Sorry to hear of you misfortune. Stuff like this has happened to me
enough times that I don't mess around with trying to build my own pcs
anymore. In the end the frustration just isn't worth it. 

With how low the retail manufacturers are selling pcs for its almost not
worth trying to build your own pc unless you want a highly customized
one. Take the Dell Poweredge SC400 for instance. Last year Dell had a
deal on them for $300 ea, free shipping within the US, free upgrade to a
P4 2.8GHz, 40GB HD, 128MB RAM, no OS. Made for a perfect reliable Linux
desktop machine with a bit of additional memory from pricewatch. 

I think their latest similar product is the SC420. Makes for a good
desktop.

Have no association with Dell (in fact they are not even my first choice
in PCs) but their prices almost can't be beat. Plus you get that no
hassle warranty.

Shahid

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Rolf [mailto:Robert.Rolf@ualberta.ca] 
Posted At: Monday, November 29, 2004 1:00 PM
Posted To: PICList
Conversation: [OT] Beware IDIOT!! assemblers of PC power connectors.
Subject: [OT] Beware IDIOT!! assemblers of PC power connectors.


I just put together a new PC with a brand new high end motherboard and
16X DVD-DL writer. The person who assembled the power cables reversed
the 12V and 5V pins on one of them, so naturally the drive is now fried
(magic smoke is gone), as is the m/b since the 12V went back down the
ATA cable and smoked the highly integrated interface chip.

What really burns is that this is the exact SAME stupidity
that happened to me 10 years ago and that one blew up a $650 SCSI hard
drive. Naturally the dealer who sold me the high end case refused to do
anything about their 'unfit' product since 'we didn't make it'. As a
result of their poor response I took over $10k in ongoing corporate
business elsewhere.

**** Please learn from my $300+ stupidity. ****
ALWAYS CHECK that EVERY!!! power cable is wired correctly before
applying power. A voltmeter check is probably also a good idea since it
wouldn't surprise me that the meager wage Taiwan assemblers would mess
up the colors at the power supply too.

I posted this rant to a local users group list, and
have had enough people reply that they have also
had this happen to THEM that I thought I'd warn
a larger audience of this 'unmentioned' problem.
It doesn't seem to matter whether it is low end or high
end power supplies, assemblers ARE making mistakes and
the Q/C people are NOT catching the errors.

Is this a common problem out there, or have I and the
local computer people just had a lot of bad luck?

Robert
Steaming mad at the idiot assembler and myself
for getting burned yet AGAIN! Complacency is COSTLY.


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