| [Rant] How will Eyetech deal with the 'issues' in the A1 against customers? | ANN.lu |
| Posted on 30-Sep-2004 19:43 GMT by Worried A1 owner | 131 comments
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I have an AmigaOne XE G4. It cost me a lot of money. It's fairly new and covered by warranty. How will Eyetech compensate me for it's 'issues'/design flaws? Will they
a) Offer me a full refund or a new WORKING motherboard as replacement for free? Since it looks like it's a design flaw with the A1 XE motherboard I would GLADLY accept returning my A1 XE and get a motherboard with new design, like Micro A1 with raiser card instead.
b) Give me for free any and all required additional hardware required to get the AmigaOne product fully working, like UDMA IDE on a PCI card? Second best option but I would still know that my expensive hardware is a bit 'crippled' (perhaps a too strong word?) beneath it and I would still worry about more undiscovered issues.
c) Offer me to send in the motherboard for free for them to "patch"? This would not be pleasant since I would be without my AmigaOne for the time this takes
d) Simply sit silent and wait until the warranty expires before acknowledging the problems? NOT acceptable! :-/
I am obviously referring to this thread here on ann:
http://www.ann.lu/comments2.cgi?view=1096454447&category=events&start=1&293
"IDE UDMA works on VIA and Articia on AmigaOne SE / XE / µA1 MK2 (as I demoed) ...
- ... except when the Ethernet chip goes online and is used."
:-(((
"'- We have made a driver for a Silicon Image 680 PCI IDE UDMA133 controller chip, this does UDMA 133 nicely, including when Ethernet is used at full speed.'
Or instead of buying PCI UDMA controller one could buy PCI ethernet card instead? If problem is triggered by on-board ethernet buying PCI ethernet card could be cheaper and easier. (Just thought, I don't know details.)"
"No, the problem is the wiring to the VIA controller on the motherboard. We already tried the external ethernet card with no success.
We have been able to patch XE rev 1 boards to get working VIA DMA, but I am
still waiting for patch instructions for my rev 2 board before I can verify
that the lockup problem is gone on that board too."
">Why? Buggy ethernet driver/chip?
No, a simple error in the design that lead to bus collisions between the ethernet chip and the via chip."
This is a serious question for a serius subject. Before I bought it I had read posts online from corporate officials from Eyetech, Hyperion, Amiga Inc etc and a lot of other respectable personalities in this community and they all ensured there were no problems at all with the hardware. I spent a lot of money to buy this motherboard and I am worried about my investment! I am very curious how this will be handled!
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| How will Eyetech deal with the 'issues' in the A1 against customers? : Comment 29 of 131 | ANN.lu |
| Posted by takemehomegrandma on 01-Oct-2004 06:54 GMT | In reply to Comment 2 (HammerD):
Hi all! I have one of these Amiga One XE's. I spent a consederable amount of money on that computer, to be able to follow the OS4 development with my own eyes. Now it looks like the motherboard may have issues, and I don't like that. I have no way to check this myself, since *no OS at all* with *fully working IDE DMA* has been publically released yet(!), but I trust Stéphane Guillard and Stefan Burström in this case. I will follow with great interest how Eyetech will handle this situation. And I am quite sure that goes for all of us, not just us Amiga One owners, but also potential customers, potential second hand A1 owners, competitors and all the people that simply likes to follow the Amiga history line.
@ HammerD
> If you are really an A1 owner, check out the A1 Owner forum on AmigaWorld
> tomorrow.
But if one does not like that site and does not want to register there? Wouldn't it be better if Eyetech made a public post on their website, like these things usually is handled?
@ Don Cox
> "Info will only be posted to the closed Teron customers' forum"
>
> Who else would need to know? Stephan said the future production is fixed.
Everyone! Everyone interested in the Amiga, all potential customers (there are possibly still motherboards at some dealer), but most important, all the potential *second hand* "customers"! Being as open as possible is the only way to go, trying to hide problems on closed forums gives a bad after-taste in my mouth, it gives the impression of "trying to get away" with something. I am sure most of us feels the same, and that is why companies usually is frank and open about any problems, and focus on correcting them or compensate their customers in a proper way instead. Look, I am not judging Eyetech (yet), they may very well still decide to discuss these things in the open. I understand that this problem is discovered quite recently(?), and of course we should give them some time to deal with it before anyone comes to any hasty conclusions.
@ Anonymous (208.147.1.5)
> Oh and guillard is wrong. Alan Redhouse said the bug is in VIA chip. The
> motherboard is _fine_. Dont feed the trolls !!
Look, we didn't buy a chip, we bought *motherboards*. If the motherboard can't be used with the on board UDMA IDE and Ethernet (neither the on board controller, nor ethernet on PCI cards) at the same time, then I fail to see how you can possibly come to the conclusion that "the motherboard is _fine_"! If the product we bought isn't working properly, I am sure that most of us would be interested in knowing exactly how this could be corrected in a satisfactory way! Besides, I have another motherboard, an x86 motherboard, with this same southbridge chip, and that one works *fine* when using UDMA IDE together with the on board ethernet, *as well* as PCI ethernet cards (I have tried two different, both works). No problems at all!
@ Joe "Floid" Kanowitz
> To some extent, this 'new level of clarity' would make any traded-back A1s
> more viable as a 'discount' product than the "permanently crippled" Pegasos
> Is... and if it really does apply equally to bPlan's batch of Articias, it
> makes any remaining stock of bare boards that much more interesting, too.
Traded back/recycled A1's could perhaps be used the same way as the traded back pre-April Pegasos1's - given away as "phreeboards" to selected developers! :-) They could probably even *be sold* at heavily dicounted prices to people with their eyes open about it, people knowing about the problems but who still are interested in the hardware and thinks a low price is more important than 100% perfection.
@ Lando
> If you feel that your A1 falls short of any of the above, then you can ask
> Eyetech for a refund, which they are legally obliged to give you, or they may
> offer to replace the board for one which does meet the above criteria, or
> repair your board to these standards. If they refuse, you should get in touch
> with the TSA.
I don't think one should have to try to *enforce* their rights upon a company like Eyetech, it would be a lot nicer if Eyetech takes the initiative to handle this situation themselves. It should be in *their* interest to make sure that any customer is happy. I think it's also a matter of decensy, and I believe that their very future will depend on the way they handle this situation. Being open about it and not trying to hide info on closed forums, is part of that IMHO. I hope they go that road. I will follow this development with great interest. |
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