Text 48011, 104 rader
Skriven 2008-08-12 08:04:00 av George Vandervort (1:382/8)
  Kommentar till text 47997 av Jay Emrie (1:123/140)
Ärende: PB Nightmare
====================
Hello Jay!

Monday August 11 2008 20:08, JAY EMRIE wrote to CHARLES SCAGLIONE:

 CS> GV>>>>> or different motherboards from month to month..  3.)
 CS> GV>>>>> eMachines was bought out by
 JE>
 CS> JS>>>> Packard-Bell, anyone?
 JE>
 CS> RC>>> Gateway.
 JE>
 CS> JS>> I was referring to their use of different motherboards from
 CS> JS>> month to month. Packard-Bell was known for that.
 JE>
 CS>> When I was working for the US Govt our agency purchased around 30
 CS>> Packard-Bell machines to use as temporary work stations for
 CS>> visitors.
 JE>
 CS>> Biggest nightmare I have ever run into trying to repair them and
 CS>> order parts. Not only different motherboards, but different power
 CS>> supplies. As you can well imagine, we didn't keep them for very
 CS>> long.
 JE>
 JE> SNAFU! The govt. can easily throw the expense of 30 PCs away and
 JE> replace with something different whereas the normal consumer would
 JE> have been clobbered.
 JE>
 JE> Jay
 JE> -+-
 JE>  þ OLXWin 1.00a þ This tagline stolen by Off-Line Xpress!
 JE>  + Origin: Doc's Place BBS Fido Since 1991 docsplace.tzo.com
 JE> (1:123/140)


One of my Friends who worked for the State back in the 1990's needed a new
computer with 1GB of Ram to run a number cruching program that was alway
slowing down the old computer with too many swaps to the Hard drive with it's
256mb ram..

the State delivered a new Packard Bell with 1 GB ram..

Only thing was when it Booted up it only showed 512mb ram.

I happen to be in town and had lunch with my friend during his lunch break..

He told me about the problem and said when he called the State Maintenance
office the scheduled a tech to come look at it next week..!

So I agreed to go back to his office and look at it..

The Packing List and Invoice indicated 1 GB ram, but when it booted up the
Memory count only showed 512 mb ram..

I opened the Case and the Ram was buried under the HD/Flopy Housing..

Reading the User manual it said the was a Dip Switch on the Mother board that
turned on the 2nd Memory Slot..  You got it, the Motherboard had two sticks of
512mb ram, and the switch to activate the 2nd stick was not switched durring
assembly..

Problem was there was no dip Switch on the exposed motherboard..
and the Cheap Packard Bell Desktop Case did not have a Flip out housing like on
Dell Mini-towers..

After looking at the Skimatics it looked like the switch washidden by the HD
Housing.. that required dis-asembling the HD/Floppies and Housing to Expose
that part of the Motherboard.. ti gain access to the dip switch..

He called the State Tech and explained the problem and the State Tech said that
was too labor intensive to Fix, and advised to order a New computer..


My friend did not want to wait two weeks for a new computer, so we too three
hours to Dis-assembledthe computer..
and Packard Hell did not make it easy.. I tied to remove the Housing with the
HD and Floppies, by removing the 4 external screws, but no way, there were 4
more screws inside the HD housing that required removing the floppies and the
HD.. and Power Cabling. to get to the Motherboard..

After re-assembling everything  the Parkard Hell displayed Full access the the
1 GB ram..  Whew!!!


My last advice was if he had anymore problems with it to send it back..  :-)








Regards,
George Vandervort

Tech Support: http://home.austin.rr.com/llr/spa/

'Using yesterday's software to create tomorrow's problems today'


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