Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!husc6!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!drk
From: drk@athena.mit.edu (David R Kohr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: CompuAdd
Keywords: AT, 286
Message-ID: <14015@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 2 Sep 89 23:16:47 GMT
References: <719@dtix.dt.navy.mil>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: drk@athena.mit.edu (David R Kohr)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 45

In article <719@dtix.dt.navy.mil> harvey@nems.UUCP (Betty Harvey - Code: 1893.5) writes:
>
>	I have a friend who is getting ready to order a 286 P.C. from CompuAdd.
>Has anyone had any good or bad experiences dealing with them?
>
>Betty Harvey    <harvey@nems.dt.navy.mil>
>David Taylor Research Center
>Bethesda, Md.

We have several dozen CompuAdd 286/10's and 286/12's in my group here
at Lincoln.  We've had the following problems:

1.  The power supplies on several machines have gone out, so that replacement
    was needed.

2.  The battery-backup has occassionally failed (I think), so that we
    had to re-run the ROM Setup program (I'm not the official PC support
    person in my group, so I don't recall this problem very well--I may
    be mixing this up with just having the batteries run low).

3.  We've had intermittent problems with the disk controllers on some
    machines, so that we either had to replace them or fiddle with them
    in some way.  (Again, I may have this wrong.)

4.  The original CompuAdd motherboards were somehow incompatible with
    SCO Xenix, so we replaced all the motherboards (free of charge)
    to be able to run Xenix (I believe this problem doesn't exist with
    the newer motherboards).

This may sound like a lot of problems, but considering that that is
all that's happened to several dozen machines in the course of a year 
or two of daily use, that's a pretty good track record.  In fact, I
bought a 286/20 for home use based on my experience with CompuAdd's at 
work.  I haven't yet had a single problem with it, after about two months.
A friend of mine bought a 386/25, and hasn't had any problems with it so 
far, either.

I'd have to recommend them for a medium-range machine in terms of price
and quality.  They're not Dell or Compaq, but they don't cost as
much either.  (Of course, I'm not affiliated in any way with
CompuAdd Corp.--I just use their stuff.)

David R. Kohr   M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory    Group 45 ("Radars 'R' Us")
	email:	KOHR@LL.LL.MIT.EDU   or   DRK@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
	phone:	(617)981-0775 (work),   (617)527-3908 (home)