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COMTRADE 1994 ARCHIVE
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This file is filled with individuals' opinions and experiences with the Comtrade computer mail-order company, which sells a wide line of computers and products. The most recent experiences are at the beginning of this file.
If you have bought from them and have not yet made your contribution to this list, simply fill out this form about your experiences with Comtrade and they will be added to the beginning of this file. Thank you and Good luck!
Date - Thu, 22 Dec 1994
From - Ben Culwell (ae069@detroit.freenet.org)
I ordered their PCI home Office, 60 Mhz Pentium system. A few days later I read some of the horror stories reported here, and frankly got worried. I think someone should point these out to Comtrade, then maybe they'd straighten out their act.
Anyway, I ordered my system 11-23-94, and they said it should arrive by 12-9-94. When it still hadn't arrived by late evening on the tenth, I gave them a call. Turns out they shipped it on the sixth, and I desided that with Christmas and all, to give them a few days before I canceled my order. (I'm evil that way.)
It arrived on the thirteenth, half an hour before I had to leave for work, so all I could really do was pull it out of the box and look at it. When I got home that night I expectedly put it all together, and cranked it on. ...NOTHING... No video! I was worried remembering the other stories I'd read.
The next morning I tried it again, and still no video. I could see the system checking the keyboard and drives. So I reasoned either the monitor, or the video accelerator was bad. So before I called Comtrade I cruised down to the local Radio Shack and asked them if they could test my monitor. It worked, so I narrowed it down to the system.
I came home determined to speak to tech support. fifteen calls later (each time the phone rand twenty times before a recorded anouncement came on) I finaly got through. A lady took my call then put me on hold for another forty five minutes. I was determined, and their Christmas music wasn't too bad. I actually started singing along.
Anyway, I finally got a tech on the line, explained everything, and he told me to take the cover off and reseat the video accelerator. I did to no avail. He seemed puzeled, then asked if I knew what the memory chips were. When I replaid, "You mean those standard looking SIMMs right beneath the power supply," he almost seemed relieved. He asked me to reseat the memory cards, and presto, it's amazing how much better your system works when it has memory.
everything was as advertised. I have no other complaints. In fact, they accidently shipped me a video accelerator with 2 Megs of RAM instead of only one.
All in all, I think we have the making of a very good company. But they definetly have their problems. mainly tech support.
Date - Wed, 07 Dec 1994
From - dwyche@giant.IntraNet.com
I first read this collection of COMTRADE nightmares after purchasing a pentium from them. Had i read it first i'm not sure i would have dared use them as a vendor. so far my own experience seems to be ok, though not without problems. hope this is not too wordy...
my wife and i wanted a high-end machine that would stand a chance of lasting us at least two years. so we got a COMTRADE P90 with 32M memory, 1G drive, 17" monitor, stealth-64 with 4M, orchid SW32 sound, a 4X mitsubishi CD, and a couple of vanilla NE2000-clone ethernet cards so we could network with our existing 486 using WFWG. (the 486 has a DAT tape drive which we planned to use to back up both machines.) anyway, it seemed like a pretty good deal at just over 4K$, and PC magazine gives COMTRADE good marks.
right out of the box the machine hung early in the boot. after hitting reset it got a little further but still hung. i turned it off and back on and this time it got to the dos prompt. then it hung going into windows. next time it made it all the way and then behaved properly for the rest of the day. over the next few days this behavior continued; it would only work properly when warmed up.
also, though WFWG seemed to work fine, the tape backup failed by hanging the 486 somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes into the backup.
when we started dealing with COMTRADE's Tech Support we found them to be a little sluggish in responding, though based on what i read about other's experiences i guess we got lightning fast service. they returned every call, and never took more than 24 hours to get back to us. the 24 hour experience happened just once. FWIW, the salesman, Tom, was helpful in making connections.
TS had us dorking with all kinds of things to solve the boot problem, none of which worked. some of their ideas made sense to me (fiddle with the connectors, wriggle the chips, etc.) and some didn't (diddle with config.sys, autoexec, CMOS etc.) at this point we were sure that the failure always occurred when accessing the disk.
Along with COMTRADE we had other vendors helping with the backup problem, and the general feeling was that the low-end cards couldn't handle the high speed transfers and that we should get better cards. COMTRADE recommended 3COMs. so we packed up both cards, sent them back to COMTRADE and ordered a pair of 3COM Ethernet-III's.
