Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!hal!ncoast!allbery
From: allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Ehman Hard Drives
Message-ID: <1989Sep3.220747.3079@NCoast.ORG>
Date: 3 Sep 89 22:07:47 GMT
References: <1590@lzfme.att.com> <13884@shamash.cdc.com> <1989Aug29.163358.11058@agate.uucp>
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery)
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac
Organization: North Coast Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, OH
Lines: 45

As quoted from <1989Aug29.163358.11058@agate.uucp> by lauac@mead.qal.berkeley.edu (Alexander Lau):
+---------------
| In article <13884@shamash.cdc.com> pwp@shamash.UUCP (Pete Poorman) writes:
| >The drive recently developed a problem where it would intermittently
| >refuse to power-up.  (No spin, no noise. No NUTHIN!) He sent it the Ehman, 
> (...)
| >Upon calling Ehman again, they offered to send another BRAND NEW drive in
| >exchange!
| 
| I fail to understand why, when someone lauds Ehman for "fixing their
| problem," they don't instead lambast Ehman for not giving them a
| working drive in the first place.
+---------------

Because some "intermittent" failures can be a real pain in the *ss to detect
under testing conditions.  Example:  a drive which fails only when it's been
sitting around for a week or so.  It is possible, if the drive is shipped to
the service center via UPS Blue or a faster service, for the service techs to
get the drive and put it through its paces *before* the non-failure period
expires.  However, if it sits around for awhile after being tested and then is
shipped via a slower service, it could arrive outside the failure period and
not work.

Another example: I work for a company which sells and services (non-Apple,
sorry... on the other hand, we aren't really in the same market) computers.
Recently, one of our clients brought in a system which was having intermittent
boot problems; but it never failed when we tested it.  It turned out to be a
glitch in the power supply, which was an auto-switching model (120V/240V).
Some voltage spikes would cause the supply to switch, temporarily interrupting
power and causing a crash.  Unfortunately, our power was too clean even
without a voltage regulator to cause this to happen during testing, so we had
no way to find it ourselves.

This kind of scenario is why a company like Ehman which will give out a
replacement when an intermittent failure shows up but can't be found in
(most) testing is better than one that won't.  Such things happen; companies
should have a policy which deals with them.

++Brandon
(disclaimer: I work in the software end of the business, so I may be off base)
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc	     allbery@NCoast.ORG
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