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The Saga of the New Computer (rant)
Entil'Zha
I see famous people
in Zocalo v2.0
{rant}
So, as i stated earlier, i decided to get a core duo, so i order my parts, i get a Conroe, a mid level 7600GT video card, 2 gigs of ram, even bought me a legal copy of windows. got all that from New Egg (except the processor, got that from some place called PCHotline) ordered on Wednesday Aug 30th, with overnight shipping, New Egg was out of stock of the Motherboard i wanted (ASUS P5NSLI, its an Nforce 570 based board, the 590's arn't out yet) so i ordered the board from Buy.com also on wednesday, with overnight shipping.
Thursday comes, Case/Power Supply show up, The other stuff from New Egg/PCHotline didnt ship until thursday,
Friday Comes, memory, processor, windows, video card, all show up. No motherboard. i check with Buy.com on their website, all i see is "Sent to Warehouse" under status.. so i call them.
"Oh yeah, that item is out of stock, so we will ship it to you when it comes back in"
of course their website still says its in stock, so i tell them, hell with it, you should have told me 2 days ago it was out of stock so i could order it from somewhere else. and cancel the order. the lady on the phone says that they will cancel it.
i order another of the same board from New Egg which is now in stock...
the next day i email buy.com asking when they will release the hold on the money they authorized for the board, and i am informed that cancelations take 7-9 business days, and if it comes back into stock in that time, they will ship it to me regardless, we go back and forth arguing about the fact that i no longer WANT it, they say that unless the cancelation goes through, the item will ship and i can just refuse the shipment when it comes, and it will get shipped back, they will then refund my money (less shipping) when they recieve it back. this goes on for hours. finally i just call my bank, who tells me that they cannot block the charge, but if they end up shipping me the item and not refunding me the full price, i can initiate a chargeback. provided i document every conversation i have with them, with names, dates, times.
Meanwhile newegg, did get my board shipped out on friday, but due to the weeknd and holiday, next day delivery ends up being tuesday. almost 7 days after i originally placed the "next day" orders.
Tuesday rolls around, and i finally have my motherboard, and eagerly put everything together... finally, fully assembled, i plug it in and turn it on.. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
shit... i pull everythign apart, put it back together again, power it on. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
time to call ASUS tech support, wait on hold 5 minutes, (not a bad wait time) the guy asks what he can do for me (in a heavy indian accent), i start to tell him and... my phone dies. shit... call back, wait on hold.. nice american guy pics up, we talk for a bit, i explain my problem, What is your bios revision he ask, well i dont know, since i can't even boot to bios to check. "Oh," he says "Yes, some of the boards ship with an older bios that cannot handle the Core 2 duo's, we'll have to send you another" he gets all my information, and says the "bios lady" will call me the next day, (thursday, 2 days ago)
Thursday rolls around.... nobody's called me by noon, so i call back and speak to "the bios lady" who tells me that because the tech had marked my bios order "Free of charge" that she was just going to ship it out ground and not call me, i asked if i could get it faster than ground, and she said that for a fee they would be happy to send it overnight, i was ready for an extreme high overnight ship price, but she said it was $20, so i said go for it.. 1 hour later, she emails me with a tracking number, fedex reports "billing information recieved" friday morning i see that Fedex has had the package sice 1:47pm, and that it was last scanned as leaving memphis at 3:14am..
at noon,it still says that its in transit from memphis with the last scan being 3:14 am, so i call fedex at about 2:30 in the afternoon, "Oh yes, that aircraft has had a massive mechanical failure, so you wont be getting your package today, you'll get it monday" "WHAT?" i say (scream) into the phone, you mean its been sitting on the Tarmac for almost 12 hours, and you didnt bother to get all the packages off the plane, and put them on another??? "Well no sir, there were no other planes going up that way" Hmm, isn't Memphis your hub, don't you have other planes there??? "well yes sir, but we didnt do that, you'll have it monday" "Uhh no says i, you ahve planes that fly on saturday, so you can deliver it then..." "Well sir, i can request that and have someone call you back"
So later that night, someone calls me back, and says it has been scheduled for a saturday delivery, but because they couldnt speak to someone at my local hub, they cannot guarentee it will actually get here.
