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From: davids@cup.portal.com (David Kenneth Schreiber)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga 3000 and poor quality control.
Message-ID: <32458@cup.portal.com>
Date: 5 Aug 90 06:27:51 GMT
References: <9008011500.AA25318@jade.berkeley.edu>
  <1990Aug1.155127.11975@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <1990Aug03.145623.428@unx.sas.com>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 33

Well, I got my A3000 Friday, and I too have been having troubles.  After
getting my hard drive hooked up (no easy task, see below), I have been 
plagued by crashes:  with both hard drives installed and the cover on, 
after about 10-20 minutes the display (1950 Display-Enhanced) breaks up,
the power light flashes, and the machine resets.  This happens 2-3 times
in a row, then the machine locks up for good (not even CTRL-A-A will reset
it).  With the cover off, these crashes are slightly less frequent, and with
the 2nd hard drive removed (the Commodore supplied one is still installed),
the crashes become even less frequent.  I'm thinking that
either a chip is marginal, causing crashes once things get warmed up (and
with 2 hard drives, things get warm FAST), or the power supply is marginal
(more likely, IMHO).  Any suggestions from anyone out there on what could
be the problem?  I'll probably go back to the dealer & get the machine
replaced, but I won't be able to make it until Thursday.

Re. the hard drive installation:  The manual implies that installing a
second internal hard drive is fairly routine, but when I was installing
mine, I found that there was no power connector for it!  It uses the
standard sized power connector, but the only one available was a small
one (for a second floppy).  I do hope that a larger power plug will be
available in later versions of the 3000 (I'm currently using a Y-splitter
to split the power from the one standard-size plug to the two hard drives).
If not a connector, at least a note in the manual stating that a
Y-splitter is necessary.

Now, don't get me wrong.  What I have seen of the machine I have been
very impressed with.  2.0 is GREAT (who do I call for the 2.0 Native
Developer's Update, BTW?), as is the flicker-free display.  Once these
problems in my 3000 are worked out, I know I'm going to enjoy this 
machine tremendously (just the 2-3 mandelbrots I've generated already
have me drooling; 640x400x16 colors never looked so good...).

-Dave Schreiber at davids@cup.portal.com