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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
- Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!crcnis1.unl.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!hobbes.physics.uiowa.edu!news.iastate.edu!isuvax.iastate.edu!TWFH5
- From: twfh5@isuvax.iastate.edu
- Subject: Re: Packard Bell experiences
- Message-ID: <C09IM0.DLK@news.iastate.edu>
- Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System)
- Reply-To: twfh5@isuvax.iastate.edu
- Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
- Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 05:15:35 GMT
- Lines: 37
-
- To whoever it was who wanted to know about buying Packard Bell. If you have
- any thought of installing a soundcard, you may want to read a post by
- eric@tvnews.tv.tek.com (Eric F. Dorondo) in comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
- from Sun, 27 Dec 1992 07:44:37 GMT. He writes in part:
-
- As a side note, it seems that alot of Packard Bell owners that bought SBPros
- have had a high incedents of hardware incompatabilities, from odd occurances
- to not getting them to work at all. To be more specific, I have installed
- sbpros into 2 packard bells, one a Legend or Force (can't remember) but it
- wouldn't work at all, well actually it worked only in 2 operator mode but soon
- as one tried 4 operator, the system got clobbered somehow so that 2 operator
- nor 4 operator would ever work again until you reset the whole computer. I
- finally got it to work by using the sb-basic mono unit that only has 2 operator.
- This way I was assured of never seeing 4 oper. The people are happy cause
- they think thats all there is (not knowing about the pro), and all the games
- work ok, and the fm organ works ok so they are none the wiser. Other than
- that I would have to tell them to sell the PB computer (if they could) and
- go get a more standardized computer with a real motherboard. God I hate Pack
- Bell, they have created so many headaches for people that will try to go
- multimedia soon, I hope it bites that wretched corporation so they will go
- out of business. The other Pack Bell machine I put a sbpro into was the
- Packmate series and it exibited no problems. The only thing I didn't like
- was they put LPT1 at IRQ7 with no motherboard jumpers to set it to the normal
- place of IRQ5, so I had to put the SBPro at IRQ5, but all games play and
- windows 3.1 work fine, no problems. I know the Force series has problems and
- I got a sneaken' hunch its in the DMA end of it, I know that is crucial but
- its only a guess why they don't work, and of course PB knows they can save
- a penny by leaving out some critical piece of the DMA or something in their
- asic.
- We need more PB owners to write in and share good/bad experiences with the
- sbpro. If enough dissatisfied owners write in, I wonder if a class action
- suit wouldn't be in order, not that it would help, PB would just say they
- never said it was mmedia ready. What a joke.
- Well, I guess you can tell I'n not all fired up. I take it personal when
- I have to tell people, sorry, you bought junk and your going to have to trade
- it in, you might get 350 bucks for what you paid 1500 for, even though its
- 386sx or whatever, but other than that you can forget stereo sound.
-