The last round of dorking (including reformatting and restoring from our 30-floppy backup of the original system) ended up corrupting the hard drive. format actually failed, and scandisk reported lots of physical problems. Without a lot of hassle COMTRADE sent us a new drive which arrived 2 days later. we installed it easily enough but things basicly didn't change except that it was even harder to boot than before.
at this point we agreed with COMTRADE to return the box and they would send us a new one. They were to pick it up in a day or two. before they did, someone in TS called and had my wife make one more try. so she took it out of the carton, took off the cover, and did whatever it was they asked, something about the drive cable. anyway, just in passing she mentioned that the cable was stretched pretty tight between the controller and the disk. the TS guy said wait-a-minute, you mean between the controller and the CD, right? no, the CD's on the end and the disk's in the middle. turns out the disk has to be on the end of the chain. there was no way the original cable would do that so they sent us a new cable (regular mail) which took one extra day to get to us than it should have. my wife called to confirm that it had been sent and they immediately sent us another one FedEx.
now the machine works great. the new cable made all the difference. the disk even sounds more normal... i hadn't noticed at first, but after replacing the cable it makes a much more normal and healthier sounding chatter.
the 3COM cards solved the backup problems too. File transfer is much slower, somewhere around 6M a minute (down from 10M/min with the orginal cards) which i guess is good, assuming that too much speed was the problem.
bottom-line: we're real happy with the machine. it's VERY fast. i know P90's are supposed to be fast but this one screams... ACCESS loads in about 1 second. The CTX monitor is great. rock-solid, no flicker, good color. we haven't spent much time examining the higher resolutions, but things look pretty good at 1024x768 which is all we need.
I assume the wrong cable was a matter of the assembler grabbing the cable out of the desktop bin instead of the minitower bin. these things do happen. (i have a friend who had a gateway delivered 3 years ago with two mouse ports and no keyboard port!)
i personally am happy with their support. i don't feel they ever let things get out of hand. having worked closely with the support people in my own company i know how hard it can be to respond instantly. For the most part i thought TS was knowledgable and took reasonable approaches to resolving the problems. (Even if i didn't agree with some of them, i thought that they were at least reasonable...)
I would definitely be willing to buy from COMTRADE again. They give great value for the money, and (at least for us) resolved the problems in a timely fashion.
Addendum to the above article:___________________________
i thought i'd check out the CTX behavior at higher resolutions and color densities and wonder of wonders, there was only two Meg on the card and not four... looked at all the invoices/proposals they had sent us and they all said two. not sure where i picked up the idea we had four. still seems like a pretty good deal. Turns out that this particular CTX model can't handle 1280 (60hz which produces unacceptable flicker...) unless using the 1024 viewport. Not a problem for us as neither of us likes that resolution anyway.
also the CD is Mitsumi, not Mitsubishi (of course...)
glad to hear that you're still satisfied with yours. I still can't get over how FAST it goes... oh, btw, it IS the buggy version of the pentium chip according to the test of dividing 5505001 by 294911 and getting 18.66600093 instead of 18.66665197. not sure what we'll do about it but for the moment we'll keep our ears and options open.
Date - Thu, 15 Dec 1994
From - semen@acs.bu.edu
I can't say it is super company, nobody is perfect under moon but I run into following problems with Comtrade computer: their 32 bit disk driver doesn't work under windows at all what is noticeble when I run big applications the rest is perfect, so I actually recommnend my friend to buy Comtrade computer,
Date - Sat, 19 Nov 1994
From - Alan Santos (asantos@garnet.acns.fsu.edu)
I called comtrade towards the end of November abd spoke with Paul Stiglich. I told him I was interested in their newly advertised P90 system the Lightning4x, but only if the motherboard was a PCI/ISA combination and not a PCI/VESA combination. HE assured me that it was. I then placed an order for the machine. Two days later I called back to verify that the machine had shipped. It hadn't and no ship date was specified except RSN. After talking to a different sales representative (Paul wasn't in) he mentioned that the motherboard I was buying was indeed a PCI/VESA combination. I thought there was a mistake, thanked him and waited. Several days later when my machine did arrive I looked and sure enough it was a PCI/VESA combination. I called to complain to Paul Stiglich who told me that it was a PCI/ISA combination, and that VESA was only an extension of ISA. Well, that is true, but I specifically told him that I hadn't wanted it if it wasn't a PCI/ISA only. Blah Blah, to make a long story short, I ended up having to pay extra money to get the correct motherboard. Besides the lying, and nonexistant support, the manual for my CDROM which still hasn't shipped, the absence of *any* manual for the computer itself, the lying, the lying and the outright lying by Paul Stiglich I am relatively happy with my computer. I will *never* buy another thing from Comtrade and will gladly let anyone who is buying a computer in the future hear my story if they are interested.
