The replacement Velocity Micro machine arrived yesterday, and today I opened it up and saw something a bit strange: the hard drive cage is a bit loose, having some vertical play because one side of the “bolts” on the bottom can move up and down. This is the same hard drive cage that tore completely free last time and caused all sorts of problems. Fearing the worst, I plugged it in, connected all the cables, pressed power…and it would’t boot up properly. I have power, because it does start, but it never posts – nothing appears on the screen. The video card sticks in high fan-RPM mode, as if there’s a component failure. I spent about 15 minutes going over all the cabling, looking for anything that might have become unplugged, but was unable to find anything worthwhile. Everything seems connected ok, but it won’t post.
I don’t have the time or desire to start swapping out components to figure out which one failed, so I contacted Velocity Micro and they’re shipping me a third (!!!) machine in the hopes that this one will work. I’m getting this machine for free, so I can’t complain too much, but I could only imagine how ticked off I’d be if I had paid $2000 (or whatever it costs) for this system and been sent two D.O.A. systems. Let’s just say I’m not too thrilled with the quality control at Velocity Micro…and this time I can’t even blame DHL for trashing the computer, because UPS delivered it! They dropped it off on my doorstep, apparently not requiring a signature for an expensive computer (which is bizarre unto itself).
I’m still waiting for my replacement XFX video card, so my dreams of having my office up and running properly by the end of the weekend are once again dashed. Curses!