Re: (ASCEND) Flat Rate Repair

[Jim Logan <jim@top.net>]

At 10:37 AM 5/7/1999 -0700, you wrote:
>Flat rate RMA costs for a MAX 4000 (March 99):
>
>  Repair (10 biz days + shipping time)
>  ---------------------------------------
>  Main chassis only                $2,612
>  All 56K modem cards (577 each)    3,462
>  Total possible cost (all parts)   6,074
>  Warranty: a whole 30 days

 Excellent example - Current Resell on 'working' equipment:

Max 4004 Chassis only:  $2500-2600
56K Modems - can't be found 12 Mod's are still about $1300-1500


>  Replace (next day + shipping time)
>  ---------------------------------------
>  Main chassis only                $4,859
>  All 56K modem cards (1,073 each)  6,438
>  Total possible cost (all parts)  11,297
>  Warranty: a whole 30 days
>
>As I understand it, the same repair costs apply whether a motherboard is
>melted or a simple blown fuse is replaced. To our knowledge there are no
>third party sources for Ascend repair. Power supplies and fans can be
>found, but that's about it.

  My point exactly.. The power supply repair cost of $125 as an example. I
would hope that even the non-techno Geek would be able to check the fuse,
but then of course there are several fuses on the power supplies
themselves.  If I had access to MainBoards, I'd be the first one to jump in
and start fixing Max's!!!  Often, as in at least one of our cases, Fans
short out, spiking the power supply, and wrecking the main board.  I still
think the Fan issue is one of Ascend's weakest points, even considering
they have beefed up the power supply and increased the number of fans in
the unit.

>It took us several calls to get the costs and options above clearly defined
>by Ascend. Depending on who answered the phone, some staffers were
>knowledgeable about RMA pricing and policies while others were not. In my
>opinion, Ascend's repair policy is way off base and clearly a weak link in
>a company we have otherwise been very happy with.

Agree'd - I'm happy (well fairly happy) with all their firmware updates,
ease of applying updates, and 'free' allowance to updates.  Once you learn
to wander thru their terminal menus, it's a good unit, and accross the
board since the OS's are pretty well similar accross the product line, easy
to work with.  I just hate getting ripped on repairs, being a Electronic
technician by trade.  I wonder if there are any Stats actually published on
failure rates?  Considering we had 4 Maxes, most under 2 years, and 2
failures, 1 in warranty (10 day wait and they used every day of it), and 1
out of warranty (different units), I find it hard to believe that the fail
rate is low.  I currently have actually 2 units - slot 4 or 5 unusable - no
advice, so really I have 4 failures in less than 3 years.

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