Date - Wed, 16 Nov 1994
I purchased the Comtrade Multimedia Dream Machine (486DX-66)w/ upgrades of
810M drive, 14.4 fax modem, & full tower case. Total = $2440.
I am extremely unhappy with the company. Alex, the salesperson, told me
the enhanced IDE controller card would control 4 drives. The controller
is actually an on-board controller that will only handle two. The driver
for my EIDE will only recognize 16-bit I/0. The CPU cooling fan
rattles(it sounds as if there is an angry bee trying to escape the box),
and the keyboard frequently locks up in all applications. Also, whenever
I called Alex to get the status on shipping, I was always told the
computer shipped that day. I have found that one cannot believe anything
the sales department says.
When I tried to contact tech support about the above-mentioned problems,
the phone would ring 20 times, then relay a recoding to try back later.
I tried many times through sales to contact tech support. I was always
told they would call me back. They never did. After 6 weeks, I finally
got a man whose accent was unintelligable,to answer the phone. All I got
out of him was, reseat the fan which will solve your keyboard problems.
Get real! I have been a computer repair technician for 16 years. There
is no way the cooling fan has anything to do with the keyboard. The 16
bit I/O(supposed to be 32 which makes a huge difference in hard drive
speed) problem was brushed off with an "if you knew anything about
computers, you would know that it makes no difference." I'm unsure, but
I feel he thought he had some ditzy female on the phone and would believe
any line of garbage he desired to feed. I told him I wanted to upgrade the
system to a P90 at which he gleefully laughed that it was past the 30-day
limit.
When I asked to speak to his supervisor, he told me he is in charge and
hung up. The galling thing of the whole experience was I totally kissed
his fanny, never telling him I am a tech. Whatever garbage he spewed, I
pretended to believe, never losing my temper. He treated me as if my
problems were of no concern to comtrade and even went so far as to say,
that "after 30 days, it's not our problem."
I will never purchase nor recommend to any of my customers the purchase
of a Comtrade computer. I replaced the defective cooling fan and
keyboard, and am purchasing a new motherboard. The $2440 price sounds
good until you realize your paying $2440 for a $300 monitor, $350 video
card, $550 for drives, $16 I/O card, and a $150 case which is all that
remains of the original system purchase. In this case, one doesn't even
get what one pays for.
I want to give you an update since my last message. My motherboard went
kaput. I'll be purchasing a new motherboard sooner than expected.
Date - Tue, 15 Nov 94
I bought a Comtrade 33mhz 486DX about two years ago and it was a
terrible experience, both after I bought it and then 1 and 1/2 years
later. When I received the machine the CTX monitor did not work
and the 5&1/4 inch floppy drive did not work. I went through two more
defective monitors and a new machine before I had a working PC. I
eventually went out and bought my own monitor to get one that worked.
Oh...I almost forgot the modem was also defective.
A year and a half later I had a problem where the cpu would not boot up.
I attempted to call technical support multiple times with no response.
AFTER FOUR WEEKS of trying with no success I finally got hold of someone,
after threatening to write the California Better Business Bureau, etc.
They told me that I had a bad mother board and to send the machine in
for them to fix it. (Yea right...I said, I will never see my machine
again after going through what I did with the telephone support)
I finally resolved the situation myself:
I found out it had a bad video card that would not transfer the bios
when it booted to the mother board.
In summary:
Date - Tue, 18 Oct 94
I bought a the following from COMTRADE in April 1992:
Overall, I'm moderately satisfied with the purchase. Tech support
is reliable if you can handle the wait; use their 800 number.
I'm not sure I would buy from them again: I'm not *that* wild about 'em.
