On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 02:31:58PM -0600, Michael Halcrow wrote: > And to be fair, I have 5 high-load PCI devices (drive controllers > and multimedia cards) in my MythTV box. That ECS board is working > fine in my other workstation, which has a different set of > peripherals.
Okay, I just finished putting the MythTV box back together with a new mainboard/CPU from Fry's that I picked up on my way home from work. I splurged on a an Athlon 64 X2-3800+ (dual-core). All DMA problems are now resolved (hard drive and PVR-250). And I am finally getting decent performance from the RAID. Okay, time to vent about Fry's. Fry's only had one mainboard in stock with 5 PCI slots that would support the Socket 939 Athlon 64 X2 -- the Gigabyte K8 Triton. The salesman was, as usual, less than worthless (he sold me a heat sink that would not even install on the board, and I bought them both together -- the heat sink's going to have to go back). When he delivered the mainboard, he even had the gall to hand me a box that was half destroyed. And that wasn't the first time it has happened. I suspect that it's a running inside joke among the sales staff at Fry's. ``Hey, let's see what kind of crap we can get this guy to buy.'' I opened the box to find that the static protection wrapper on the inside had been damaged too, right were the box was ripped apart! And then, to top it all off, when I opened the box to look for damage, I found that the IDE cable had been removed from its sealed bag and crimped sharply. The clerk apologized, ``Yeah, I used to work in returns. They can get a little over-zealous with the machines they use to seal the boxes. The guy who sealed this box probably didn't put a sticker on the box to indicate it was an opened-box return because he was embarrassed about what he did to the box.'' Great. We all know what kind of crap goes on behind the scenes at these sorts of retail shops, but to have the clerk come right out and admit it to a customer... Reminds me of the opened-box IDE controller card I got at Fry's two weeks ago. I got it home only to discover a fancy new 40-pin IDE cable in the box, rather than an 80-pin that should normally come with it. Also reminds me of the Maxtor 200GB drive I picked up from Fry's three weeks ago. It was sitting in a pile of 200GB drives, all wrapped like new. I actually got 5 of them. Four were as expected; I discovered that the fifth drive had been removed from its static sleeve and the IDE bag was ripped open. No labeling to indicate that the box had been opened. When I mentioned this to the return guy as I returned the IDE controller card (see previous paragraph), he said, ``Yeah, sometimes customers ask to see the product while in the store, and as long as they don't purchase and take it home, we don't label the item as returned.'' I tried to imagine the sequence of events in the aisle leading up to the removal of the drive from its static sleeve and the removal of the IDE cable from its plastic sleeve. ``Well, gee, this thing sure LOOKS like a 3.5" ATA hard drive, just like every other one in the world. But I wanna make SURE. Let's just cut open this static sleeve and remove the drive... yessiree, that sure is a 3.5" ATA hard drive, and the sticker on the drive says 200GB, just like the box says. But is this really an IDE connector? Better cut open this IDE cable sleeve while we're at it...'' When I had the clerk run back to get me a new box, she returned with the news that *all six* mainboards (of that brand) they had in stock had been returned! Okay, whatever. I got the box that had the least evidence of having been handled. Then she said that *all* the Athlon 64 X2-3800+ boxes that they had in stock had *also* all been opened and returned! I was flabbergasted. So I wanted to buy this high-end microprocessor with a decent mainboard, and *every single one* of them were returned items. None discounted, of course. They are overpriced in the first place. I could have walked out of the store right then and ordered it all from NewEgg, *with overnight shipping*, and still saved around $50. But, ironically, the ability to walk into the store and return the item if it didn't happen to work under Linux with all my hardware was worth the $50, I guess. Of course, as my luck would have it, it all works now... ;-) Mike .___________________________________________________________________. Collect call from Cthulhu, do you accept the charges?
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