- Oct 30, 1999
- 11,815
- 104
- 106
This guy had just purchased two Asus A7V boards and two Athlon 1.2 GHz CPUs.
He called and told his salesperson that they both only POSTed and then froze up.
The saleperson called me up and asked me what the problem could be.
Assuming that this guy MUST at least be competent enough to assemble a PC to the point where it would at least POST, I figured maybe it was the board revision and asked if it was actually POSTing at 1.2. The salesperson told me it was. I asked if the customer ever flashed the BIOS. I was told that the customer never got that far. That said, I told the salesperson that any further troubleshooting would have to be done mano y mano.
Apparently the customer didn't have time to call me back on my line, so he just opted to order two new boards. Being gun shy of the Asus at this point, he orders two MSI K7T Pro 2As.
The next day he receives his new product and calls me.
"Yesterday I had two Asus boards that would POST but not boot and today I've got two MSI boards that don't even POST."
Immediately knowing who this guy was due to the fact that I NEVER have people calling us up claiming that they received TWO bad motherboards in one shipment, I started with the line of questioning.
"First off sir, do you have the PC completely stripped down? In other words, no cards other than the video card and no IDE or floppy cables and only one stick of RAM."
"Yes." he responded, "Completely stripped. I always benchtest before I build. Matter of fact I haven't even bothered to put the fan on the CPU until I get it to POST."
"OK. Sir," trying to refrain absolutely SCREAMING at the guy, "you just FRIED both of those 1.2 GHz CPUs. You can not run a Socket A CPU for more than 3 to 5 seconds without frying it. Would you like to buy two more and try this again only this time around with a fan installed?"
It seemed as if the customer didn't quite understand my frustration. "I only had it running long enough to identify the CPU and count the RAM. That wouldn't kill a CPU, would it?"
"OK sir. If you'd like I can give you an RMA for your entire purchase. You'll only be hit with a small restocking fee, but I'm afraid we'll have to put your account on hold since supporting you in the future would be detrimental to the profitability of our company."
He called and told his salesperson that they both only POSTed and then froze up.
The saleperson called me up and asked me what the problem could be.
Assuming that this guy MUST at least be competent enough to assemble a PC to the point where it would at least POST, I figured maybe it was the board revision and asked if it was actually POSTing at 1.2. The salesperson told me it was. I asked if the customer ever flashed the BIOS. I was told that the customer never got that far. That said, I told the salesperson that any further troubleshooting would have to be done mano y mano.
Apparently the customer didn't have time to call me back on my line, so he just opted to order two new boards. Being gun shy of the Asus at this point, he orders two MSI K7T Pro 2As.
The next day he receives his new product and calls me.
"Yesterday I had two Asus boards that would POST but not boot and today I've got two MSI boards that don't even POST."
Immediately knowing who this guy was due to the fact that I NEVER have people calling us up claiming that they received TWO bad motherboards in one shipment, I started with the line of questioning.
"First off sir, do you have the PC completely stripped down? In other words, no cards other than the video card and no IDE or floppy cables and only one stick of RAM."
"Yes." he responded, "Completely stripped. I always benchtest before I build. Matter of fact I haven't even bothered to put the fan on the CPU until I get it to POST."
"OK. Sir," trying to refrain absolutely SCREAMING at the guy, "you just FRIED both of those 1.2 GHz CPUs. You can not run a Socket A CPU for more than 3 to 5 seconds without frying it. Would you like to buy two more and try this again only this time around with a fan installed?"
It seemed as if the customer didn't quite understand my frustration. "I only had it running long enough to identify the CPU and count the RAM. That wouldn't kill a CPU, would it?"
"OK sir. If you'd like I can give you an RMA for your entire purchase. You'll only be hit with a small restocking fee, but I'm afraid we'll have to put your account on hold since supporting you in the future would be detrimental to the profitability of our company."
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