From - Derek Upham
I bought a Comtrade computer in July of '92 and have been reasonably
satisfied with it. It was a 386/40 IDE with 8MB RAM (upgraded from
4MB), a 210MB HD (upgraded from 150MB), a Trident video card and a 14"
monitor. The base system was their cheapest available (US$1475 before
upgrades, $1775 with upgrades). Since then I've added a V.32bis modem
(with a 16550 UART) and a 400MB HD. Comtrade shipped it on-time, via
UPS. I've run Linux on it for the past two years, and everything has
worked fine, save the following:
The monitor still works, but it has picked up some irritating
problems:
Unfortunately, I've never invoked warranty on the monitor, because I
moved to Canada soon after I got the machine, and because the monitor
_works_ most of time. The difficulties with the monitor are just
outweighed by the difficulties with getting it fixed (CTX, not
Comtrade, covers the warranty).
In summary: Comtrade gave good hardware, cheaply. My RAM and HD up-
grades were described and priced in the advertisement itself, so I
wasn't stressing the salesdroids there. In addition, I was on the
back-end of the technology curve (AMI BIOS, IDE, Trident card) so all
of the technology bugs had long since been worked-out; I've never
needed to call Comtrade tech support. The monitor difficulties are
irritating, but not inherent to the hardware. People who deal with
Comtrade should keep a close eye on the motherboard/RAM restrictions,
but the same probably applies to most of the other companies out there.
I do not expect to buy another computer from Comtrade, but this is due
to my own buying habits. Instead of getting a completely new system,
I'd prefer to upgrade my existing system piece by piece (it works,
it's just underpowered). An IBM PowerPC system that could run the
Hurd might change my mind, however...
From - geertges@rintintin.Colorado.EDU
I have just recently placed an order for a Comtrade PCI SCSI-2
system.
Here is what I ordered:
The total price after shipping came to $2640. I placed the order on June
9th, and was told that the system would be shipped on June 16th. I expect
to have the system anytime between June 20-25. When I called Comtrade on
the 16th, I was still told the shipment was 'to be that day', but they
didn't actually say it _had_ been shipped. I haven't called back yet to
see if it was actually shipped. I will send you another reply when I
receive my system (or get into an argument with Comtrade, which I'm
hoping I don't have to do!).
--=O=--
My system was shipped on-time and arrived even ahead of the schedule
they told me. The system was complete with all appropriate hardware, and
it ran on the first try after setting everything up. I have only a few
minor complaints: I don't feel I got all the documentation I should have.
I felt that much of the hardware documentation could have been much
better. If this is Comtrade's fault or not I don't know... it may be just
the documentation from the manufacturers was bad. Also, I did not receive
DOS or Windows manuals. When I called and asked about this they said they
were on 'backorder' and they would be sent out when they came in. I have
yet to receive any. Otherwise I am completely happy with my system. It is
so far the fastest system I've seen in my dorm, so that's enough for me
:) I'd still recommend Comtrade to anyone looking for a powerful,
moderately priced system.
From - teffta@cs690-3.erie.ge.com (Andrew R. Tefft)
I bought their "spitfire" system in May '93. It had the features
I wanted all bundled; other places' "upgrades" totaled significantly
more.
My salesgirl seemed especially clueless. Rather, hapless. She was able
to answer my questions on the system, but she took down my address wrong
(delaying my order) and generally bumbled around when it was actually
time to order. A couple months later I found out she no longer worked
there. A connection?
A friend at work wanted to buy a system similar to mine so I sent him
there. The price had dropped about $125 which was nice for him. But
after the thing hadn't shipped on time, he called them to find out where
his system was. Turns out it was waiting in the shipping department!
It had had a problem fixed during the 72-hour burn-in so it missed the
shipping for that week; that was just when memory prices shot up and it
seems they had been calling people who had placed orders not-yet-shipped
to get more money out of them! He hadn't had a call (probably since the
system was supposed to have already been shipped, or perhaps it was
because his salesgirl had left the company) so he yelled at them and
they overnighted it to him.
It took nearly a month from my order to receive it (longer for his).
It seems that they only ship one day a week, and there's the three-day
burnin, so if you order on the wrong day it takes an extra week. And UPS
takes a week-10 days to get here from there.
The quality of the system itself is acceptable. The case is sturdy
except for the latch on the little door in front (that door is a nice
feature, IF you don't use your floppy drives much!). The hard drive
cable came semi-unplugged when I added memory, really threw me when it
didn't work when I rebooted. The floppy drives are quiet (no-name brand
as far as I can tell though). The WD caviar drives are fast but noisy
(no fault of comtrade).
