From: bfink (bfink_at_ix.netcom.com)
Date: Tue Sep 15 1998 - 14:13:51 EDT
Just a warning to Bay Area TP owners (esp. East Bay):
DO NOT ever take a machine to MicroAge in Emeryville, CA for repair, even
though they are an authorized IBM dealer and service center. Hearken to
my tale of woe...
1. Bob buys TP770. TP770 turns out to have defective motherboard. IBM
tech says to go to MicroAge to have it fixed.
2. I leave it there. They have to order part from IBM. I wait a week.
I get a call from the tech that he is "dropping that board on in there"
and I'll have my still-never-used-yet TP back in an hour.
3. Next thing you know, the entire video subsystem does not work. The
machine is dead. I find out about this hours later after browbeating the
temp on the phones until she finds a service manager.
4. I go medieval on IBM--but not medieval enough, because after 4 hours
and 3 levels of bureaucracy, I cannot get them to give me another
machine. (I assume it's a lemon.) I finally settle for having it shipped
to Memphis and fixed by them ASAP. (ETA, another week.) They agree to
throw in a 2 gig hard drive for my trouble. (I *asked* for a DVD drive,
but hey...)
5. NOW THE NIGHTMARE. I have to go to MicroAge because the machine has
*my* CD-ROM drive in it and also a 32MB dimm which I need to retrieve. I
am ushered into the back and see the tech who has been working on my TP.
EVERYTHING BECOMES PAINFULLY CLEAR, because the guy is a fumbling MORON.
He is totally unable to get the CD-ROM out of the Ultrabay, and begins to
dissassemble the machine, prying the keyboard off the body with a
screwdriver, dropping screws onto the floor, losing little pieces of
plastic. He takes out both of the Ultrabay levers and fiddles with
them--even tries to put them in upside down. As he's screwing the taop
back on the machine, I have to point out that one of tabs didn't go into
the slot and if he tightens too much he'll snap the plastic off. The
crowning glory: two opened and half-drunk cans of Surge soda *on* *his*
*workbench*. Now I understand why the new board "didn't work". The man
is a butcher.
NEVER TAKE ANY EQUIPMENT TO MICROAGE.
You have been warned.
rwf
________________________________________________________________________
Robert Fink |
Assistant Professor | "Mr. Rochberg's quartet is -- how
Dept of Musicology | did we used to put it? -- beauti-
UCLA | ful."
[Stanford Humanities Ctr., 98-99] |
| - Donal Henahan on
CURRENT EMAIL: | Rochberg's 3rd
bfink_at_ix.netcom.com |
________________________________________________________________________
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