brian@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Brian Hoffman) (11/06/90)
What's the scoop on Gateway 2000? Has anyone had good/bad luck with their computers? I'm interested in their $1995 386sx. thanks for the time |Brian Hoffman | |brian@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu | |Quote: "A red sky at night may be a shepard's delight, but you're |
lee@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee) (11/06/90)
From article <1990Nov5.190436.20695@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>, by brian@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Brian Hoffman): " What's the scoop on Gateway 2000? Has anyone had good/bad luck with their " computers? I'm interested in their $1995 386sx. Notices in this newsgroup have been favorable. On the strength of that, I bought one, a "VGA 386/25MHz", which arrived one week ago (4 weeks after I ordered it). After 6 days, the video display scrambled, and Gateway is sending me a replacement ATI card. Aside from the fact that it is not working right now, I have some minor reservations about the system: (1) There was no paper documentation for either the ATI video card or for the hard disk drive, which is a Western Digital "Caviar 280" 85.3meg. Also nothing on the power supply or the floppy drives. A Gateway technician agreed to send me a manual for the video card but said he had nothing available on the hard drive. None of the documents that did come with is specific enough to include schematics. (2) The CPU+RAM seems a little slow. I ran the Norton 5.0 sysinfo program and got these figures: CPU 15.7, Disk 6.6, referenced to the performance of an XT. Norton gives comparison figures for a "Compaq 386/20e 20MHz": CPU 20.5, Disk 6.4. Sysinfo also reported an av. seek time for the disk of 14.96ms and data transfer rate of 655K/sec. (I had the Windows 3.0 disk cache in place when I ran this test.) This Gateway model does not have a RAM cache and with only the 4 megs of RAM on the motherboard that it comes with, it does not do interleaved memory references, though apparently it would if supplied with an additional 4 megs. I asked whether I could expect a little more speed if I did plug in more chips and was told no, not necessarily. Interleaving might slow it up. (3) Windows 3.0 is bundled, and I thought I would be getting "Daybook", the sample Toolbook application. However, that was not included, and Gateway cannot supply it. Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
dve@mace.cc.purdue.edu (11/07/90)
I'm having very bad luck with Gateway 2000. I ordered a 386SX in September and got the computer the last day of October. Only four days before I shipped back the CPU because it went dead. Tech people were difficult to reach and had very bad temper. They say they are busy all the time. Hum, No wonder. The hard disk (80M IDE) had high pitch buzz noise and a bad connection somewhere that it would occasionally re-start itself. Keyboard felt the worst than anything I ever tried, and had a key that didn't function. Mother board also had "Parity Error" causing system to halt if in Turbo mode. All these were sent back to them, a few days later I called. They said the machine was still boxed in their "Receiving Departmant" not yet reached the Tech people. Now they called me and told me it would be a week before they could get to look at the problem. If a company had the capacity to sell 10,000 computers a month (as the sloppy salesman said), it better had the capacity to sevice them. And Gateway 2000 is, without doubt, not such a company. I would've returned the whole thing and forget about it once for all had I not already spent $100 in the shipping fee and wasted a month and half on it. Maybe some day I'll have to give it all up
schikore@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Dan Schikore) (11/07/90)
Whenever someone asks about comments/complaints about a particular company, all we hear are bad experiences, and there is no way to tell whether any one particular experience is the normal or out of the ordinary. I would take all of these comments not-so-seriously since all of them are just one persons experience. Now if someone conducted a poll of all Gateway customers for their satisfaction, maybe you could draw some conclusions. I was thinking of ordering from Gateway eventually, and when I am ready to buy I probably still will. -Dan Schikore schikore@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
bicker@cbnewsi.att.com (The Resource, Poet-Magician of Quality) (11/07/90)
=> Whenever someone asks about comments/complaints about a particular company,
=> all we hear are bad experiences, and there is no way to tell whether any
=> one particular experience is the normal or out of the ordinary. I would take
=> all of these comments not-so-seriously since all of them are just one persons
=> experience.
