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 | | | | May31Written by:Bill Park
Friday, May 31, 2002 6:00 PM  So, I've been tied up a while, and not as available or hanging around as much as usual. I've been both on the road sporadically, and swamped with work. Now this has never stopped me from participating on line before, so what has been the problem for the last few months? After all, all the hotels and venues are wired…
I've had a nice little Sony 505HS for a few years now. Great little machine, with a 500 mHz Pentium III processor, 128 megs of RAM, large hard drive, nice screen, and every type of interconnection I could imagine. Less than an inch thick, and under 4 pounds, it has been my constant companion. I even have done some minor recording projects on this machine. Anywhere that I might be, I could write, work on any of the corporate jobs I might be involved with, or hook up to the internet and keep in touch with all of my friends.
Sure, the floppy and CD drives were loose and connected to the computer in a variety of ways, and there was a docking bar needed to get to the video, parallel port, and serial port, as well as gaining access to more USB I/O. So if I wanted to carry all of the accessories and a few blank disks I was really talking about a lot more weight than just 4 pounds.
But the up side was the size, and the support that Sony gave to me over the life of the box. If I had a problem, they fixed it. That simple. Once I broke a key, and once the modem failed. On both occasions, Sony sent a shipping box to me, which arrived the next morning after I called the support line. I boxed up the computer and shipped it out, and in both cases it was returned to me promptly and repaired properly.
I started looking around for a newer, faster machine. The 505HS just can't keep up with the demands of some of the high res photo projects in which I have been involved, and is beginning to feel a little sluggish with some of the newer versions of the apps that I use. Since I had been so happy with the 505HS, I immediately looked at the new Sony R-505 series computers.
But the price was a bit more than I wanted to spend.
Like many others, I turned to ebay to search for a better deal. I found many sellers of refurbished and used Sonys on ebay. I placed a bid on one nice looking machine, and I won the auction. The transaction was smooth, and the seller was friendly and easy to deal with. In the original ad it clearly stated that the machine had no recovery disks. I was not overly concerned about this, as Sony generally posts all the drivers on their websites.
The machine arrived and worked as advertised. It contained Windows XP Pro. I fooled around with it for a while, and was quite happy. The new machine was designated an R-505 JSK (UC).
Garry Simmons dropped by one day, and he showed me some tricks and configuration tips. I had just received my own copy of XP Pro, so Garry suggested the logical thing…
"Hey, why not clean the machine out and start from scratch? Reformat the hard drive and load in your copy of XP Pro?"
"Sure, why not?", I replied.
Fatal decision.
When I got the OS loaded, XP had none of the drivers needed to support any of the hardware in the machine. I went to the Sony website and downloaded the drivers for the R-505 JSK. The drivers did not work with the machine, which reported that the drivers were not the correct drivers for my machine.
So I look at the specs, and find that my R-505JSK (UC) does not have the specs of the standard R-505 J models. It had the specs of the newer R-505 DS (P), including 1.2 mHz processor, wireless lan, 30 meg hard drive, and 256 megs of RAM. Instead of the little docking bar of my old machine, this machine has a docking tray, which conveniently combines all of the loose drives into one box into which the computer slides and latches securely. In my older model, the S meant 128 megs of RAM, and the new machine has 256. In my older model the K meant Windows 2000, and my new machine has Windows XP Professional.
I begin to get the feeling that I might have a prototype machine.
So I've got a very fast computer that is limited to 8 bit video, filling only about 1/3 of the screen, and no interconnectivity at all.
I try to contact Sony technical support. They didn't want to talk to me, since I am not the original owner. I try to explain that I don't expect warranty coverage, I just want to get the machine working again. I try to get them to sell the System Recovery disks, and here's where the wheels come off the wagon.
The Tech wants to register the machine. Fair enough. I look where the serial number should be… no serial number. I look where the model number should be… no model number. Now, one of the places that the model number would normally be is in a little recessed space at the bottom of the screen. If anyone had ever glued a metal tab in that space with model number info, it would have to be pried out with a sharp object, leaving scratches, or floated out using some chemical, which would most likely leave some traces of damage to the plastic housing. I look all over the machine, and other than "Sony" and "Vaio" there are no identifying marks on the machine. At this point the Tech is no longer willing to help. I even try having him trace the serial number from the docking station and the battery, figuring that the whole unit was a set, and he could find no record of those items having ever been registered. I went to the BIOS, where the serial number is normally burned into the system information. Nope. The serial number field is blank in the CMOS, though the model number is listed as an R-505 JSK (UC).
I hang up, and try calling back to get another Tech. Again, no help. He points me to the Parts Department, and gives me a phone number to call. But the Parts Department will not help me unless I have a registration number, which I cannot get unless I have a serial number and model number.
In frustration, I turn to the various internet sources that I have, but no one can help me.
Finally, I contact PC World magazine. I figure that I am not the only person buying used computers over the internet, and I wanted to know if they had received similar complaints.
I was contacted by a very nice person from PC World, who put a lot of time into trying to help me to resolve my problem. She arranged for me to be able to buy the D series Recovery Disks. They did not work. I then bought the J series Recovery Disks, which also did not work.
So I call Sony Tech Support again. I get a very rude individual who is not interested in helping me at all. He tells me that since I am not registered, I will have to give him a credit card number, and he will charge me per incident for any information that he gives. I should further understand that he does not guarantee to solve my problem, he will simply look into their Knowledge Base and see if he can find an answer that has worked for others in the past.
Now, the Sony Knowledge Base is available on line, and I can search it myself. I ask him if the disks that I bought are not entitled to some Tech Support, and he says No. I ask him for the phone number for the parts department, but he says that he cannot give me that information until I give him a credit card number and it will cost me $20 to get that phone number from him.
