It's official: Tyan doesn't support their products.

[chucky2]

Well, an unfortunate update from Tyan Technical Support (I guess they do have e-mail after all!):

"Chuck,

There will be no fix for this due to the age of the product and the fact that this motherboard was never designed around the ACPI standards that arrived after this motherboard was released. Unfortunately in light of the way technology works we simply do not have the resources to go back and constantly update aged products for todays markets."

I'll translate for everyone:

If you have a motherboard that is more than 2 or 3 releases old, we won't support you. Its not that we can't fix your problem, its just that we already have your money, so we can now forget about you.

For anyone thinking about buying one of those dual Socket-A motherboards, I'd hold on out for Asus or MSI or Epox if I were you. If Tyan can't/won't support my motherboard, how do you think they'll support your dual motherboard, better or worse? Want to bet what you'll pay for it?

I didn't think so.

Chuck

P.S. Not knocking Tyan's product (except their reluctance with Matrox products....sometimes they work, others they don't), just their support- or lack thereof. A real shame.....

EDIT: Corrected typos.

 

[Duvie]

Tough luck...Unfortunately most companies would have done the same thing...

IN the past I have had a few items that I got the cold shaft from the support to work with new operating systems....

 

[ViRGE]

Exactly what mobo is Tyan not supporting?

 

[RedShirt]

Well, honestly, I do feel for you, but most companies operate this way.

And I can see their view also. They will be using money and resources updating an old motherboard instead of focusing on the new.

And you can even install Win 2000 without ACPI (not sure about XP). So, you still can use an updated operating system. In fact, many people prefer to not use ACPI since a lot of products are STILL not fully ACPI compliant.

 

[Vrangel]

Actually Tyan deserves some respect for being honest.
Lesser company would have fed you with empty promises for months.

Life is a tough thing, Chucky .

 

[Zach]

Okay, so the board wasn't made for ACPI, you have a problem with that, and they wont help you? Boo hoo?

 

[chucky2]

Duvie- Thanks for the support.

ViRGE- They're not supporting the S1598/S1598C2. Its the flagship of Super-7 motherboards (very close runner-up is the Epox -G5). The thing isn't even 2.5 years old yet.

RedShirt- Thanks for the sympathy! Yes, they will be using money and resources fixing an old motherboard - this is called product support, which is what more and more companies are doing less and less of these days. I'm using XP with APM enabled and its been stable so far (installed on November 12th). However, the only two peripherals I have in my computer are my AGP video card, Matrox G400, and my NIC, Intel Pro/100+ Management. So, ACPI really isn't needed.

But what if I added a sound card, DV capture card, and a DVD decoder? More than likely, ACPI would be needed for everything to work properly. So, people using ACPI get screwed by shoddy support? Great company, sounds like one I'd like to buy a new motherboard from.

Vrangel- Give a good read through the thread I've posted a link to below. Tyan couldn't even be bothered to reply for the past couple of months! I know life is tough, but it shouldn't have to be made tougher by support-less companies like Tyan.

Zach- The board was made with temperature sensors - these don't work as advertised. The board was made for ACPI, as stated on Tyan's product page for the S1598 - obviously, ACPI isn't working if people are getting ACPI errors in Event Viewer. Numerous people have complained about slow sustained IDE transfer rates on the S1598. This guy (read the thread below and you'll see what I'm talking about) actually got Tyan to test IDE transfers on the S1598 (he had to go through the Marketing Dept. to get this done, not Support). They compared it to a modern ATA-100 motherboard and write back saying that the ATA-100 motherboard was 30% faster....Now, I'm not an expert, but it seems like - to me - they compared the burst transfer rate. Burst and Sustained are two different things. Sustained really shouldn't be all that different, since no IDE hard drives can come close to maxing out 66MB/s, wich the S1598 supports. So, what the h*ll was Tyan testing?

Now, it seems to me that when you release a product, it should work as advertised. Broken temp. readouts, broken IDE sustained transfer rates, and ACPI that doesn't work properly is not working as advertised.

Tell me something: If after you bought Tyan's brand new $500 dual Socket-A motherboard, you found out that you would be having problems in 1.5 to 2 years, and Tyan would just blow you off, would you just write that up to whining and go find yourself another motherboard? When the one you have could, with a little effort from Tyan, be made to work correctly?

