Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!linus!sjsca4!poffen
From: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Everex RAM-3000 Deluxe Failures
Message-ID: <1990Feb28.033007.16273@sj.ate.slb.com>
Date: 28 Feb 90 03:30:07 GMT
References: <6846@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Organization: Schlumberger Technologies, San Jose, CA.
Lines: 48

In article <6846@ubc-cs.UUCP> jalbert@cs.ubc.ca (Francois Jalbert) writes:
>About a month ago, I bought an Everex RAM-3000 Deluxe (EV159), put 3 Mb on it as
>extended using 100ns memory chips, left the W1 jumper on it for 2 wait states,
>and tried it on my 14/9 MHz 80286. All worked fine so I bought it. Now, after
>5 weeks of use, the Everex is failing. Certain rows and columns of the
>matrix of memory chips fail. Swapping/replacing memory chips doesn't help.
>The board works fine in the 12/8 MHz 80286 of a friend though. The newly found
>problem is obviously linked to the bus speed. However, nowhere in the 
>documentation is a possible bus speed limit mentioned. Of course, I had checked
>thoroughly for such a potential limitation in the documentation before buying.
>The Everex technical support was useless. Their argument is: Our boards work
>on some 20MHz 80386's, and fail on some 8MHz 80286's. Tough luck, buddy.
>Needless to say, I am not too happy and have no choice but to sell the board.
>I would just like to warn anybody out there to at least try any Everex board
>in your machine before buying. I agree I did that and it didn't help, but do
>it anyway. And don't expect any help from Everex if it fails after a while.
>I will give Tall Tree Systems a ring tomorrow and see what they can offer.
>
>                                  Francois
>                                      '
>P.S. I won't touch an Everex product for the rest of my life!


I had a similar problem with an EV-159. I bought it, took it home and put it in
my 16/8 Mhz '286 clone and would get all kinds of strange results. I took it
back where I got it (Fry's) and they said I could either get my money back or
try another. They even took that card and put it in one of their machines
(different brand of clone than mine), and also had problems. OK, so I figured
it was a bad board so I exchanged it for another. Put it in my system and guess
what? Same problems. This time when I took it back, I got my money back, went
somewhere else and got an Intel Aboveboard.

Nearest I can tell is that the RAM-3000 deluxe has MAJOR compatibility problems
that Everex doesn't want to admit. Too bad, I liked some of the features that
the board had.

As far as not buying another Everex product, I don't know, I also have a 2400
Baud modem, magic I/O card, and tape backup, all from Everex and have never
had any problems with those.

BTW, the Aboveboard works flawlessly, not as flexible in addressing, and not as
many features, but it is good enough for what I want.


Russ Poffenberger               DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com
Schlumberger Technologies       UUCP:   {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen
1601 Technology Drive		CIS:	72401,276
San Jose, Ca. 95110             (408)437-5254