. ------ Some benchmarks on my new Dell 433E and old 325. No device drivers or TSRs loaded. Benchmark 325(w/ 387) 433E --------- --- ---- Norton CPU 26.2 70.6 (70 times an XT!) Norton Disk (330MB ESDI) 6.9 8.9 Norton overall 19.7 49.7 CheckIt CPU speed (Drystones) 7,052 16,170 CheckIt Video speed (cps) 12,363 29,524 (video cache enabled) CheckIt Math speed (Whetstones) 1,702.4 5,641.2 CheckIt Disk Aver. Seek (msec) 20.3 16.0 CheckIt Track-Track seek (msec) 4.9 3.7 Disk Transfer rate (KB/sec) 616.5 948.4 FLAP (a FORTRAN code we wrote - lots of math, moderate I/O) [secs]: Dell 325 (DOS, Lahey F77L-EM/32) 1337.2 Dell 433E ( " ) 383.6 Dell 433TE (Unix, EPC F77, Opt. on) 368.6 (Tower version) IBM RS/6000 (Unix, 25 MHz, Opt. on) 145.9 That's a LOT of bang for the buck. If you do math, get a 486. A heavily loaded RS/6000 costs 4 times an equivalent Dell 433TE (Gov't prices for both). Our Unix tower is so fast, you have to use more to read a file. You can't get your fingers on the ^S key fast enough to stop it. Our SysAdmin is a Sun SPARC lover and when he saw it, he said "Wow! I didn't even see it go by!" But, I digress... >Requirements: >160 Mb IDE drive. >16 Mb ON THE MOTHERBOARD >Wietek slot >reasonably well known BIOS Since you didn't mention slots or bays, I'll quote the prices for the small Dell. Dell System 433P 200MB IDE 4MB RAM (Expandable to 16MB) Weitek socket Phoenix 486 BIOS Super VGA on motherboard (256K, upgradable to 512K) Multisynchronous monitor (800x600) Three 16-bit slots (all free) Three drive bays (two open to the outside) 1 parallel, 2 serial ports 15.1"x4.0"x15.6" chassis One year of Xerox service $3499 (Gov't and education discounts available - 6%, I think) I don't have RAM upgrade prices. I'd guess about $50/MB. >Email, if possible... >I will summarize if there's a large clamoring of interest... If I'm going to put this much effort into this (and I was intending to post an article on this anyway), I'm going to post it. Sorry. >-thanks! No problem. I was going to do most of this anyway. -- Marshall L. Buhl, Jr. EMAIL: marshall@seri.gov Senior Computer Engineer VOICE: (303)231-1014 Wind Program 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401-3393 Solar Energy Research Institute Solar - safe energy for a healthy future
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) (03/31/91)
In article <1444@aoa.UUCP> rich@aoa.UUCP (Rich Snow) writes: | I am trying to avoid sticker shock and may go with a Gateway | or Dell or Zeos, but am considering also AST and HP (if I can find | a local dealer). Dell is a bunch cheaper than HP at list. We use Dell at work and they have been very reliable. And the one year on site warranty is a nice bonus, too. There are lots of clone makers selling computers cheaper than Dell and HP, but Dell is very close to the bottom of the price list for companies who design and manufacture (or at least specify and QC) their own motherboard. | Requirements: | 160 Mb IDE drive. | 16 Mb ON THE MOTHERBOARD | Wietek slot | reasonably well known BIOS If you go with a clone maker I would stick with a well known motherboard and BIOS. In particular I like AMI, because they support what they sell. I bought my first 386 at home in 1986, with 16MHz and 1MB on the motherboard. It was cheaper than the Compaq and had cahce. I got a BIOS update less than a year ago, still available, and I could get the 4MB upgrade (requires a few traces cut) if I wanted. My friend has a two year old Micronics and they don't make the 32 bit memory cards anymore, he's limited to 8MB. For MB I like AMI, Micronics, and Mylex. For BIOS I like AMI, Award, and Pheonix. That doesn't mean that other vendors don't make good stuff, just that I think these guys make good stuff. Sorry I couldn't mail, my map doesn't know your site. -- bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen) sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
mcmillan@anaconda.cis.ohio-state.edu (Harold McMillan) (03/31/91)
In article <marshall.670282205@wind55> marshall@wind55.seri.gov (Marshall L. Buhl) writes: >Dell System 433P >200MB IDE >4MB RAM (Expandable to 16MB) >$3499 (Gov't and education discounts available - 6%, I think) Gee, if that were the price, I'd jump on it. But in the April 16th PC Magazine, Dell's ad states the price of a 2Mb 433P with a 100 Mb disk as $4,999. -- Hal McMillan | "It's an ideal principle, which can be verified mcmillan@cis.ohio-state.edu | only under ideal conditions. Which means never. 72627.642@CompuServe.com | But it's still true."
Michael Squires <mikes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> (04/01/91)
I bought a 486/25 VGA plasma luggable from BSI (see Computer Shopper) with a 350MB SCSI drive for use under SCO UNIX V. After a little bit of trouble shaking out the XCMOS configuiration I've had no problems, and the system has been so fast that it's wound up being an unofficial server here in the department. It clocks at the same speed under SCO UNIX as a Sun SPARCStation-1 (21,000 Dhrystone 1.1's/sec). Their current model is considerably cheaper and the motherboard allows more DRAM. Heat has been no problem, system operates 24 hours/day. I have no connections with BSI other than as the satisfied purchaser of two systems. -- Mike Squires (mikes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu) 812 855 3974 (w) 812 333 6564 (h) mikes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu 546 N Park Ridge Rd., Bloomington, IN 47408 Under construction: mikes@sir-alan.cica.indiana.edu
marshall@wind55.seri.gov (Marshall L. Buhl) (04/02/91)
mcmillan@anaconda.cis.ohio-state.edu (Harold McMillan) writes: >In article <marshall.670282205@wind55> marshall@wind55.seri.gov (Marshall L. Buhl) writes: >>Dell System 433P >>200MB IDE >>4MB RAM (Expandable to 16MB) >>$3499 (Gov't and education discounts available - 6%, I think) >Gee, if that were the price, I'd jump on it. But in the April 16th PC >Magazine, Dell's ad states the price of a 2Mb 433P with a 100 Mb disk >as $4,999. Yow!!! My face is red. I was reading the 325P column. It's $5,499 for the above-mentioned system. My apologies to everyone. Marshall -- Marshall L. Buhl, Jr. EMAIL: marshall@seri.gov Senior Computer Engineer VOICE: (303)231-1014 Wind Program 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401-3393 Solar Energy Research Institute Solar - safe energy for a healthy future
ken@dali.gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) (04/02/91)
----- As just another data point, we've found the Zenith 486/EISA offering to be pretty solid. We (Secureware, that is) have had 3 running for about 2 months now under SCO Unix and haven't had any problems other than the fact that the stock Zenith VGA card wouldn't work with the SCO X Window offering (we switched to Paradise). On the other hand, i am under the impression that these machines are quite pricey...;') -- ken seefried iii ken@dali.cc.gatech.edu "If 'ya can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with..."