[Rant] My AmigaOne Experience | ANN.lu |
Posted on 06-Oct-2003 15:31 GMT by Joe (Edited on 2003-10-09 10:04:34 GMT by Christian Kemp) | 151 comments View flat View list |
Read at your own risk.
[ Please also read Alan M Redhouse's side of the story. - CK ]
Hello there. Heres some good things to say to all you chirpy AmigaOne owners.
I ordered a G3SE in November 2002 and it arrived Christmas eve. It wouldnt work from the start. Oh what a fun christmas that was. After a day of owning it I felt like smashing it to pieces. Nothing would boot whatsoever and when it did get so far it would crash at the logon screen.
I called Eyetech and they sorted it out. After a while they switched it to KDE.
Next set of problems. Instability. I tried everything and nothing would resolve. The machine was basically unusable, it was logging out randomly. I posted on sites like this for help and didnt get much really. Then it wouldnt even boot KDE after a while for some reason, so I tried a re-install.
Then it decided not to read any CD's.
I just left it there gathering dust, too stressful to even think about to be perfectly honest.
Fast forward to about 3 weeks ago, I called Eyetech and explained about the constant problems. They said if I replaced the ROM chip and installed Debian instead of Suse it would make things better.
I explained to them on the phone, I am a bit of a novice and dont really know how to do this. "Well the instructions are very clear" they say. I say "Well could I just send it back. I dont really know what I'm doing here and I dont want to make things worse". The phone conversation ends.
As I'm getting prepared to post the whole thing off I recieve an envelope from Eyetech which apparently contains a ROM puller and a ROM chip. We did not spot this at the time. There were instructions saying you need a paperclip (not a rom puller) so we got our paperclip and got prepared to remoev the "ROM". The instructions were very clear indeed... right. The photograph supposedly illustrating how to remove the ROM properly is somewhat poor quality and the mans finger is completely covering the ROM chip, thus making it impossible to see which part to remove (like I said on the phone, were novice).
After trying hard to remove the thing we ended up removing the ROM chip AND the socket and most of the pins. We knew instantly the motherboard was now well and truly ####ed. We call Eyetech and they say there is nothing we can do now. After that we discover the ROM chip and puller hidden in a tiny sponge on the back of the envelope, with the replacement ROM (if we had seen this we would have known which exact part to remove).
As you can imagine I am furious with this, after 10 months of sheer hell from investing in the new "Amiga" computer, I am over £900 down, not going to get a penny back really and I feel like smashing the thing up.
Such a thing as this is what has driven me more and more away from the Amiga community.
One furious ex-Amigan.
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My AmigaOne Experience : Comment 32 of 151 | ANN.lu |
Posted by reflect on 06-Oct-2003 17:26 GMT | In reply to Comment 29 (takemehomegrandma): takemehomegrandma :
no, it doesn't count. That's why the supportforums was put in place, if Eyetech were to handle all the inquiries etc themselves, they wouldn't be able to handle even a quarter of it, due to manpower issues. The supportforums have hundreds of experienced linuxgurus, hw-developers, linux kernel hackers and the like. You could argue that Eyetech should have enlightened "Joe" and pointed him to these lists. This information has gone out a number of times to the A1 owners and alot of work has been laid down to organize this support structure. I find it a little strange for someone this novice to buy a early bird, and then attempt to fix the board himself, instead of asking a friend. In fact, I find this story a little weird in alot of ways. I'm not so sure it is true, to be honest.
If it IS true, it's a shame that it happened. On the other hand, I know lots of dealers that WILL take in the entire board and happily replace the ROM for you.
And he said it himself, if he would have seen the rom chip in the letter he was sent, he would have fixed it himself. So, after his attempt to remove the chip, what would he do if there was no rom in the package, as he thought at first? It doesn't make sense to me. |
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