The keyboard feel SUCKS (yes, in all caps) and you can't type certain
key combinations quickly (e.g. mount comes out mout). I no longer use
it. The z-nix mouse tends to skip -- I have adjusted the contacts inside it
more than once; next time I will buy a $12 replacement from Lyben.
It came loaded with dos & windows ($25 credit each for leaving them
off) which came with original disks but only teeny-tiny manuals,
not the full-blown ones. Good thing I don't use dos or windows much.
They seem to have added some windows fonts and backdrops -- no idea
where they came from or whether they're legal -- as well as a couple
windows benchmarks which are free but not necessarily freely distributable.
The system was purported to have a vlb ide (it's on the motherboard),
along with serial, parallel, and game ports) but I can't tell that it's
really vlb (I figure I should have some sort of driver for it if it is).
Other than that, it is as advertised.
The ctx 15" monitor is ok, actually seems to be quite nice compared
to the generics you get with some systems. The warranty on the monitor
is from CTX, not comtrade -- you have to return it to ctx for service.
Oh, and that "nationwide" on-site warranty -- it's not really nationwide,
it is a warranty provided by a company called Nationwide, and they
do have offices all over, but they only come to your site if you're
within 50 miles of one of their service centers. Otherwise you can
bring it in or ship it (and they will reimburse you for that).
My only experience with their tech support was a pretty simple situation.
When I added RAM the first time, my cmos got reset (think I unplugged
the battery by accident) so I called them for the hard drive parameters.
They had written them on a sticker on the back of the case, old me so,
and that was that. Sounded like a bored teenager working the phone.
From - Christopher Wingert (crw@ncrtory.TorreyPinesCA.ncr.com)
Here goes my experience with Comtrade, I thought that it might be useful
to others in making a decision
One thing that I noticed about the motherboard that I didn't like was
that I had all the slots filled. No more expandability. :(
Good Luck and buyer beware.
From - tong@diddley.rsip.lsu.edu (Zhen Tong)
I have bought a Comtrade 486DX/33 Diamond SpeedStar VLB system in July.
The video speed is around 11.7 M pixels/sec by using Winbench 3.11 at
1024 x 768 w/256 color. And 15" CTX1561 Low Radiation monitor looks good.
But the hard drive speed is around 850 K /sec, by using PCTOOLS V8, which
is a little bit slower than Gateway and Zennon's.
After seeing my system, at least 2 of my friends bought the same machine
for $1825 w/8M RAM, 250M hard drive. I have talked to the salsperson
Sue Chen, who is nice and helped me to separate my invoice so that I could
charge the monitor and hard drive into a credit card that has extended
warrenty. (Since Monitor & Hard drive only have 18 month warrenty)
From - gt1603d@prism.gatech.EDU (Wesley Alan Slone)
I saw this post and thought I would add to it as I have purchased
a Comtrade 486 DX 33.
The sales staff was very helpful and they were quite
pleasant about upgrading my monitor once I had bought my system
and wanted a better screen.
Tech Support is not always availible, but when I do get them
they are always able to answer my questions.
The only Gotcha I experienced was the fact that my
VLB motherboard has the drive controller built in.
Therefore if something happens to the controller
the motherboard has to be takwn out.
Otherwise I am extremely happy with the system.
I would not advise (as was previously stated) anyone who needs
their hands held to buy from Comtrade.
For me it was just what I needed, good equipment at a good price
without any fuss.
From - xjam@cork.CS.Berkeley.EDU (The Crossjammer)
I just recently bought a Comtrade EISA/VLB Winner (or whatever the damn
thing's
name is) for the express purpose of running free UNIXs and general home
hacking. Here's the result:
I called tech support a couple of days later to find out if the bootable
floppy could be set from BIOS. Had to leave a message. Never got an answer.
Called back a day later and got a human. The answer was "No", and the guy
seemed overworked and frazzled. Take it for what it's worth. The insides
seem relatively well put together and neat, but I'm not a stickler for
that.
Linux loaded and booted fine. I installed from an SLS set of disks that a
friend of mine has. That was 2 SLS releases ago though. Straight X386 I
never got to work with the card, but I didn't fool around much with that. I
proceeded directly to XS3, the accelerated version. Took me 1/2 a day to get
that working. I now have X running in 1024x700 pixels of 8 bit color. Looks
pretty damn good.