=> -Dan Schikore
Not true. Most of the comments about Gateway 2000, including my own,
have been overwhelmingly positive.
--
Brian Charles Kohn AT&T Bell Laboratories Quality Process Center
Quality Management System E-MAIL: att!hoqax!bicker (bicker@hoqax.ATT.COM)
Consultant PHONE: (908) 949-5850 FAX: (908) 949-7724
ESR@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Ed Russell) (11/08/90)
In response to: >From: schikore@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Dan Schikore) >Subject: Re: Gateway 2000 >Date: 7 Nov 90 15:07:27 GMT > >Whenever someone asks about comments/complaints about a particular company, >all we hear are bad experiences, and there is no way to tell whether any >one particular experience is the normal or out of the ordinary. I would take >all of these comments not-so-seriously since all of them are just one persons >experience. Now if someone conducted a poll of all Gateway customers for >their satisfaction, maybe you could draw some conclusions. ....... September 25 issue of PC Magazine. Not all customers but a larger sampling.
brian@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Brian Hoffman) (11/08/90)
In article <1990Nov7.153638.12319@cbnewsi.att.com> Brian.C.Kohn@ATT.COM (bicker@hoqax.ATT.COM) writes: > >=> Whenever someone asks about comments/complaints about a particular company, >=> all we hear are bad experiences, and there is no way to tell whether any >=> one particular experience is the normal or out of the ordinary. I would take >=> all of these comments not-so-seriously since all of them are just one persons >=> experience. >=> -Dan Schikore > > >Not true. Most of the comments about Gateway 2000, including my own, >have been overwhelmingly positive. > >-- >Brian Charles Kohn AT&T Bell Laboratories Quality Process Center >Quality Management System E-MAIL: att!hoqax!bicker (bicker@hoqax.ATT.COM) >Consultant PHONE: (908) 949-5850 FAX: (908) 949-7724 > Since I started this thread, I'd like to finish it by pointing out that both comments above are essentially correct. I received about 20 responses from satisfied Gateway 2000 customers and only one are two negative reviews. I'd like to thank all the people who responded, including the guy who got all pissed off at me. :-) |Brian Hoffman | |brian@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu | |Quote: "A red sky at night may be a shepard's delight, but you're |
kabra437@pallas.athenanet.com (Ken Abrams) (11/08/90)
In article <10183@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee) writes: > >" What's the scoop on Gateway 2000? Has anyone had good/bad luck with their >" computers? I'm interested in their $1995 386sx. > >Notices in this newsgroup have been favorable. On the strength of that, >I bought one, a "VGA 386/25MHz", which arrived one week ago (4 weeks > [Author's minor reservations] >(1) There was no paper documentation for either the ATI video card >or for the hard disk drive, which is a Western Digital "Caviar 280" >85.3meg. Also nothing on the power supply or the floppy drives. A manual for a VGA card is almost a necessity; glad that you got that straightened out. As for the rest of your comment, I don't know of ANY major PC supplier that supplies all the manuals and schematics you seem to want. Most mail order companies don't even make them available at extra cost. I have heard that Compaq won't sell them to end users at all and I think they still can be had for IBM machines at SUBSTANTIAL extra cost. What you got (or didn't get) from Gateway is the norm in the industry and not the exception. > >(2) The CPU+RAM seems a little slow. I ran the Norton 5.0 sysinfo >program and got these figures: CPU 15.7, Disk 6.6, referenced to >the performance of an XT. Norton gives comparison figures for a Those figures seem low to me too. I have a 2 year old 20 mhz '386 from Gateway that does better than that. I suggest that you run it again while booted on a "virgin" system. If the figures still come out that low, I would be having another pow-wow with Gateway before the 30 day grace return period expires. If they claim that your set-up is running at 0 wait states, it should do better than that. All of the above is just my opinion; any resemblence to fact is purely coincidental. -- ======================================================== Ken Abrams uunet!pallas!kabra437 Illinois Bell kabra437@athenanet.com Springfield (voice) 217-753-7965