Here's the link to the thread I started over at AMDZone:
Tyan S1598 Thread Contiuned

Thanks everyone for your replies! I appreciate all of them! (even yours Zach!)

Chuck

 

[Viper GTS]

You're complaining because a company won't support a Super7 board?

I have a Super7 system that's still being used in my house, & I don't expect support for it.

Tell me something: If after you bought Tyan's brand new $500 dual Socket-A motherboard, you found out that you would be having problems in 1.5 to 2 years, and Tyan would just blow you off, would you just write that up to whining and go find yourself another motherboard? When the one you have could, with a little effort from Tyan, be made to work correctly?

I think I can answer this honestly because I'm currently writing this on a Tyan Tiger MP running dual TBirds. This is the best system I've ever had, hands down. And no, I do not expect support in 1.5-2 years. That's an eternity in PC hardware.

Viper GTS

 

[gogeeta13]

<< Duvie- Thanks for the support.

ViRGE- They're not supporting the S1598/S1598C2. Its the flagship of Super-7 motherboards (very close runner-up is the Epox -G5). The thing isn't even 2.5 years old yet.

RedShirt- Thanks for the sympathy! Yes, they will be using money and resources fixing an old motherboard - this is called product support, which is what more and more companies are doing less and less of these days. I'm using XP with APM enabled and its been stable so far (installed on November 12th). However, the only two peripherals I have in my computer are my AGP video card, Matrox G400, and my NIC, Intel Pro/100+ Management. So, ACPI really isn't needed.

But what if I added a sound card, DV capture card, and a DVD decoder? More than likely, ACPI would be needed for everything to work properly. So, people using ACPI get screwed by shoddy support? Great company, sounds like one I'd like to buy a new motherboard from.

Vrangel- Give a good read through the thread I've posted a link to below. Tyan couldn't even be bothered to reply for the past couple of months! I know life is tough, but it shouldn't have to be made tougher by support-less companies like Tyan.

Zach- The board was made with temperature sensors - these don't work as advertised. The board was made for ACPI, as stated on Tyan's product page for the S1598 - obviously, ACPI isn't working if people are getting ACPI errors in Event Viewer. Numerous people have complained about slow sustained IDE transfer rates on the S1598. This guy (read the thread below and you'll see what I'm talking about) actually got Tyan to test IDE transfers on the S1598 (he had to go through the Marketing Dept. to get this done, not Support). They compared it to a modern ATA-100 motherboard and write back saying that the ATA-100 motherboard was 30% faster....Now, I'm not an expert, but it seems like - to me - they compared the burst transfer rate. Burst and Sustained are two different things. Sustained really shouldn't be all that different, since no IDE hard drives can come close to maxing out 66MB/s, wich the S1598 supports. So, what the h*ll was Tyan testing?

Now, it seems to me that when you release a product, it should work as advertised. Broken temp. readouts, broken IDE sustained transfer rates, and ACPI that doesn't work properly is not working as advertised.

Tell me something: If after you bought Tyan's brand new $500 dual Socket-A motherboard, you found out that you would be having problems in 1.5 to 2 years, and Tyan would just blow you off, would you just write that up to whining and go find yourself another motherboard? When the one you have could, with a little effort from Tyan, be made to work correctly?

Here's the link to the thread I started over at AMDZone:
Tyan S1598 Thread Contiuned

Thanks everyone for your replies! I appreciate all of them! (even yours Zach!)

Chuck >>



Well duh, that board has probably been out of the retail market for a year, the have moved onto bigger and better things, you shoudl be happy they even responded. MSI, Abit and Asus probably wouldn't have admitted to anything.

Tuff luck chuckster

 

[Sugadaddy]

I'll translate:


Your board is too old, get a new one.

 

[Zach]

I have an S1598, and it's ancient history! At the time, a lot of boards had ACPI problems. I remember their website saying something about disabling ACPI when installing Win2K. Fine, no problem. It is an MVP3 chipset you know....

If you want the latest and greatest features, buy a new board! Don't just whine and bitch about it. Why do you need ACPI so bad? You don't I bet. It's a null problem in the first place.

