Maybe they just lied
Oct. 12th, 2014 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flarenutYears and years and years ago, I got a shuttle xpc, and it didn't work worth a damn. Wouldn't install anything till I just took a working disk out of some other machine and booted with it. Wouldn't recognize one of the two RAM sticks it shipped with. About half the time it wouldn't boot at all unless I turned the power-supply switch off, waited about 10 minutes, then came back and booted it back up.
But. It was rock-solid once it did boot, as opposed to so many of the other machines I have in the basement. So a few weeks ago, while I was ordering some other stuff from Newegg, I figured I'd order enough RAM to upgrade it to the full 8GB it's supposedly capable of taking.
Nuh-uh. In oh so many ways, including not even working when restored to its original configuration. The best I could get it to do was hang on the BIOS splash screen with 8 GB installed. So I read around, and saw a lot of people pointing out that the supposed 400-watt power supply is actually crap, and that they had similar hang-on-boot until they disconnected everything nonessential that might possibly draw power. I ripped out the old power supply, balanced a conventional one on top of the frame, and darned if the thing didn't start booting reliably in its previously-working configuration. Even the LEDs on the motherboard looked brighter.
But boot with 8GB of RAM, like the documentation says it should? Not a chance. BIOS splash screen and then nothing. So I still have an underpowered, annoying box, but at least I can turn it on and off without worrying if it will ever come up again...
I'm almost beginning to think I should get something reasonably fast next time.
But. It was rock-solid once it did boot, as opposed to so many of the other machines I have in the basement. So a few weeks ago, while I was ordering some other stuff from Newegg, I figured I'd order enough RAM to upgrade it to the full 8GB it's supposedly capable of taking.
Nuh-uh. In oh so many ways, including not even working when restored to its original configuration. The best I could get it to do was hang on the BIOS splash screen with 8 GB installed. So I read around, and saw a lot of people pointing out that the supposed 400-watt power supply is actually crap, and that they had similar hang-on-boot until they disconnected everything nonessential that might possibly draw power. I ripped out the old power supply, balanced a conventional one on top of the frame, and darned if the thing didn't start booting reliably in its previously-working configuration. Even the LEDs on the motherboard looked brighter.
But boot with 8GB of RAM, like the documentation says it should? Not a chance. BIOS splash screen and then nothing. So I still have an underpowered, annoying box, but at least I can turn it on and off without worrying if it will ever come up again...
I'm almost beginning to think I should get something reasonably fast next time.
