Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!apple!oliveb!3comvax!bridge2!pvf
From: pvf@bridge2.3Com.Com (Paul V. Fries)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Supra 20meg HD woes - Part III
Message-ID: <592@bridge2.3Com.Com>
Date: 26 Apr 89 19:02:41 GMT
References: <8904240318.AA09120@icase.edu> <4111@tolerant.UUCP>
Reply-To: pvf@diablo.3Com.com (Paul Fries)
Organization: 3COM Corp. , Mt. View. CA
Lines: 29

In article <4111@tolerant.UUCP> al@tolerant.UUCP (Albert Palmer) writes:
>I have had very bad luck with the Miniscribe in the Supra 20.  The first
>thing you need to do is call Supra and order a fan for your drive.  
>Sometime in the last year Supra started using a fan in their 20meg.
>The fan moves alot of air....

Funny you should mention this.  I have had a Supra 20M for several
years now.  One of the first things I noticed was that the thing ran
HOT.  I put a fan in it about 3 days after I bought it.  I have had no
real problems with the machine since.  I say no real problems because I
did have a problem after moving the machine (i.e. disconnecting the
hard drive cable) several times.  The whole thing became quite flaky.
I tried reformatting and everything, but the results were inconsistent
and not very reproduceable.

As the only thing I had recently done to the machine that seemed
related to the new failures was moving it, I looked inside the shell of
the connector body and found the WORST solder joints I have ever seen.
At least half of the joints were obviously cold-soldered.  I resoldered
all the wires in that connector.  It was simple, just heat and feed a
little more solder on the joint.  It has worked perfectly ever since.

Overall, my rating of the Supra 20M is 7 out of 10.  I was really
disappointed that there was no fan, and the connector problem was just
plain unacceptable.  But, with these items cleared-up, the thing works
fine.

PS -- I think I have seen later models of the Supra drives with molded
connectors, so maybe they learned a lesson there.