Not bad, could be better...
Dec 21 '00
I've installed about 40 of these puppies over the past few months, and it's been a mixed bag of results. The vast majority of the Micron's I've dealt with in this time have been the ClientPro, PIII 500, 128 MB RAM, 5 GB HD.
Out of the 40 or so I've dealt with, I would estimate that 20 have had some kind of hardware failure. The power supply is, without a doubt, the worst culprit (about 18 or so needed new power supplies). I've also had to replace one motherboard, two hard drives, and two network cards.
Keep in mind, about 20 of these are used all day, every day, in a graduate school computer lab, so that figure isn't too bad. I have noticed that faculty/staff machines have had much less hardware failure.
Overall Hardware Performance:
Not bad at all. The NIC is an SMC 10/100 which is solid. There does seem to be a problem with the hard drive cache buffers, which causes them to drag a little bit when using certain apps. I've had no problems with the RAM, and like I said, the worst hardware component is by far the power supply. One caveat here: After sending about 15 or so of the power supplies back to Micron, I noticed the replacements had no toggle switch on them...Whether there was a problem with the power supplies with the toggle switches, who knows, but I think so.
Software:
I can't comment on the OEM software...We ghost our machines and use all kinds of apps. I can say it's handled everything from simple net surfin' to large database apps and intensive network apps very well. It runs just about everything smoothly, and all the Micron's we have are really quite fast.
Technical Support:
My experiences have been 100% positive. I've had a few long waits (up to an hour, which in reality isn't that long for tech. support), but most of the time, I was greeted courteously and the representative did his/her best to assist me. We ended up getting new parts shipped out 100% of the time, and their advance parts exchange is flawless...All aspects of this sometimes pain-staking process went very well. We actually got one of our PIII 500's (specs mentioned above) replaced with a PIII 667 (along with a 10 GB HD, 3Com NIC, and speakers...not bad!), at not cost to us.
Cost:
Micron's are a pretty good deal. They are solid machines and have performed well in a lab environment. I think we'll explore other options for our next purchase, but Micron will definitely weigh in. They haven't; however, been impressive enough for us to rule out other options.
All in all, they're not bad, but they could be better...
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
agnostic_311
|
|
Location: Concord, NH
Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
"1970 Pontiac Firebird. The car I've always wanted, and now I have it. I RULE!"
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.