Everex Step 386/20 -- Power-up problems!

[optical at kuhub.cc.ukans.edu]

In article <1989Feb14.175249.25055 at ateng.ateng.com>, chip at ateng.ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
> Once upon a time, A T Engineering bought several Everex Step 386/20
> computers and sold some of them to our customers.
> They were great.
> They were fast.
> If you powered them on while the printer was on and connected, they were
> dead.  Nothing.  Nada.  Not even the fancy front panel display.
> 
> This problem was nothing more than a nuisance until we found that the same
> problem would be caused by leaving an Archive tape drive on and plugged in.
> Of course, the Xenix drivers for the Archive only look for the tape at
> power-up, so if you turn off the drive so the computer will start, then you
> can't use the tape at all.  And trying to use the tape with the computer
> dead was, at best, a waste of time.
> 
> The nice people from Everex came in and replaced our rev E motherboard with
> a rev G motherboard, which fixed the problem.  Unfortunately, that upgrade
> isn't supposed to be free, and we're still trying to work that out.  In the
> meantime, our customers with rev E motherboards can't use their Archive tape
> drives unless they're willing to shell out $500.  This is not making our
> customers happy.
> 
> So has anyone else had this trouble with Everex Step 386 motherboards?  Are
> we the only Everex users with printers and Archive tapes?  What's going on?
> -- 
> Chip Salzenberg             <chip at ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip>
> A T Engineering             Me?  Speak for my company?  Surely you jest!
> 	  "It's no good.  They're tapping the lines."

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!!

I was working for a local computer store last summer, and we had the
same problem with Everex 386 machines (verious model types). We had to
replace the mother board all the time ( 6 out of 10 units we ordered
had this problem). Due to the long wait to get replacement part from
Everex, the owner finaly gave up carrying Everex 386 machines.

The problem we had encountered are:

    (1). System will not start at all after power has been turned
         off for more than 5 hours.  You have to turn the power on
         and wait for about 20 min. then try to reboot.  It will
         then work without any problems.

    (2). For those units without the above problem originally, if
         a 80387 coprocessor is installed, then they would not
         start in the morning (the same problem as (1)).

Everex never told us what was wrong with those units.

Qiwu Liu