Linux runs fine. Check that, it runs FAST AS HELL. I had X, Emacs, Lucid
Emacs, and gcc running all at the same time. The load average went to a
whopping 0.5 . My preliminary xbench test showed the server outperforming a
SparcStation 1+ (without an accelerator on the Sun). In a couple of tests,
it outperformed a SS 2 (with gx). Then again there are lies, damned lies,
statistics, and benchmarks.
I now have at home an acceptable UNIX development environment. My
suggestion is that if you don't need a lot of hand holding go for it. If
you think you're going to need tech support any time you have a problem, go
with Zeos or Dell or somebody else who isn't treading thin ice on their
margins. I paid approximately $3600 but California got me for 300 bucks and
I splurged on the monitor.
I really like my machine, but if you have any variations/concerns on the
standard configs *WRITE THEM DOWN AS A CHECKLIST* and ask them of your
salesdroid. Mine (Penny) was polite and efficient. All of the gotchas
above, I probably could have taken care of by asking before I purchased.
From - lynne@troy.cc.bellcore.com (presley,lynne d)
I purchased this system and ended up returning it, the Comtrade one,
that is. I was having a problem in Windows, getting a lot of random
application errors. Comtrade technical support was helpful and tried
to solve the problem, even sent me a new Viper card, which didn't fix
the problem. I probably could have eventually solved the problem but
I decided to just return it before my 30-day money back guarantee ran
out. The Comtrade system uses the G486HVL motherboard with 3 EISA
slots (the manual calls them Super ISA but says they are 32-bit DMA).
I also had the DTC 3292 SCSI controller in an EISA slot that appeared
to be working fine. Their tech support is hard to get a hold of
sometimes, expect to leave messages sometimes. The day I called to
get an RMA number to return the system, I couldn't get anyone to
answer the phone at tech support until 12:30pm when they supposedly open
at 7 AM. I did not feel 100% comfortable with the motherboard (with
the EISA/ISA slots). Next time around I'll go with all EISA or all
ISA on the motherboard, and of course with 2 or 3 VL-Bus slots!
From - chrisg@henson.cc.wwu.edu
I went with the VL-bus too, since Bill told me the same thing, it being
faster and all. When I mentioned the unreliability of that Steve guy
before that's what I was referring too. Steve said the Eisa was faster
(or apparently he was ASSUMING so because it was $50 more). Gee, after
all, if it is more expensive it HAS to be better, right?
My system cost me $2540. The whole system was a 486DX2-66 EISA Dream Machine
w/340 MB IDE hd, 8 megs 70ns RAM, Morse VL-Bus IDE HD Controller,
15" CTX-1561 SVGA monitor, WinPro (Powergraph) VL Video Card, Mid-Tower
Case ($40), and $70 Ground UPS shipping. Yours probably differed slightly,
but I imagine we paid about the same? (i hope)
Anyway, yeah, it does scream, quite a jump from the 386SX-16 i've had for
the past 3 years and just sold. Oh yeah, just installed the Proaudio
Spectrum-16 SoundCard in, and that thing is wicked.
Haven't had any problems yet. I think you'll like it. (The Eisa is actually
Super-ISA tho, still have to figure out if that will really make a diff
in what i'll be doing).
From - mark@lightning.ofps.ucar.EDU (Mark Bradford)
I've owned a Comtrade 386/33 for over two years now -- I bought it in
early 1991 (when I went on a money-spending binge after my girlfriend
dumped me :-). I'm very much a hacker type, so I've done all my own
support and maintenance, and haven't even called them since I ordered
my machine, so I'm not a good person to ask about their support.
I'm quite pleased with the machine -- it's very speedy, and works
perfectly with DOS, Windows, and Linux(*). I've replaced the video
card and hard drive -- no compatibility problems. Alas, I bought it
just before non-interlaced monitors hit the scene, and a 386/33 is
hardly the state of the art any more -- but I've kept my eye on their
ads, and they still have excellent prices, so when I go for that
local-bus 486/66, you can be sure I'll consider them.
Oh, I have had one problem with it -- one segment of the speed-indicator
LED has burnt out. I don't think it's under warranty any more. :-)
(*) Well, as perfectly as DOS and Windows can work.
From - adamsr@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Rick Adams)
I'm using a Comtrade "Dream Machine" (486/66, 8MB, EISA/VLB, etc.)
and I can't recommend them highly enough.
