Re: PC or Mac?

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <slrna5jc76.21.byron@b60z27hbb464i.ab.hsia.telus.net>,
Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill <byron@b60z27hbb464i.ab.hsia.telus.net> wrote:
>In article <a3c3jv$qmb$1@merope.saaf.se>, Paul Schlyter wrote:
>> Don't you think it's premature to judge a whole line of computers from
>> just one single specimen?
>
>I base the judgement on a number of Wintel computers.  Then again, I
>will point out that this judgement is remains flawed because a lot of
>these computers were brought to me because they were broken.  ;)
>
>Still, I have run into some unexcusable problems: VESA cards (yes, I
>know these are long gone) tended to pop out of expansion slots due
>to poorly designed mainboards or cases; clock batteries which were
>soldered to the pins of an IC (which were terribly delicate in their
>own right), which meant an expensive replacement or a delicate
>soldering job (the computer *would not* boot without a functional
>battery).  I ran into a mainboard which never worked properly because
>the socket for one DIMM was not soldered to the mainboard properly.
>(This last case was a problem from day one, but never repaired under
>warranty for some reason.  When the salesman was asked why the
>components were so cheap he said that they buyer was clearly unwilling
>to pay for quality hardware in the first place, otherwise he could
>have sold them a Mac.  ;)

SInce there are so many varieties of PC motherboards, naturally some
of them will be of not so good quality.  Apparenly you encountered
them (because you repaired PC's?).  I didn't because I was careful
to not buy the cheapest alternatives for myself.

However on my veyr first PC motherboard (An XT motherboard) the
-5V line on the bus actually carried -12 Volts!!!!  I found out
once when measuring the bus, and also found and corrected the cause
of this, which turned out to be some solder having floated out
between the -5V and -12V connectors to the power supply!  Fortunately
no expansion card I had used the -5V connector....



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