So now, as of 6:38 this morning, its sitting in Portland Maine, 4 hours away from me, which means i doubt i'll be getting it today. and i'll be waiting till monday after all.... i swear, if this bios doesn't fix the problem, i'm going to kill someone. (most likely at FedEx, who should change their name to FedUp, This is the 4th straight package that FedUp has blown the guarenteed delivery, and i've yet to get a refund on any of them)
{bangs head against desk}
{/rant}
So, as i stated earlier, i decided to get a core duo, so i order my parts, i get a Conroe, a mid level 7600GT video card, 2 gigs of ram, even bought me a legal copy of windows. got all that from New Egg (except the processor, got that from some place called PCHotline) ordered on Wednesday Aug 30th, with overnight shipping, New Egg was out of stock of the Motherboard i wanted (ASUS P5NSLI, its an Nforce 570 based board, the 590's arn't out yet) so i ordered the board from Buy.com also on wednesday, with overnight shipping.
Thursday comes, Case/Power Supply show up, The other stuff from New Egg/PCHotline didnt ship until thursday,
Friday Comes, memory, processor, windows, video card, all show up. No motherboard. i check with Buy.com on their website, all i see is "Sent to Warehouse" under status.. so i call them.
"Oh yeah, that item is out of stock, so we will ship it to you when it comes back in"
of course their website still says its in stock, so i tell them, hell with it, you should have told me 2 days ago it was out of stock so i could order it from somewhere else. and cancel the order. the lady on the phone says that they will cancel it.
i order another of the same board from New Egg which is now in stock...
the next day i email buy.com asking when they will release the hold on the money they authorized for the board, and i am informed that cancelations take 7-9 business days, and if it comes back into stock in that time, they will ship it to me regardless, we go back and forth arguing about the fact that i no longer WANT it, they say that unless the cancelation goes through, the item will ship and i can just refuse the shipment when it comes, and it will get shipped back, they will then refund my money (less shipping) when they recieve it back. this goes on for hours. finally i just call my bank, who tells me that they cannot block the charge, but if they end up shipping me the item and not refunding me the full price, i can initiate a chargeback. provided i document every conversation i have with them, with names, dates, times.
Meanwhile newegg, did get my board shipped out on friday, but due to the weeknd and holiday, next day delivery ends up being tuesday. almost 7 days after i originally placed the "next day" orders.
Tuesday rolls around, and i finally have my motherboard, and eagerly put everything together... finally, fully assembled, i plug it in and turn it on.. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
shit... i pull everythign apart, put it back together again, power it on. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
time to call ASUS tech support, wait on hold 5 minutes, (not a bad wait time) the guy asks what he can do for me (in a heavy indian accent), i start to tell him and... my phone dies. shit... call back, wait on hold.. nice american guy pics up, we talk for a bit, i explain my problem, What is your bios revision he ask, well i dont know, since i can't even boot to bios to check. "Oh," he says "Yes, some of the boards ship with an older bios that cannot handle the Core 2 duo's, we'll have to send you another" he gets all my information, and says the "bios lady" will call me the next day, (thursday, 2 days ago)
Thursday rolls around.... nobody's called me by noon, so i call back and speak to "the bios lady" who tells me that because the tech had marked my bios order "Free of charge" that she was just going to ship it out ground and not call me, i asked if i could get it faster than ground, and she said that for a fee they would be happy to send it overnight, i was ready for an extreme high overnight ship price, but she said it was $20, so i said go for it.. 1 hour later, she emails me with a tracking number, fedex reports "billing information recieved" friday morning i see that Fedex has had the package sice 1:47pm, and that it was last scanned as leaving memphis at 3:14am..
at noon,it still says that its in transit from memphis with the last scan being 3:14 am, so i call fedex at about 2:30 in the afternoon, "Oh yes, that aircraft has had a massive mechanical failure, so you wont be getting your package today, you'll get it monday" "WHAT?" i say (scream) into the phone, you mean its been sitting on the Tarmac for almost 12 hours, and you didnt bother to get all the packages off the plane, and put them on another??? "Well no sir, there were no other planes going up that way" Hmm, isn't Memphis your hub, don't you have other planes there??? "well yes sir, but we didnt do that, you'll have it monday" "Uhh no says i, you ahve planes that fly on saturday, so you can deliver it then..." "Well sir, i can request that and have someone call you back"
So later that night, someone calls me back, and says it has been scheduled for a saturday delivery, but because they couldnt speak to someone at my local hub, they cannot guarentee it will actually get here.