My system is the fastest machine I've ever used (I have Gateway
486/66 machines at work and they're like 386s next to this computer), and
their prices can't be beat. For a system with 8MB, 256K Cache, a 210MB
WD2200, EISA IDE controller, VLB accelerator, full tower (with door), etc. I
paid less than Gateway wants for a 486/25. Even after adding an additional
WD2350 (340MB) it still came out cheaper than anyone else's 486/66 - and
gave me EISA/VLB in the process.
I did have a problem with the system when it came - one key on the
keyboard "stuck" and the STB Powergraph it shipped with was not working
correctly. The company was _very_ supportive and helpful - even letting me
select the replacement graphic card from those they ship (I chose the
Volante Warp 10 VL, and would recommend the selection as an initial one if
you order). Coupled with the included on-site service for problems they
can't "fix" by telephone, I see their service as clearly superior. Certainly
I've never received the kind of immediate concern from Compuadd (source of
my previous system) that I did from Comtrade.
From - jjhoxsey@vela.acs.oakland.edu
From - Danny.Spalt@launchpad.unc.edu (Danny Spalt)
A few days ago I posted a message asking whether anyone had any experience
with a mail-order company called COMTRADE. Here's what I found out.
Different people have had vastly different experiences with them. Their
service has been described as minimal ("take your money and run") to
superb. Everyone seems to agree that their hardware is decent, although
several have stated that the guts of the machine inside of the case are in
disarray. Also, their SIMM banks are interleaved, so you have to buy four
at a time (this is probably only on systems that say "expandable to 128
MEG" - I think most expand to 32). One buyer said that he received a
different graphics accelerator than the one listed in the ad. Express
parts replacement has been smooth for some, sluggish at best for others.
Bottom line: the hardware is pretty good, but they obviously cut some
corners to get that attractive price tag.
My Personal Experience with COMTRADE (grohol@coil.com)
I purchased a VESA VLB/EISA Dream Machine 486/66mhz machine
from COMTRADE on July 6, 1993. With the replacement of the 15"
monitor with a 17" Viewsonic. I'm still running the same machine
with no problems. I have since upgraded its original 8 megs of
memory to 16, added a sound card, CD-ROM, and tape backup.
I was one of the lucky ones... Nothing on this machine has yet
"gone." But I cannot recommend buying from Comtrade anymore,
given some of the horrible service (or lack thereof!) stories
contained herein.
From - Angie Garcia
From - dsass@VNET.IBM.COM
The hardware is fair in quality. The service is the worst anywhere.
I had to write to three PC magazines, and to threaten to sue them
before they would take any action. BUYER BEWARE. If you buy from
them you will get no support. I won't be buying my next pc from them.
In my opinion this Company does not deserve to be in business and I
will cherish the day when they close their doors.
From - jjf@unx.dec.com
Date - Thu, 1 Sep 1994
Date - Mon, 20 Jun 1994
THE COMPUTER
I bought 486/66DX VESA Local Bus System, 8 MB Memory, 17" CTX Monitor,
420 MB Hard Drive, 14.4 Fax / Modem, CD ROM, and Irwin Tape Backup.
Cost $3020
THE PROBLEM
When I first got it, it worked alright. A few days into setting it up,
it
would not boot. I had to press the reset xx times (lets just say a lot)
to trick it into re-booting. Ctrl-Alt-Delete did not work either, it
froze up the system. I had to wait fifteen minutes between boots. I
also very frequently got Memory Parity errors. It still worked but was
a pain in the ass to work with.
So anyway I tried to call Comtrade Technical Support..here goes the fun...
-Given this was December 27, 0700 PST (they're supposed to be open then)
First day back from Christmas should be a bitch, right?
-Called Technical Support and let the phone ring about 20 times each,
about ten calls over two hours.
-Finally called the Sales line and asked the problem with the Technical
Support Line. She said, "The ringing phone was Tech Support People
who were not in." I said "Ok, I'll try again."
-Called Technical Support, another 5 times, 20 rings per call, still no
answer.
-Called the Sales Line, explained the problem, she happily took a message and
explained that a Technical Support person would call within the hour.
-Needless to say I didn't get a call back
-Called the Sales Line back explained that I had not received a call back
and stated that I was getting aggravated, and magically she put me
through
to the technical support supervisor. Explained the problem : he said it
was a BIOS problem and I needed a new motherboard (Ahh...duhhh...no
kidding). Anyway he said, "He would send a board out that day and that
the on-site service would call me within the next two days." I asked
him, "Are you sure that I would have a working computer before the end
of the week." He said, "Yes."
