[OT] Waddizzit??

From: Doc <doc_at_mdrconsult.com>
Date: Mon Jun 24 21:55:07 2002

On Mon, 24 Jun 2002, Glen Goodwin wrote:

> I don't sell motherboards any more, for the same reason. Last one I sold
> was a dual-processor Asus board (not cheap) and the customer returned it
> one hour later with an area about 3" x 5" on the board *charred black* on
> both sides of the board. He claimed I sold him "junk" and was in my face
> when I told him I wouldn't replace it. Fortunately there was an off-duty
> deputy sheriff in the store at the time . . . absolutely not worth the
> hassle.

  Then there's the other side -- I recently paid for a replacement m/b
going into a customer's machine because a BIOS flash failed. We specced
the box for hardware ATA RAID, and got the right board, but a BIOS
revision that doesn't allow reconfiguration of the initial RAID setup.
(Asus A7V333 w/RAID, firmware rev 1.04) I've flashed literally dozens
of motherboards and only had one failure [1]. Even though the dealer
knows me, knows I'm skilled, knows that that revision is notorious for
dying on updates, and agreed that that rev was useless for us, my
attempt at flashing the firmware voided the warranty on a 2-day-old
motherboard. Then he told me they would not have flashed it for me, as
"We just don't do that."
  I usually stay religiously away from other peoples x86 hardware, for
all the above reasons, including Glen's. Plus, to use my favorite auto
analogy, if selling a car was like selling a PC, I'd have to:

 Teach you to drive it

 Tune it & do oil changes for the life of the car

 Replace the carburetor with the Super Duper 8-Barrel 95 mpg $25
        aftermarket part you bought at some flea market AND make it
        perform to the sales spec.

 Tell you exactly what's wrong with your auntie's car on the strength
        of "It's not running right"

 Call the state highway department and find out whether the road you
        want to drive is closed or congested, or you're just taking the
        wrong turn, at 3:00am (drunken voice "I've been dialing AOL for
        20 minutes and I can't get on. What the hell is wrong with this
        modem?")

  And of course, all that for free.

[1] I intentionally pulled the plug on that one - a Gateway-rebadged
Intel board that wouldn't update with Intel firmware. It also had a
failsafe boot feature, so I interrupted a Gateway firmware flash, and
failsafe-booted into an Intel firmware image. It worked.

        Doc
Received on Mon Jun 24 2002 - 21:55:07 BST