Back to my wonderful contact at PC World. And I really want to thank her for all her support. If she had not intervened, I never would have got as far as I did in trying to solve my problem. Though the end result wasn't what I had hoped, she really made every attempt on my behalf. She even managed to get a person from Sony to contact me to discuss my situation.
This would have been great, if the Sony representative had been interested in helping me. She told me that I had a prototype machine, which I had been saying all along. She said that, on that basis, it was stolen from Sony and she could not help me. She was not interested in fixing it, buying it back, or having me ‘trade it in' on any other model "But I've got nearly $1800 invested in this Sony machine!" Not Sony's problem. "What about the two sets of disks that you sold me that did not work?" Also not Sony's problem. . End of story, see ya, bye.
Now, here's the logic… she is protecting Sony.
Okay, protecting Sony from what?
God knows that if any other rogue prototype notebooks get out into the mainstream, we know better than to reformat the hard drives, because Sony won't help us. But how many of these can there be? Meanwhile here I am, a good and loyal Sony customer. I've bought a fair amount of Sony gear in the past, often paying the premium for the brand name when other brands of similar products sell for significantly less. This is the second Sony computer that I have bought in the last three years, and due to seeing mine, a couple of people that I know have bought Sony computers for themselves. I've even toyed with buying the RMX-100, in a configuration that would be about $24,000.
So how did she protect Sony? By pissing me off and insuring that I never buy another Sony product again in my lifetime, she did not help them as far as I can tell. One would expect someone interested in Customer support and care to fix the machine or offer a trade in deal, in order to keep the customer happy and coming back. That is how to protect the brand name, because that would take an already loyal customer and probably keep him as a fan of Sony products for life.
The origin of the notebook in question is of little import, since I am obviously not the thief, nor a fence, and I did obviously buy it for a reasonable price through a legitimate outlet. Since the prototype was based upon the older J series and resulted in the D series which has been available for some months now, it seems to me that whoever was testing it has moved on to test the next series which we won't see for a year or so yet, and had abandoned my unit. Where it went from that point matters little, since it had served its purpose for Sony developers. In effect, it is now trash to them, and no loss.
There is also no real loss to Sony by supporting the notebook, as we are talking about a copy of the original software that was meant for this machine, in the form of the proper System Recovery Disks for this machine. And I have offered to pay for that support,… in fact I have already paid for it twice.
They are not interested in tracking the seller, or finding the original person who took the machine from Sony. More proof that this unit has no value to them. Instead they want to pretend that it does not exist. In doing so, they have alienated me and stuck me with the cost of not only the computer, but two sets of System Recovery Disks that are not the proper disks for the machine. Insult to injury.
I've been attending corporate customer care meetings for many years, and I know that the folks at Sony have to have been going to the same meetings that I have been attending. These meetings are all about the science of making the right decisions required to keep customers, and to create brand loyalty. Sony is a very successful company and has obviously mastered the issues in question. So what happened in my case? I don't know. I was always polite, I never displayed attitude or hostility, and I always tried to deal with the people on the other end of the line with rational, logical conversation. Still, I end up losing money, Sony loses a customer, and another company will gain both my money and my loyalty.
So, I have been dicking around with Sony since March, hoping against hope for a happy resolution to this problem. Meanwhile, I have been off-line, borrowing connections and hitting this site in a ‘catch as catch can' method.
But all that has changed now. I just took delivery of a brand new notebook. You all remember AsusTek, the company most noted for their motherboards? Well, they also make notebooks. Apparently they have done so for some years. I got a brand new model, just released in June of this year. It is an M2A, with built in DVD/CDRW, 256 megs of RAM, 30 gig hard drive, wireless lan, modem, soundcard I/O, PCMCIA, USB, 1394, and VGA and printer port all on board, with a docking bar port for an optional docking bar to provide even more interconnectivity. It has a microphone built into the front of the video screen. It weighs in at about four and a half pounds or so, and came with Windows XP Professional and a very nice carrying case with plenty of room for disks, papers, and accessories. The total price including shipping was less than what I paid for the Sony R-505 JSK (UC). Yes, I am still out the cost of the Sony, so this in effect cost me twice as much as it should have. But it is quite a nice machine, has a 14.1 inch screen, includes the CD internally, gets three times better battery life, and at first blush, I am very impressed. The keyboard is larger and easier for a clumsy guy like me to use, though it is a new layout, and I keep hitting [Home] when I shoot for [Backspace]. (I'll get over it, really.) The buttons and ports are better and more logically located. AsusTek even threw in a mouse, for those who use their notebooks as desktop replacements and can't get the hang of the touch pad.
Will this machine be any good at audio recording? I don't know. That is not it's primary purpose in life. But I was able to get 15 tracks of 16 bit playback without a problem on the Sony 505HS, so I imagine that I will be able to do as well with the AsusTek M2A, and have more plugs, since this machine has twice the processing power. I know at some point I will try it out as an audio machine, but frankly I just don't care. It is a way cool replacement for my daily companion Sony, which I had not realized had slipped into such an important place in my daily routine.
It's a shame that I had to lose so much money to discover this new machine, but what is done is done. I am happy to have my tools back, and in the next couple of days I will get it all configured and be back to my normal, web-crawling, opinionated self. So those of you who have wondered of my whereabouts, and to those of you with whom I have lost touch, I apologize for my lengthy time away, but…. I'M BAAACCCCKKKK!!!!!
For those of you who might be interested in picking up an AsusTek M2A for yourself, they are not that easy to find in local outlets, but are available at a few on-line sources. I got mine from www.googlegear.com. This is the first time that I have bought from them, but others, including fellow ProRec Editor Garry Simmons, recommended the site to me.
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