#Techni-Soft redux
3 messages in this thread
It's over. All 13 group purchase members have received their boards, and to
the best of my knowledge, they are working (perhaps with glitches, but no
out-and-out DOA boards at this time). Summarizing: I heard about this company,
Techni-Soft, selling a 2MB RAM board for $500. I called them and was told that
I could get them for $402.95 if I put together a group purchase. 12 people
joined me in ordering the boards for about $420 each including shipping. T-S
promised to deliver the boards by the first week in October. They didn't. I
finally got my board in late October after considerable phone time, pleading,
cajoling, threatening, etc. I must have called T-S 100 times to try to get
them to ship the rest of the boards. They arrived very slowly over time, the
last in mid-January. Meanwhile, the first board I received had memory errors;
T-S shipped me a new board and sent UPS to pick up the old one after the new
one arrived. The new board worked, but I eventually sent it in for a new PAL
to fix booting problems with the release version of AmigaDOS 1.2, also to get a
new edge connector that wasn't as exposed as the original one. It arrived back
quickly enough, accompanied by an astronomical repair bill with most of the
items labeled as covered by the warranty. Other group purchasers have had
similar experiences — if they send their boards in for repair or update, they
return in a decent amount of time and with most charges covered under warranty.
The boards seem to work. The passthrough is questionable. Delivery is
awful, with nothing but lies, evasions and delays on the phone. Once you've
got the board, repair work is fast and free under warranty (5 years).
In sum, I'd say that though the hardware seems ok and the warranty seems
real, the company does not have its act together. I personally would not buy
another product from them without having seen significant evidence of
improvement. Other memory products are now available at comparable prices.
The small savings from Techni-Soft are not worth the hassles and questions
about the reliability of the company. Stay away. >Bela<
Bela,
I'm one of the T-S group buyers who is still having intermittent boot
problems. These occur sporadicly (ca. 75% of the time) and seem to involve
running a clock pgm and reading the A-Time clock during startup-sequence. In
order to get the upgrade performed, do you have any suggestions on any of the
following: Should I try to contact T-S before shipping my board to them, and if
so what phone number would you suggest? Should I specify the nature of the
problems I am having to them? Do you think I can reasonably expect them to
defray most of the costs, as was the case for your update? Thanks
Bill C-B
Bill, I'm very sorry to hear that your board is still not working perfectly.
Jeeze. Anyway, what is the serial # of your board? If it's under 398, you
have the old PAL chips and they will replace them for free. While you're at it
you may want to upgrade your edge connector (if you don't have the blue
double-female one). That costs $10. When I sent my board in for PAL and edge
connector upgrades, they returned it in a decent amount of time and charged me
only $10, though the bill showed over $100 worth of work, covered by the
warranty. At least they've been darn good about repairs.
Be sure to read the messages starting at #51952 from E. J. Lippert of C. Ltd.
He describes a serious problem internal to the Amiga (regarding slow PAL chips)
which can be the cause of problems like you're experiencing. He'll sell you
replacement PALs for $23 if you can install them/have them installed yourself
(involving desoldering the old PALs from the Amiga daughter board — not for
the faint of heart). If you want him to do it, it's $50. I think that with
this fix and the T-S fix, your board will not only work perfectly, it'll also
pass through correctly so that you can add 3 or 4 more devices after the T-S
board.
For the T-S end of this deal, start by calling them at (801) 268-4961.
Explain the problem and have your serial # handy. They will probably tell you
to send the board in for the PAL upgrade. It should cost you no more than a
phone call, shipping costs and possibly the $10 for the new edge connector.
Please let me know what you do and how it works out… >Bela<