Dear Listers,
This is a long post but I feel compelled to share my experience with
OWC and Powerlogix. I have always had high regard for OWC, until now
that is. DO NOT buy a 900 MHz or 1 GHz Powerlogix CPU! I don't know
about others but these will ruin your day as being attested by myself
and many others at XLR8YourMac and MacGurus.
A month ago I purchased one of the G4 900's on sale at OWC. A great
deal considering all the negatives I have heard about PL, so I figured
I'd give them the benefit of a doubt and go for an upgrade. Did I make
a mistake? I sure did. IT TOTALLY SCRAMBLED MY HARD DRIVE & DATA.
After receiving my new processor, I went through all the proper
procedures to install in my perfectly running 450 Mhz AGP Sawtooth
running OS 10.3.9 w/ 896 mb ram, primarily on a new 80 gig WD drive
partitioned in two. The small 25 gig partition holding the OS and all
apps, important active work, emails and stuff on desktop. The other
partition holding long term data, a few other drives with data as well.
So I installed the cpu. System ran for about 10 minutes and then the
problems started. Soon I was forced to force shut down as the system
froze, then machine going into kernal panics at boot, soon gave "Keys
out of Order" alerts, then Alerts to Restart in different languages,
unix promts, to no longer booting whatsoever, all in the span of an
hour. So then I began the basic repair attempts. FSCK, Permissions,
to Diskwarrior. Nothing worked. Luckily I didn't try booting from my
other drive with this G4 900 processor installed, or it would have
suffered the same fate as described below.
I reinstalled my stock G4 450 processor and tried booting. No luck.
So I booted into another drive with the stock processor so as to run
disk repair. Said it couldn't repair the drive. I then ran
Diskwarrior. The first several attempts it reported it could not
repair the drive. I also ran it from CD and had no luck the first few
times. I then ran DW from my Lombard with the drive in a USB
enclosure. I was finally able to successfully run DW to where it could
repair the drive, only thing is it took 18 hours to get through it.
In short, the damage that defective processor did to my drive was to
overlap 161,921 files... as reported by DW. So I let it run, but
unfortunately the lombard choked the first attempt "encountering an
unexpected error while attempting to repair overlapped files". Hoping
it reconstructed some key files, I attempted the repair from the
Lombard a second time. Another 18 hours later, it finally reached the
Rebuilding Directory stage again with only '156,511 Overlapped Files'
this time, Another several hours later, it completed the task. Or so
I thought. I rebooted, ran Disk Repair utility and it couldn't run due
to remaining overlapped files and a corrupted system. I borrowed a
friends new TechTool Pro to get through the crisis and let it run.
This time it seemed to finish the repair (as best as possible anyhow
after another 8 hours), enough to rescue what files I needed to rescue.
The drive partition was still a mess and no longer useable in its
condition so it required a complete reformat and OS reinstall. While
I'm relieved that I had the really really important stuff on another
partition and another drive, I went through 4 days of crap dealing with
this defective processor.
I contacted OWC and then Matt at Powerlogix with a description of what
happened on a Friday. He provided me with an RMA on Monday, but
wouldn't offer to pay shipping on THEIR defective processor. So I
reluctantly paid shipping a second time on this DEFECTIVE processor
(first time was when I bought it). A week later, they sent me out a
replacement G4 900, nothing more. No explanation of what was wrong
with the other even though it scrambled everything. No improvement
processor either for the crap I went through after 4 days trying to
repair the damage.
And so I installed the replacement. Went through all the procedures
lined out in their sheet. This time I took the precaution of
installing OS 10.3.9 on a bare drive and removing all my other drives.
System does not boot up. I either got spinning wheel forever, or it
stops turning and sits forever. Tried booting from System Disk, FSCK,
DW, no boot. This new replacement CPU is junk.
So I contacted Matt and CC'd OWC informing them of this latest and that
I really don't want another one of these G4 900's. I also asked them
to provide me an account number because I wasn't going to pay shipping
yet again, because after sending me two defective processors and my
paying shipping twice so far, they need to pay shipping. I also noted
to OWC that if Powerlogix is the problem, then please make the
replacement something KNOWN to work other then PL, as they should
simply be destroyed as a defective batch! While another might
initially work, it might very well lead to major problems in the
future, such as days after the warranty ends. I emphasized to
please not ask me to pay shipping yet again to return yet another
defective processor. I don't intend to pay shipping 3 times in order
to receive a single good processor. A sale price means nothing if a
product is junk . Saying nothing more, Matthew sent me an RMA Number.
No mention of shipping cost or whether he'd send me something other
than one of these 900's, that apparently have a very high failure rate.
I wrote them both back again with the following message:
"Hello Matthew,
I'm waiting for a for an account number to bill shipping cost. I paid
to return the first defective one and its NOT right that I pay a second
time. Please don't reduce losses on these by deferring shipping cost
to the victim. Its one thing if it simply wasn't a product I didn't
want, its another when the products were defective. It's been a few
years since I've had to return a defective product to anyone but when I
have had to, the seller always willingly provided an account number to
bill to. I also see you have done this for others who have written to
xlr8yourmac."
It would seem OWC and/or Powerlogix intends to make me pay shipping on
defective processors yet a third time based on their silence on this
issue. This is NOT very good customer service IMHO. I am now very
leery of receiving yet a 3rd defective Powerlogix card after reading of
someone else (@XLR8YourMac) who has received 3 of them. What else am I
supposed to think after reading of so many others here and at MacGurus
who have had equally bad experiences? I understand that OWC bailed
out PL. The problems have been discussed here and at MacGurus
http://macgurus.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19502. I haven't bought
tons of stuff from OWC, but those items I have purchased never came
with such problems as this.
Other then that, after sending me the second defective G4 900, it would
seem they were not interested in making up for hassle of the first
defective card by offering me something better. Now after receiving a
second card and getting silence on the shipping cost and what I should
expect, what would keep them from sending me another 900 mhz card that
is either defective or might fail in the near future? I've read the
post where an OWC tech stated "the 900 Mhz Powerlogix G4's are highly
unstable". I was not told this by the initial OWC tech but OWC's
potential conflict of interest with these cards may be an underlying
issue.
It's been 5 days since my last email to Matthew Lee (PL) so apparently
they intend to make me pay shipping a third time on defective
processor. I haven't sent it back yet hoping they would just provide
good customer service with some kind of assurance of what I will be
sent, and of course to fulfill their responsibility to pay shipping on
these defective processors. That's a matter of principle. I wish
Larry of OWC would just fix things with these PL products.
Dave
*************************
Conclusion to follow
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