 

[chucky2]

Viper GTS- Yes, I expect support from Tyan for my Super-7 motherboard. I don't know why that's too much to expect. A car is (usually) warrantied for 3 years or 36,000 miles. If it breaks within that time, you bring it in and they fix it, no questions asked. That's a mechanical piece of machinery. I'm asking that my motherboard, that has no moving parts and sits inside a temperature controlled room all day, get at least the same amount of support. Look how long hard drives are warrantied for...they are probably the most likely thing in the computer to die, with the exception of cheap fans.

I'm jelous of your system! However, I think that it's insane that you wouldn't expect Tyan to provide support for your motherboard in 1.5-2 years. The 1.06c BIOS has been out for 10.5 months now. That's 10.5 months Tyan has let a broken BIOS sit on their website. Through a good QC process, they could have fixed the 1.06c and released a final, working like it should, BIOS. Instead, they chose to half-*ss it and just leave it because its "good enough".

I guess I just expect more than "good enough" from companies I deal with. I don't my teachers "good enough," I give them as good as I can do. For some reason, I don't get that feeling after having dealt with Tyan.

gogeeta13- By this definition, if a serious bug was found within the code of a Pentium III CPU, Intel shouldn't feel compelled to release a microcode update to fix the problem? People should just scrap their PIII machine (which is enough machine for them), go out and get a new machine?

Sugadaddy- I run Office applications, surf the 'Net, and write e-mail. Very rarely I'll play some Diablo II. Why exactly, other than Tyan not supporting my motherboard (thereby forcing an upgrade) should I get a new machine? I challenge someone to show me that a new machine would make me more productive than what I'm running with right now.

Again, thanks everyone for your replies!

Chuck

 

[Jayczar]

Wow Chuck, looks like you posted your issue in the wrong place.
You got Slammadammadingdonged!!Geesh!!

 

[Remedy]

If a product is discontinued, doesn't that mean that it is no longer supported??

 

[Gunbuster]

2.5 years for computer hardware = ~25 real life years

Super socket 7 is dead

 

[chucky2]

Zach- LOL! It's nice to say that they're ancient history...unfortunately, I don't have the need to play Quake III at 234235325fps or anything like that. I do want the product I payed for to work like it was advertised as. That means, everything should work, period. If you say the motherboard supports ACPI, then it supports ACPI. It doesn't sort of ACPI, it completely supports ACPI. Really, how hard do you think it would be for Tyan to open up the C file the BIOS is most likely written in, switch the reference for CPU Temp and System temp around, and recompile? Would that be so hard for them? No. Why is this so hard to do?

I don't want the latest and greatest features, I want my motherboard to work like it should. I, personally, don't need ACPI. At least not yet. Standby would be nice to have, but I can live without it. Faster IDE sustained transfers would be nice, but I guess this doesn't matter with fast computers, since sustained transfers are ancient. Of course, I could go out and buy a new motherboard and processor (and then a decent heatsink/fan combo). But, then again, my computer is plenty fast for what I do with it.

So, its not ancient to me. If you want, you can send me money and I'll go and buy a new CPU and motherboard.

Jayczar- LOL!! At least these people responded! Tyan Support wouldn't even acknowledge me until Friday. I suspect its because I was e-mailing Matt in Marketing. Now, why would I do this? Because the Marketing department seems to be the only one that cares about helping users. Even then, Matt never followed up with me. Extremely bad execution I'd say. First, its "Tell me what you'd like me to do", then after I tell him what needs to be looked at, I get no responce.

ReMeDy{WcS}- Their last BIOS they released is broke. It's not like I'm adding new sh*t on here, its just stuff they should have caught if they had done proper QC in the first place.

My philosophy is either do it right, or don't do it at all. Apperantly, Tyan doesn't take this approach.

It really is sad. I like the stability of my S1598 (but I can get away with APM mode for now). Another Tyan buy would have been warranted, but I value support. Support doesn't end the day your next product comes out, its an ongoing thing.

Chuck

 

[Pariah]

The last desktop socket 7 CPU released was in February 1999, and you expect that product to still be supported? Good luck getting support of Slot A MB's released a year later. I don't even see what problem you're having. Obviously your system is running, I don't see why you would expect a company to waste time and money tracking down nonfatal bugs in 2+ year old products. If the problems were so major you should have dumped the boards years ago.

 

[Spook]

Problem is... there are too many damn chipsets out there now.... Jees you PIII, P4, Slot A, Socket A, DDR, SDR RDRAM, VIA, SIS, ALI, Intel Solutions...

