Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!apple!portal!cup.portal.com!Azog-Thoth
From: Azog-Thoth@cup.portal.com (William Thomas Daugustine)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: DEC Service
Message-ID: <34538@cup.portal.com>
Date: 5 Oct 90 00:14:36 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 44


We had a bit of a fiasco with DEC service today, and Id thought Id
share it with the net. This is by no means condemning DEC Service,
and/or its employess. This is a mere statement of fact.

Sometime on Wed, we noticed that one RA81 drive on our VAX 6220 was
logging huge amounts of errors (168 in a 12 hour span). I called
DEC Service at 12noon (its a 1-800 number. I am in NJ, and dont know
if this is a central site, or if there are offices located thruout
the country). 

At 2pm, still no word or sign from anybody. Meanwhile we were starting
to get nervous. A quick call back to inquire on the status of a service
call seemed to prompt someone to move. At 3pm, a CE arrived on site.

By 4:30pm, the trouble was diagnosed as a blown head in the HDA
(the drive was still working, but file access was iffy... Know we
know why). The CE said that the HDA had to be replaced, and could
it be done tomorrow morning? Gee, thats kind of a silly question.
No offense, but we all know what even a LITTLE downtime can be like.
Our last backup was from Monday, and wed be riding for another day
with no backup.

So, the CE called someone, to aquire a new HDA and has the next 
shift take over. Around 5:30pm, a confirmation call was answered.
I left a 7:30pm, and still no sign of a new HDA. More than 8 hours
passed between the inital service call, and the actual fix.

I dont know why, or care why it took so long. All I know is that
we pay lots of money for service, so we can have as little down-
time as possible. 

I dont even care for an explation about why the long delay. As I mentioned,
this is just stateing a fact, and I am not critizing nor condemning the
service people. BUT, I should state that a similar happening occured
sseveral months ago, with again a 6 hour time delay between call and fix.

Perhaps it was just a concidence? 

I thank design engineers for designing such reliable hardware in the
first place.

Billy D'Augustine
Azog-Thoth@cup.portal.com