So now, as of 6:38 this morning, its sitting in Portland Maine, 4 hours away from me, which means i doubt i'll be getting it today. and i'll be waiting till monday after all.... i swear, if this bios doesn't fix the problem, i'm going to kill someone. (most likely at FedEx, who should change their name to FedUp, This is the 4th straight package that FedUp has blown the guarenteed delivery, and i've yet to get a refund on any of them)
{bangs head against desk}
{/rant}
Comments
it is 2.0 v, so that could be it, but i'm hoping that the new bios will help.
i'm actually tempted to just run up to a circuit city tonight, grab a gig of ram, and give it a try to see if it boots, if so, i can just flash the bios to the newest, then figure out what to do with the memory.
I miss living in NYC sometimes, i could have just walked down the street and picked up all these parts instead of having to order them online, even Circus City and Breast Buy are 50+ miles away.
oh well, back to watching the shuttle launch.
One possible explanation could be also that you haven't attached the CPU (and/or PSU) fan cable to the mobo.
Finally they are moving on with the construction of the ISS.
ASUS thinks its the bios not being able to handle the CPU, and that may be true, but i have a feeling it may be memory as well.
if i could just get it to boot into bios i could flash with the new stuff and not have to wait until monday, Even though Fedex promised me they'd do their best to get it to me today, its been sitting at the sort facility in Portland since 6:48 this morning, so i'm pretty sure that means it aint getting here today.
talk about frustrating..
But thanks for your suggestions, i REALLY appreciate it.
[B]...Even though Fedex promised me they'd do their best to get it to me today, its been sitting at the sort facility in Portland since 6:48 this morning, so i'm pretty sure that means it aint getting here today.
talk about frustrating..
[/B][/QUOTE]
Well if you are using web tracking, it may very well say it's stuck at the facility until about 5 minutes after he delivers it...
;)
Chin up!
[B]Well if you are using web tracking, it may very well say it's stuck at the facility until about 5 minutes after he delivers it...
;)
Chin up! [/B][/QUOTE]
I am going to call again and check and see, but i'm pretty sure it won't be here till monday.
Now i'm just trying to decide if i want to spend the money and just pick up a stick of PC2-4200 to see if i can at least boot into bios...
It does mean driving 100 miles round trip...
Well, let's hope that the problem is in fact related to the mobo and not the RAM.
I also just got off the phone with FedUp, aparently, instead of being labled for Saturday Delivery, as the woman yesterday promised me, it never got re-labeled, so the crew in portland just put it in a weekday delivery crate, rather than sending it on to its final destination facility, otherwise it would have been here today.
Of course, you'd think with their scanning, all the CSR would have had to do, was enter into the computer "Saturday Delivery" and when it got scanned at the sort facility, big blinking red letters would have popped up saying "SATURDAY, DONT PUT THIS IN A WEEKEND DELIVERY BIN, YOU GIT"
But alas, thats not how it works.
So now i'm left to decide if i want to go to Bangor, and buy a cheap stick of 512 to try and get it working today.... or just wait until monday. (when i may have to go up there anyway and get more memory if the bios upgrade doesn't work)
UGH
[B]Well if you are using web tracking, it may very well say it's stuck at the facility until about 5 minutes after he delivers it...[/B][/QUOTE]
I've had that happen a few times. It's really annoying.
I also once had a FedEx package arrive in Auckland from the US, then go down to Christchurch, wait overnight, come back up to Auckland and get delivered.
see i decided to go to Bangor and pick up some memory, so i got a cheap kbyte PC2-4200 stick of 512mb, and popped it in. and the damn machine boots... so just fot gits and shiggles, i put the 2 gigs of OCZ in as well, well looky there, 2.5 gigs of ram, boots fine.
it just won't boot with the OCZ alone, so i dunno wtf i'm going to do about that, guess i'll see if there is a bios update to flash that maybe gets that OCZ working on its own, i mean its PC2-6400 (DDR2-800) and i'd much rather use that than the PC2-4200
End result? Well, we ship out probably several thousand dollars worth FedEx shipping charges from work every month. Our account manager for FedEx intervened, got FedEx to refund the money, and everything worked out. That was probably at least 4-5 months after christmas by the time they finally straitened it out. I'd hate to see what would happen with the average person that doesn't use FedEx for shipping.
