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Xref: sserve comp.os.linux.misc:22316 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems:5046 comp.os.386bsd.misc:3330 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!sunic!trane.uninett.no!eunet.no!nuug!EU.net!uunet!ankh.iia.org!ralph.vnet.net!166.82.1.9!johnsonm From: johnsonm@nigel.vnet.net (Michael K. Johnson) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems,comp.os.386bsd.misc Subject: Re: Any Royal users out there? Date: 20 Aug 1994 05:55:50 GMT Organization: Tea Conspiracy Lines: 54 Message-ID: <JOHNSONM.94Aug20055551@nigel.vnet.net> References: <Cut7Ds.92A@ucdavis.edu> <334j40$hen@gap.cco.caltech.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: nigel.vnet.net In-reply-to: uranium@chop.ugcs.caltech.edu's message of 20 Aug 1994 09:41:20 GMT In article <334j40$hen@gap.cco.caltech.edu> uranium@chop.ugcs.caltech.edu (Cuisinart) writes: You might want to look into Maximus--they looked pretty decent pricewise last time I looked in MicroTimes. No, I made that mistake, and would like to caution anyone else against making the same mistake. The machine wasn't in that bad shape; one malfunctioning floppy, and later the CPU fan broke, and the video board doesn't work under Windows (but works fine under XFree86, so I haven't pursued it very far). However, for 6 *months* I couldn't get in touch with technical support. You read that right. 6 months. It would alternate between busy and no answer when I called. This was during a time that they had promised to send me a new video board, and never did. I finally called their *sales* line and complained, and was told "They've got an open line. Call them again now", and someone was magically there. Hmm. Coincidence? I think now... *This time*, I was told that there was no problem with my video board, that they had no record of promising to ship me a new video board (they admitted they had "lost some files...", and refused to ship me a video board, now telling me I had a bad windows driver. They refused to send me a disk with the driver, and instead told me to call Orchid's BBS and download the driver. I spent 17 minutes on-line, and couldn't find the driver (did they bother to give me a filename? NOOOOOOO!). At the same time, they promised to send me a new CPU fan. A week and a half later, a small box appeared, but it only contained a holder for 4 AA-cells with a little sticky pad on the back. Some time later, I was able to get through again to tech support, and they have promised to send a CPU fan and a disk with the driver on it. I'll believe it when I see it. I've gotten enough non-support from them to have reason to question it. If I really needed Windows support, I would have given up on Maximus and called Orchid and explained that my vendor was refusing to support me and would have pleaded for their help. The reason I bought from Maximus in the first place was becuase they sounded like they knew what Linux and XFree86 are; they knew the names and what chipsets were compatible, and had an idea what would perform well. Unfortunately, their service and support sucks, as far as I've been able to tell. I would not recommend buying from them, and do not intend to buy from them again. michaelkjohnson