-Still having problems with computer, barely working with it.
-The board still has not arrived on December 29, so I decide to call
Technical Support Back.
-I tried to get through to Technical Support about ten times over an hour,
the phone line was always busy (At least they were there :) )
-I got aggravated again, called the Sales Line, explained my problem, and
she stated that she would be happy to take a message. I explained my
aggravation, threatened that I wanted an RMA and magically was put
through to the Technical Support Supervisor (same guy I talked to before)
I began to wonder if there was only one technical support guy.
-Talked to the Technical Support Supervisor and he said "The motherboard
had not been shipped out yet," hung on for about five minutes till he
tried to figure out why. Then he said "The board had been shipped"
(he had just not updated his system) and it was shipped out second day air.
Well I usually can subtract 29 - 27 = 2, right? :) I also asked "Why
I had not been contacted by the on site service people," and he said
"I faxed the order through and They'd call me." Anyway I said, "Thanked
you" and hung up.
-December 30, the On Site Headquarters in Orange Country called me and
said
that their affiliate by my home would contact me on January 3rd. I
figured
that I was not going to get it working that week.
-Finally got the board on December 30, magically the Federal Express tag said
that it was shipped on December 29, hmmm.... :)
-Couldn't really wait till Monday to get the system going, so I opened up
the case to find a jumper flying around the case....hmmm... Anyway
compared the new motherboard with the old motherboard and found where
the jumper goes. I plugged everything back in and the system seems to
work fine now. Magic, huh?
-Finally contacted by the Local On-Site Service on January 3rd.
Most consider that a horror story, but I figure you get what you pay for,
right? I mean it is a *really* good price, and I guess I got time to
be aggravated. I must admit that I got *almost* all the manuals with the
system, and all the software on disks, unlike other slap together shops
I`ve dealt with. The people at Comtrade are very friendly, even while
their giving you the run around.
HiNT SuperISA (EISA) Motherboard
Gotcha 1.) Only three real EISA slots.
Gotcha 2.) No DMA over 24 bit addressing.
8 Megs 70ns ram
Gotcha 3.) The machine has two banks of 4 simms. Ergo I have to buy
16 Meg to actually upgrade my machine.
340 MB Western Digital
VLB IDE hard drive
Gotcha 4.) I probably should have gone SCSI-2 but I wasn't
thinking.
17" Viewsonic 17 monitor
STB-VL/24 S3805 based graphics card
1.2 MB 5.25" and 1.4 MB 3.5" Floppies:
Gotcha 5.) You have to open the box and fool with the cables to get
the 3.5" floppy as bootable.
3 Button Mouse
Baby Tower Case
Gotcha 6.) I was thinking I wanted a full tower, but the baby case
has enough bays for what I want to put in later. Still...
It took them approximately a week and a half to ship. This didn't irritate
me in the least but it was a couple of days later than they said it would
ship when I first ordered. It arrived safely, booted promptly after
plugging in, and was already loaded with DOS 6.0 and MS Windows 3.1 .
Warranty is 30 days money back no questions asked. The clock starts ticking
when they ship. I specifically asked this just in case Linux didn't run
since I really wanted to run a free UNIX.
My experiences with Comtrade have been less than spectacular.
When my mouse no longer functioned, I called them and asked for a
replacement to be shipped. The tech support man said it would take 1
to 1-1/2 weeks for a replacement mouse to arrive. Since I do a lot of
Windows work for Ford, I told him I could not wait that long for a
mouse to arrive.
Eventually, (actually, 20 minutes later) I was on the phone
with Mr. Paul Stiglitch who said he could ship out a mouse to me the
next day, but I would be billed for the mouse ($40!) and then credited
when my faulty one arrived at their shop. I sent out the faulty mouse
three days later (it was a Friday).
Three weeks later, my replacement mouse arrived.
Over a month later, I still had not been credited for the
faulty mouse.
Despite my continued attempts to contact Comtrade, I never
received a response regarding my faulty mouse's status.
I filed a dispute with Citibank who removed the $40 charge
from Comtrade.
When I was speaking to the tech support person, they sounded
like I was wasting their time, or was interrupting his time. I sent
Mr. Stiglitch a letter with my concerns. I have never received a
response.
In general, Comtrade systems are terrific boxes, but don't
expect much from their customer support.