-=> CHARLES ANGELICH wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 CA>> With unlimited amounts of money and time I guess "who
 CA>> cares" is the proper response. If you have one shot at
 CA>> this and no bankroll to replace your mistakes it becomes
 CA>> important to know what the hardware _really_ can do.

 WC> Downloading the PDF of the motherboard manual from the
 WC> manufacturers web site is a good start,

 CA> Sort of. There is usually one manual and one schematic for
 CA> every 3-5 motherboards. They can't bother to have one for each.

I've seen Asus's site where they had two manuals for the same board
one for each of two revisions though in fact there was yet a third
revision on the market. IIRC the manual's covered
the first two revisions with the third revision just having 
become available. The links to each revision's PDF manual was
noted for which revision board it applied to.
No idea how common this is but suspect not very.

 WC> then you can see if they're reviewed on Tom's Hardware,
 WC> motherboards.org, check newsgroups for the appropriate
 WC> motherboard for problems ect.

 CA> I could try, no guarantee I would find the information but I
 CA> could try.

 Yeah sometimes helpful often not and you have to wonder
 how advertising figures into their objectivity.
 They do advertise specials and banners leading to specific board
 based systems.

 CA> Only comparable situation I can think of is buying a used car.

I got virtually ALL my info on my former 486 based system
off fido's TECH echo and from internet searches, the latter is where
I found out about the EideMax card to support drives up to 8.4 Gig.
Had I purchased the EidePro board I'd still be using that system
with an external modem. Never figured out how to make 
Texas Z modem connect better then 14,400 from the 8250
UART. The EidePro had a newer buffered UART, I wasn't thinking
ahead. Didn't hurt the 486 came with a comprehensive manual 
with all jumpers ID'ed ect.

 CA> I don't think it should be legal to decieve me (or any other
 CA> customer) into thinking they are buying something they are not.
 CA> For some reason we have become very tolerant of this behaviour
 CA> when computers are involved.

What's the Latin phrase? 
Something Emptor?
Anyway means buyer beware.
I do my best to check it all out on the internet between
my infrequent purchases.
Hewlett Packard's site is useless to a would be power user
and there appears no-one out there in newsgroups or anywhere is
filling the gap like was the case with early Packard Bells.
The H.P. was dumped on my doorstep partly disassembled 
by a disgruntled owner who had not been able to either fix it
or find anyone who could fix it for 6 months.
Manual is utterly useless, no technical specs to speak of at all.
But I found the fault in three weeks.
Slap a big drive in this puppy and good as new complete with
OEM software and key to install it :-)
 
--- MultiMail/PBellDOS v0.42