On Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 09:59 AM, Robert H. Baucom wrote:
>>I won't bore you all with the details of the compatibility >> problems associated with upgrading a Umax S900, nor shall I go into >> great detail about the erratic PowerWave I have sitting around >> gathering dust and rust. >>
As to his clone Bias, I've had excellent value from my PCP 240, I bought
new with the $999. Sony 19" Monitor in '97. When they first became
available, I put first a Sonnet G3 400 MHz and then a G3 500 MHz in it.
With a global Village v92 modem, it's still my main toy at our Summer
Retreat.
OK, maybe I will bore you with the details <g>. I don't have any major problem with the PowerWave, other than the cheap, rust-prone case. I've sliced my hands on that thing more than I care to admit - it's kind of like working on a generic PC in that regard. I knew it had power problems when I traded for it, but that really isn't a slam against Power Computing since I don't know the root cause of that problem and how the machine was treated before I acquired it.
The S900 story seems to be a typical one for that machine. With 6 PCI slots at your disposal you're tempted to fill them up, and I did try. It seems kind of pointless to buy a machine for that capability and then not use it. As I understand it, there are issues on that machine regarding the design of the PCI bridge which can lead to incompatibility problems between PCI cards, just like I experienced. Certain cards would only work in certain slots (and I'm not talking about the E100 card), and other cards wouldn't function when certain other cards were installed. I don't remember the details of which cards were problems; what I remember most was the machine spending most of its sitting on its side on my desk while I attempted to rearrange the cards one more time in an effort to make everything work. For example, I couldn't put the Orange Micro card in the last slot because some other card needed that slot to function, so I had to put it in one of the middle slots. Then I had to force a spacer in between cards so the fan on the Orange Micro card could turn, putting unnecessary lateral stress on several of the PCI cards.
Some time later I acquired, at no cost, a surplus 9500 from the office. I popped every card that I had in the S900 into that machine, fired it up, and it worked perfectly on the first try - no arranging the cards to make everything work, and no special drivers necessary. I still use that machine to this day as a server/download station. Last night I considered moving everything over to newly-acquired 9600, but I'd need to track down some hard drive brackets, and then I'd have to use up precious 5.25 bays (I hate wasting large bays to install HDs). In the 9500 I can double-stack a couple of drives in one bay and pull the floppy to have 4 IDE hard drives stacked together; this makes connecting them much easier than would be the case in the 9600. Needless to say, I ended up putting everything back into the 9500.
In summary:
PowerWave - solid machine, but cheap case
S900 - nice case, but cheesy PCI bridge design
9600 - nice case and motherboard, but I don't have the HD brackets to do the job right
9500 - nice motherboard and sufficient room in case for my needs, but crummy case from a maintenance/upgrade standpoint
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