Of course, that requires competent tech support :D
[B]Entil'Zha - the first thing that anyone from Asus should have asked was: "what was the beep code." From that they should have been able to tell you that it was memory :)
Of course, that requires competent tech support :D [/B][/QUOTE]
I did tell them what the beep code was, one long sustained never ending beep.
Motherboards give 1.8-1.9 as default which might not be enough for two modules rated for higher voltage, now when you have that slow module BIOS detects it and sets speed/latencies according to that which could be thing allowing OCZs to run at default voltage.
Now I wouldn't keep these as handpicked, or at most chips are the ones which failed handpicking to fast speeds, very average latencies: 5-5-5-12...
Might not be even with Micron chips, or in case of Micron propably D9GCT (maybe handpicked if with those), kits with D9GMH chips are rated for CAS4 and only OCZ's fastest kits are with D9GKX.
[url]http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_ddr2_pc2_6400_gold_gx_xtc_dual_channel[/url]
(warranty covers voltage up to 2.2V so you can try also 2.1V)
[B]Increase memory voltage to 2.0V what is specified in sticker on modules, shut down, remove that PC4200 module and try with OCZs alone. [/B][/QUOTE]
Thanks, I"ll give that a try.
Although, the cable bit, that doesn't suprise me at all, i'm constantly buying things, opening them and realising that they dont ahve all the cables needed.
[B]And of course they are [url=http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=90973]D9's[/url], just can't find out what sort... Jimm's PC Store said those are handpicked so I believe them. [/B][/QUOTE]That thread doesn't mention anything about them being good overclockers with Micron chips, in fact only thing I foung from XS was talk about Elpida chips.
Also these latencies mean these definitly aren't handpicked Microns in real meaning of word.
Arghhh, for that price get OCZ PC2-7200 (DDR2-900) Platinum XTCs (4-4-3-15) from Elektroni.fi, those are with D9GKX which goes like this:
4-4-3-15 900 (2.1V)
4-4-4-12 1000 @2.15V
5-5-5-15 1080 @2.15V
3-3-3-8 820 @2.3V
4-4-3-5 960 @2.1V/1018 @2.3V
5-5-4-8 1140 @2.3V
(and warranty covers up to 2.2V+/-5% = 2.31V)
D9GMHs, especially handpicked, should overclock equally well as D9GKX. (G.Skill 6400HZ-kits use those)
And for example SuperTalent has kits with D9GKX chips doing 4-3-4-8 800 @1.9V. (according to XS they changed to slower binned D9Gs after first lots because of cheaper price of them, although they propably have to do some tighter handpicking)
Apparently all D9Gxx chips come from same manufacturing line and are just tested/binned differently by Micron. (@1.8V)
D9GCT: 3.75ns, 267MHz/DDR2-533 CL4
D9GMH: 3ns, 333MHz/DDR2-600 CL5
D9GKX: 2.5ns, 400MHz/DDR2-800 CL5
[url]http://www.micron.com/support/designsupport/tools/fbga/decoder[/url]
BTW, If you got memory with D9DQT or D9DQW (aka "fat body" because of big chip size) those should overclock extremely well compared to official rating.
[B]$10,000 in personal money? or business money?
Although, the cable bit, that doesn't suprise me at all, i'm constantly buying things, opening them and realising that they dont ahve all the cables needed. [/B][/QUOTE]
Business money but it came from personal contributions by company members. The lack of the cable being provided is a bit surprising for a $10000 piece of highly specialised equipment. It's a bit diffferent from buying, say, a DVD player. Interestingly, the $20000 laser scanner [i]did[/i] come with the cable, suggesting that what you get for the extra $10000 is the time you would otherwise have to spend acquiring the cable.