Statistically, I didn’t think this was possible. First I get the defective Shuttle SD39P2 sent to me, then the video card I ordered wouldn’t fit in said Shuttle, and when I tried it in my full-sized PC it turned out to be defective. A new SD39P2 arrived last week, so last night I sat down to put it all together – I breathed a sigh of relief when it actually booted! So imagine the frustration I felt when the Vista installation went screwy – it would get to the stage when it copied files over and expanded them, but at the expansion stage it would stick at 0% and the optical drive (a Plextor 760A) would make these rapid-fire seeking sounds. I tried four times, and it never worked. I swapped in a cheap NEC DVD burned I picked up to keep as a spare burned, and it worked like a charm. So for those keeping score this ONE project of mine has had THREE defective parts. What are the odds? Am I cursed, or have quality control standards slipped badly on PC hardware?
On the plus side, the new Shuttle SD39P2 screams with the Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme in it. It’s so fast it hurts. But it’s a good hurt. I’ll be writing an article on this rig for Digital Media Thoughts, so watch for it.
Quality Control is definitely a factor. Seems like nothing is made to last anymore.
Well I am about the return my SEVENTH stick of RAM to a place I have built 6 PCs out of.