Gateway Boat Anchor Update

CharlesL

PFG, Picture Framing God
In Memorium
Rest In Peace


Gone but not forgotten
Joined
Apr 9, 2001
Posts
7,255
Loc
Clayton, NC
Local girl who builds computers got the Gateway last Thursday. She's bringing it back tomorrow. Here's what she found, so far:

-160 watt power supply. Motherboard, per Intel's homepage, calls for 163 watts minimum. It also has a DVD player, a CD burner, and 2 hard drives.
-Modem will NOT connect to MSN network. Connects to her network fine. It's a new modem that Gateway sent a guy out to replace.
-Video card has a trouble in it. It's a high-dollar video card, too. She thinks that may be part of the problem.
-Found problems with XP Home Edition. Tried to get updates: didn't help.
-We bought from, and had Gateway install a 40G HD. The geniuses at gateway had it configured as a 2G HD.

That's all I can think of right now. She didn't fix it. She could have, but reccomended I take it back to Gateway.
I have an old Fone Co friend who first got a TRS 80 from Radio shack, and within about a week or two, had reprogrammed it to do what HE wanted it to do. Think I'll call him tomorrow.
I am very hesitant to take it back to Gateway, because all of the above problems were either IN the computer when we got it, or were PUT in the computer when Gateway worked on it.
 
Yikes, what a "pandoras box".

I prefer assembling my own clones, but often use the cheap Dells for clients. They're pretty much disposable, but the price is right and they keep ticking away...
 
Then there's I, who bought three Gateways before Christmas and haven't had problem #1 with any of them.
Now my ISP??? That's another story. Maybe it's time for Comcast broadband???
 
Some modems that come with "Big Box" Computers as well as AMR riser type modem cards, are usually PCTel type CHEAP modems. I've had a multitude of problems wit these cheapies signing on to ISPs, I would suggest a standalone Modem with it's own UART chip on board the card. Modems that like to take up system resources to work sometimes don't.
 
I guess most of us have had modem problems at one time or another. I had to replace every factory modem that came on all my computers through the years and the one modem that seemed to always solve the connect/disconnect problems was the U.S. Robotics brand modems. They were recommended to me by a number of computer guys who know their stuff and I hadn't had any real problems to speak of after installing them.

I got a real deal through Sprint here in FWB when I installed my home phone though. They offered a package with phone hookup, call waiting, call forwarding, voice mail, line maintenance, and some other goodies AND a free DSL modem and DSL hookup for $75 per month. That is quite an increase in internet speed and, when you factor in the cost of normal DSL hookup, a bargain.

If DSL isn't available in your area, I would check into the U.S. Robotics modems. They seem to be the most reliable modems on the market and they offer a line check on their website that will diagnose your upload/download speed and tell you where you stand regarding what speeds you should be operating with on the internet.

Framerguy
 
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