jpd@pc.usl.edu (Dugal James P.) (11/09/90)
In article <10183@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee) writes: >I bought one, a "VGA 386/25MHz", which arrived one week ago (4 weeks ... >(2) The CPU+RAM seems a little slow. I ran the Norton 5.0 sysinfo >program and got these figures: CPU 15.7, Disk 6.6, referenced to >the performance of an XT. Norton gives comparison figures for a >"Compaq 386/20e 20MHz": CPU 20.5, Disk 6.4. Sysinfo also reported >an av. seek time for the disk of 14.96ms and data transfer rate >of 655K/sec. (I had the Windows 3.0 disk cache in place when I I have a Gateway 386/20MHz with instruction cache and an Ultrastore ESDI disk controller. Under QEMM sysinfo reports: CPU speed 21.4, Disk speed 2.6, avg seek 16.1 ms, and DTR 0.0 KB/s !! Coretest 2.91 claims a DTR of 1000 KB/s. So your figure for CPU speed seems low, and I don't believe the disk reports from sysinfo! I tried Norton's SI, Advanced Edition 4.50, and got a CI of 24.3, DI of 7.3 and PI of 18.6. Regards, -- -- James Dugal, N5KNX Internet: jpd@usl.edu Associate Director Ham packet: n5knx@k5arh Computing Center US Mail: PO Box 42770 Lafayette, LA 70504 University of Southwestern LA. Tel. 318-231-6417 U.S.A.
rmf@bpdsun1.uucp (Rob Finley) (11/09/90)
In article <10183@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee) writes: >From article <1990Nov5.190436.20695@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>, by brian@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Brian Hoffman): > >" What's the scoop on Gateway 2000? Has anyone had good/bad luck with their >" computers? I'm interested in their $1995 386sx. > {stuff deleted} > >(2) The CPU+RAM seems a little slow. I ran the Norton 5.0 sysinfo >program and got these figures: CPU 15.7, Disk 6.6, referenced to >the performance of an XT. Norton gives comparison figures for a >"Compaq 386/20e 20MHz": CPU 20.5, Disk 6.4. Sysinfo also reported >an av. seek time for the disk of 14.96ms and data transfer rate >of 655K/sec. (I had the Windows 3.0 disk cache in place when I >ran this test.) This Gateway model does not have a RAM cache and >with only the 4 megs of RAM on the motherboard that it comes with, >it does not do interleaved memory references, though apparently it >would if supplied with an additional 4 megs. I asked whether I >could expect a little more speed if I did plug in more chips and >was told no, not necessarily. Interleaving might slow it up. We noticed a slowness on my machine at work and contacted Gateway about that. They sent us a configuration to feed into the Chips and Technologies (who made the IBM AT support set of IC's on the motherboard) supplied setup program to set the wait states and interleave and such. After doing that, it perks along just fine for a 20mhz 386. If you need further assistance, I will try to dig it up (I only needed to do it once) and post it or offer pointers or something. It now goes the speed of a machine that cost almost twice as much (Lanier) >(3) Windows 3.0 is bundled, and I thought I would be getting "Daybook", >the sample Toolbook application. However, that was not included, >and Gateway cannot supply it. I noticed that with the Windows 1.0 supplied by Zenith that it only had a minimum of desk tools included. I feel that Microsoft sells a stripped down version of Windows to system manufacturers who chose to make it a standard option. Microsoft Write(?) is one that comes to mind (for Windows 1.0). The standalone version of MSW3.0 will have the complete set. Gateway took care of the monitor problem I had and my friend's 386sx is going great. I still recommend them. The other's aren't necessarily worth the extra cost. Suprise me though. I always am looking for an even better buy just as long as it matches the reliablility.
lee@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee) (11/10/90)
From article <1990Nov9.030635.3511@bpdsun1.uucp>, by rmf@bpdsun1.uucp (Rob Finley): > They sent us a configuration to feed into the Chips and Technologies ... > I will try to dig it up (I only needed > to do it once) and post it or offer pointers or something. Please do. By the way, someone suggested to me that himem.sys might be causing the bad Norton score. But I removed that and the disk cache, and it made no difference. Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu