Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!crackers!cpoint!frog!rmkhome!rmk
From: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: GVP Series II with Quantum: Drive mak
Message-ID: <9103202259.27@rmkhome.UUCP>
Date: 21 Mar 91 09:18:00 GMT
References: <9103101938.10.119#@BRAINWAVE> <19FZLFB@dri.com>
Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Organization: The Man With Ten Cats
Lines: 23

In article <19FZLFB@dri.com> liberato@dri.com (Jimmy Liberato) writes:
>>I have had my GVP Series II card with 40 meg Quantum for 4 months and
>>have noticed that I can hear the drive working for short bursts BUT the
>>green hard disk light on the front of the Computer doesn't light up. Is
>>this indications of impending doom with my Quantum as I still have it
>>under warranty. It just make a read noise say every three minutes for
>>about 1 second.
>
>Quantum got burned by the infamous stiction problem on an OEM contract
>with Apple a year or so ago.  Their "fix" was a new prom that regularly
>moves the heads all around.


It was actually a 2 part fix.  Besides moving the head around, it also has
a fix in the rom to change the current ramp up time at power on.  This causes
it to yank harder at the heads when moving them from the landing zone at power
up.  Stiction is mainly caused by the heads getting stuck in the lubricant
after the disk is powered down.  Quantum and Seagate buy their platter lubricant
from the same vendor, and they both had the same stiction problem.  My knowledge
of this is from being privy to quantum ECO's at the time.


Rick Kelly	rmk@rmkhome.UUCP	frog!rmkhome!rmk	rmk@frog.UUCP