Why can't I ever get a normal computer?

[elfs]

According to the savage manual page, the problem is related to "a chip bug in the Savage graphics engine that causes a bus lock when reading from the engine status register under high load". Also according to the same source, "the bug affects about 4% of all Savage users.

The same site lists a fix.

Guess who got one of those "about 4%" video cards?

Y'know, the last Thinkpad I owned was one of the "about 10%" of Thinkpad 600E's that had the DMA wires for the sound card reversed and you had to specify at boot time the "dma=reversed" flag or sound didn't work at all.

Comments

[xlana.livejournal.com]

re: your music.

I didn't know anyone else knew that song! My kidlets look at me strangely when I start singing it around the house. "Ohhh, IBM, DEC, and Honeywell, HP, DG, and Wang, Amdel, NEC and NCR, they don't know anythang..." :D

[elfs.livejournal.com]

"They make big bucks from systems so they never want it known/ that you can build a mainframe from the things you have at home!"

Yeah, I actually ripped the cassette (the cassette!) to MP3 so I can take it with me. The dynamic mixing on that song's a little messy, but "I'm A Mainframe, Baby!" sounds great.

[jenk]

Maybe I worked in tech support too long. That *sounds* like a normal computer to me.

And if you actually believe that "about 4%" figure...

[(Anonymous)]

So Toshiba just got nailed with a class action decision on their Satellite Pro 6100's. Apparently there's some sort of problem with the motherboard/power that can cause all sorts of issues. They knew about it beforehand, which is why the judgement went against them. I have a Toshiba Satellite, but it's an A75 model. I had the same problem (the root cause of the problem is that the power jack is physically soldered onto the motherboard, and it's generally not a good soldering job. When the solder cracks, you get shorts. The Satellite also have some overheating problems due to shoddy vents.).

I very much doubt Toshiba is going to get nailed for its other models with exactly the same problem.

-Malthus