Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: When will the YDL 2.2 iso be available for FTP download?
From: Timothy A. Seufert (tas@mindspring.com)
Date: Tue Mar 19 2002 - 16:02:08 MST
At 1:10 AM -0600 3/19/02, Robert Brandtjen wrote:
>On Monday 18 March 2002 11:55 pm, Timothy A. Seufert wrote:
>> This is not any kind of commentary on the quality of the components
>> you can get this way. It's just that you do not have one of the
>> safety nets you would normally expect. If it breaks, too bad, you're
>> stuck with it. Warranty service is part of what you get when you pay
>> extra for a preassembled system, or even when you pay extra for a
>> non-OEM component.
>
>FUD!
Fact. OEM parts don't have a warranty. As I said, this doesn't mean
they're bad parts, just that the lower price you pay for them *does*
have implications as to the level of support you get.
>OK Tim - i suppose I could always spend 2 to 3 times as much on Apple
>hardware and then mail it back to Cupertino when it has a problem.
I'm just pointing out some facts of life so people can make informed
decisions about what path they want to take to get hardware for Linux
boxes. If you're building your own, you will pay more money if you
want to get warrantied components. And you won't get the convenience
of a single service organization that you get with a prebuilt system,
one which is obligated to make the whole system work together, not
just make a single part work.
(Obviously, this can work against you if your whole-system vendor has
poor service, but when you assemble parts you have to make sure *all*
the sources have good service...)
Don't misinterpret. I'm not against building your own. I've done it
many times. I've even built several *Macs* myself, and you really
have to be determined to do that. I just think people should be
aware of the risks as well as the rewards before investing their
money in a system.
>the drives are warranted - read the website ( 3 year Manufacture warranty) I
>live 3 miles from their store, the drives are boxed, from the manufacturer-
>why do you people always forget to read
Robert. I went to the web page you linked. I did in fact read it.
> - by the way, 120's haven't been out
>that long - but I'll be sure to post here as soon as one of my drives dies -
>
>quote from the page "IBM 40G 7200RPM IDE
> ATA/100, 8.5MS Seek Time, 120GXP Series, OEM Drive
> 3 Year End User Warranty from IBM
> HD-IDE-I-40-GXPBM 40G 7200RPM IDE
> ATA/100, 8.5MS Seek Time, 120GXP Series, OEM Drive
> 3 Year End User Warranty from IBM
> HD-IDE-I-40-GXP"
If General Nanosystems believes that an OEM drive has any warranty
from IBM, they are almost certainly mistaken (or misrepresenting
their products).
You do know what OEM means, don't you? It means that the drive was
manufactured for sale to a large systems vendor (such as Apple), with
part of the contractual terms being that the systems vendor agrees to
provide the end-user warranty. So right away you see that the part
mfr. has no obligations to the end user. As far as the systems
vendor goes, their warranties cover whole systems, not OEM parts that
somehow got diverted to the open market. So there is nobody who
feels contractually obligated to support an OEM part sold directly to
the public.
Try entering the serial & part numbers from the drives you bought
from General Nano into IBM's warranty validation form:
http://www.storage.ibm.com/warranty/jsp/arma31.jsp?ibmer=0
It's a very very good bet that if your drive's label says "OEM"
anywhere on it, that page will tell you that your warranty is
expired, or even explicitly inform you that it's an OEM serial number
which IBM will not support. It did that for me on an OEM 60GXP.
Just to check, I also entered a ~2 year old 75GXP (non-OEM), and it
was validated as still being under warranty.
-- Tim Seufert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Tue Mar 19 2002 - 16:16:58 MST