Well it finally arrived this afternoon, not one but two! I only ordered 1. I opened them and man was I disappointed
I know that these are refurbished units, but they could of at least made an effort to clean the dirt and grime from them. What I found was disgusting to say the least. The first one I opened was filthy inside with dust bunnies everywhere and food particles up front by the floppie drive. After blowing it out and cleaning the inside. I hooked it up. Guess what....................... It wouldn't power up. I checked all the wiring and than proceeded to re-seat the ram. Ugh! still doesn't work. The other one wasn't as dirty as the first was, but there was something sticky all over the case. I will clean it off later. It too was dirty and full of dust bunnies. I thought these were refurbished units. Are they telling us that they work on fifty equipment and then send it to customers this way??? Anyway after connecting the second one and powering it up. This one came to life and started to boot YEAH...................... Oops, wait it crashed and locked up. Try, try again. Second time it booted and into that other OS and than crashed. Third time is a charm. This time it booted and behold I was into that other OS. I opened a console window and entered top. hmmm lets see 512K memory and lots of swap. This thing is a dog running 512K memory!!!!!! and than CRASH..................... So I decided to run a mem test on it using a live cd. CRASH... CRASH....... CRASH...... This is just pure BS...
I pulled out some memory I had and swapped that 512 stick for a 1 gig stick. This time I had no problems booting or running that other OS. Hmm I shut it down and reinstalled the 512K stick along with my 1 gig. Fired it up and was off and running. Again running top I was watching memory usage. I had Firefox and several other things loaded Once the memory used exceeded 1gig CRASH......... I pulled the 512K stick and tossed it aside. Thank it dawned on me to swap it for the memory out of the first one, It wasn't powering on in the first pace. Well I pulled out the memory and to my surprise it wasn't a 512K stick. It was a 1 gig stick. Hmm, when I ordered it they said 512K memory. So I swapped it. Now I have two gig and a memory test shows all is good.
I started looking at the first machine and noticed it had a DVD and the 2nd machine didn't. So I swapped the CD for the DVD. I than peaked at the hard drives. The second machine had a Maxtor 40 gig drive, the first machine also had a Maxtor drive but it wasn't 40 gig it was 80 gig. What the heck is going on. I pulled the hard drives and swapped them. I fired up the one good box and surprise surprise I was running Windows XP...............Say what!!!
Someone has seriously screwed something up. I decided to run a hardware test. Again I was surprised this thing is a dual core running at 3.2Ghz. It was advertised as a 3.0Ghz single core.
I am going to call redtag and have a chat with them. Went to their website and finally found a phone number. I dialed it up and ^%$%$# I got that the number you have dialed recording...... Doing some more searching I found another number and dialed it. One ringy dingy two, three, four, five, six and than a recording. Your call is important to use, please listen to the following as our directory has changed. Hmmm, selection 4 and another recorded message and a hang up. Crap....................................... Redialed and went through the same recording a second time this time using selection 5. Ahh a new recording You are caller number 37, your call we be answered in the order it was received. Holly cow caller 37.............. Now wonder they have so many callers if they send out BS like this. I hung up the phone. I have got to go have a cup of coffee and calm down.
What would you do if this happened to you? Should I just pack these both back up and send them back requesting a refund. Yes, I did check my credit card and they charged me for two, how that works when I ordered one I don't know!
Well I am off to go get a good cup of coffee and relax a bit before I brave the caller number 37 or higher wait.