It was easy in the old days... Intel BX... hmm half their lineup was Intel BX... but now theirs just way to many out there to support...

 

[andrey]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but let's look at this car example.

Let's say you have an old car and and trying to put a brand new engine in it? Why would you even want to do that than you will have to get a new transmission, new steering, new this and that? If you have something that works, keep it the way it is, or as they say, "if it is not broken, don't fix it". If you want to have a car which will run for you flawlessly, many times it is much cheaper to get a brand new car instead of spending money and time fixing the old one.

Exactly the same situation with your motherboard. Windows 2000 or Windows Me didn't exist 2 years ago, so just keep the OS which was available at that time. If you want to do an upgrade, everyone here will tell you that upgrading hardware is the first step you need to take before installing brand new OS.

 

[NesuD]

<< Yes, I expect support from Tyan for my Super-7 motherboard. I don't know why that's too much to expect. A car is (usually) warrantied for 3 years or 36,000 miles. If it breaks within that time, you bring it in and they fix it, no questions asked. >>


With a car the manufacturer states the warranty coverages up front such as 3 years/36,000 miles. I believe your board had a 1 year warranty. It is out of warranty now. If the temp sensors weren't functioning you should have returned it during the warranty period. It is terribly unrealistic to expect a 3 year old design to even be electrically capable of the updates that you seem to expect. I am sure that it works perferctly with the hardware and os's available at the time it was designed. Nowhere in the warranty does it state that it will be supported beyond the warranty period. While it would be nice if all our components were supported indefinately you are definately wrong to expect that in my opinion.

 

[wdb1966]

I would agree that continuing active support for a board of this age is not something that most board makers would do, but its really not asking much to post a BIOS update that already exists...beta or not...for those customers that continue to use it.

My wife's 600mhz machine uses this board with the BETA 106e BIOS...Win2k & winXP run fine now, no problems.

That was not the story with the 106c BIOS...no APM or ACPI with 2k or XP.

There are two BIOS updates available for this board...Tyan could simply post these on their site with the usual beta warnings, etc.

Tyan's attitude has swayed me from buying one of their dual boards...I won't dump that kind of $$$ into somthing that they will not support in just over a year, like as with the s1598c2.

Abit & Gigabyte both have MUCH better product support than does Tyan.

 

[Gunbuster]

You also need to remember Tyans niche is upper end server boards.

It's a good bet most R&D and updates goes to the $$$ boards

 

[gogeeta13]

Your car analigy(sp?) is worthless. Cars are different then computers, most people who buy cars drive them for 4-10 years, considering your 3 year warantly, that is about the first 1/3 of it's uselfull life. SS7's life ended about 1-3 years ago, so going by your analigy, your warranty should have been about 60-90 days

You are fighting a losing battle, and tyan could care less about ss7.

 

[Poontos]

<< Correct me if I'm wrong, but let's look at this car example.

Will do...

Let's say you have an old car and and trying to put a brand new engine in it? Why would you even want to do that than you will have to get a new transmission, new steering, new this and that? If you have something that works, keep it the way it is, or as they say, "if it is not broken, don't fix it". If you want to have a car which will run for you flawlessly, many times it is much cheaper to get a brand new car instead of spending money and time fixing the old one.

Exactly the same situation with your motherboard. Windows 2000 or Windows Me didn't exist 2 years ago, so just keep the OS which was available at that time. If you want to do an upgrade, everyone here will tell you that upgrading hardware is the first step you need to take before installing brand new OS. >>



One a side note, IMHO WinME is garbage compared to Win98SE and Win2K, but that's a seperate issue. With that said, I didn`t bother following the life cycle or beginning of WinME, but I was involved with Beta 3 and the RC1's of Windows 2000 and I know for a fact that it was released near the end of 1999, which would make your statement of Windows 2000 not existing 2 years ago, false.

Besides that, I do agree that if you are going to make an OS upgrade (Windows 2000 being a pretty major one, especially when it would bring crap hardware and software to the forefront. Which it still does to this day. ), than your hardware needs to be compliant and up to date.

And I also agree that 2.5 years in the computer hardware industry is like (well a new example in my case) 10 years in the auto industry.

Anyway, just thought I would bring that to light.

 

[andrey]

gogeeta13, that is why it is called an analogy. Many times it is easier to understand certain things by providing an example from items and goods which people use on everyday baisis.