since we are on the subject. our three supersparcs that died had 32meg
memory modules (4 @ 32). When they died and Sun came out, they charged
us 3 x 400 dollrs to replace one 32 meg DIMM in each machine. Yes, you
heard that right, 400 bucks for a 32 meg DIMM. I just paid 300 bucks for
128M 72 bit ECC dimms for my quad xeon. When he gave me the bill, I held
my hands over my head. He said "what's that all about?" I told
him "if you are going to rob me, I'm damned sure going to hold my
hands over my head so you don't also shoot me. :)
He was pissed.
I was pissed.
Had to keep a mop handy for days in fact.
ANd then he charged me 1000 bucks for a 524mb scsi disk (yes, 1/2
gig).
And I held my hands up when he walked in.. :)
Robert Hyatt Computer and Information Sciences
[EMAIL PROTECTED] University of Alabama at Birmingham
(205) 934-2213 115A Campbell Hall, UAB Station
(205) 934-5473 FAX Birmingham, AL 35294-1170
On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, Robert G. Brown wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, Robert M. Hyatt wrote:
>
> > do you have a local dealer with a SIMM/DIMM tester? We ran into problems
> > like this last year. Dropping a 60ns DIMM into the tester would get "safe
> > at 73ns" and nonsense like that. And that obviously won't work when the
> > timing is tight. We use Kingston and don't have problems.
>
> Alas, no. Pop 'em and swap 'em are our only ways of testing. Or
> perhaps I should answer maybe, and ask around...
>
> > > e) Don't know what stage to put this, but I've found putting an
> > > actual multimeter on the power supply to be helpful in the past, as well
> > > as a careful check of its rated peak current/power. Some systems,
> > > especially ATX systems, won't start unless the power supply can provide
> > > enough current at startup, and vendors sometimes load in the cards or
> > > peripherals after burning in the motherboard (idiots!) and don't realize
> > > that a system built with a cheap PS won't boot. In our case, I was
> > > running the lm-sensors package and already knew the core voltages and
> > > temperatures to be in the nominal range.
> > >
> >
> > a 'scope is better. You want a smooth output, not something with a
> > lot of 60 hz ripple scattered everywhere. We had one of these in a Sun
> > a couple of years ago and it caused random and intermittent failures that
> > were a pain to find.
>
> Scope is better, but don't have one at home. Yet, anyway.;-)
>
> > I think one good point is to always start with 'quality' parts. IE we
> > bought a bunch of Sun supersparcs last year. We have had three fail
> > completely already, all three being memory problems. All three had
> > memory by (I think) samson. When we have tried PC's (pentium pros and
> > up) using them in heavy-duty applications like file servers and the like,
> > we have had problems with off-brand memory being way out of spec. IE
> > just because it says PC100 doesn't mean it works at PC100 speeds. Or
> > just because it says 60ns on the actual chips, doesn't mean it will
> > safely/reliably operate at 60ns. We've been considering buying a tester
> > ourselves we have so many machines scattered around.
>
> Agreed, but until a year ago I had no difficulty with Aberdeen or its
> house-brand memory. A year ago my systems rep went out on maternity
> leave and the whole organization (from my point of view) went to hell in
> a handbasket. Some four out of four purchases from them have had one or
> more significant hardware problems that are tremendously expensive in
> human time to fix, even though I was microspecifying nearly every
> component of the system from high quality manufacturers.
>
> I've changed my philosophy. Now, whenever possible I deal with a local
> merchant whose prices are close to mail order and can custom order me
> anything I want. If I buy a system or part and it doesn't work, I drive
> over, hand them the system or the part and say "this doesn't work,
> fix/replace it". Then I drive back. If they want to sell my house
> brand PC100 memory, it's up to them to ensure that it works flawlessly
> because if linux fails to run on the system, it's almost certainly
> hardware and I'll be right back in.
>
> rgb
>
> Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
> Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
> Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
> Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
>
-
Linux SMP list: FIRST see FAQ at http://www.irisa.fr/prive/mentre/smp-faq/
To Unsubscribe: send "unsubscribe linux-smp" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
