13 ms·

RaptorCS Power9 Blackbird PC: An expensive mistake

113 points by stargrave 7y ago

eatonphil 7y ago
This is really disappointing to hear. I've been thinking of getting one. Thanks for documenting the issues.
einpoklum 7y ago
So, the root of the problem seems to be in the shipping? I had assumed this would be a story about Power9-based machines...
- Cuuugi 7y ago
  read past the first paragraph.
Porthos9K 7y ago
That's a shame, but I hope this doesn't deter others from trying and popularizing non-Intel architectures. We need to break their grip on the desktop/server/laptop market.
- Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
  Author here. Counterpoint: my HiFive Unleashed (RISC-V) experience has been extremely positive.
  - thomasjames 7y ago
    Do you mind mentioning which RAM module you purchased? On the wiki it looks like some are officially supported and others have been added by users. Maybe if the issue is related to the RAM, others have experienced similar problems. Also, I am looking at the bundle, but don't see any RAM included with it. Was this something that had been offering in the past but since took down?
    - Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
      > Also, I am looking at the bundle, but don't see any RAM included with it. Was this something that had been offering in the past but since took down? It's an add-on. Click "Add to cart" and then you'll have the option to add it on the next page. > Do you mind mentioning which RAM module you purchased? On the wiki it looks like some are officially supported and others have been added by users. Maybe if the issue is related to the RAM, others have experienced similar problems. Not interested in troubleshooting in HN comments, but thank you. There are some leads in the IRC channel that I'll follow up on when I have the chance.
  - classichasclass 7y ago
    I'm sorry to hear about the problems with your Blackbird. I was an early purchaser as well but my unit arrived rather earlier than yours and didn't have any hardware issues (and I had experience with the platform anyway from the Talos). Raptor support was very good in the early days but I haven't had cause to need it lately and I suspect the load is exceeding their capacity. That's a good problem to have in some respects but if your story is any indication, it could be a sign of looming trouble.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    So... any chance of riscv support on sr.ht sometime in the mid-future? Especially if this undermines the plan to get POWER supported.
    - Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
      Hm, I have wanted to get RISC-V support on builds.sr.ht, but there are a couple of problems. The main blocker is that I still haven't got a good Alpine port finished for it, the main blocker for that being the lack of a good bootloader available that lets me load a kernel from the filesystem. uBoot is almost there but they need to add an mmc driver before it's ready. Once that's available (or after I have time to investigate it myself), I'll be rebuilding the Alpine port on top of a stable release, then I can start thinking about putting together support for builds.sr.ht.
  - seltzered_ 7y ago
    To ask an odder question, why be an early adopter to new machines as someone that also wrote https://drewdevault.com/2019/01/23/Why-I-use-old-hardware.html https://drewdevault.com/2019/01/23/Why-I-use-old-hardware.ht... ?
    - Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
      I don't exclusively use old hardware. I own and regularly use a wide variety of hardware.
      - iforgotpassword 7y ago
        Kudos for that post! Exactly my way of thinking and working. My laptop isn't 11 years old since my last one died in 2014 but I specifically bought a slow Pentium as a replacement. On the up side I still get 6 hours of battery life today. My former boss always said that all devs worldwide should get the fastest machine possible for development but should be forced to use their own software on a 386. :-)
        Porthos9K 7y ago
        > My former boss always said that all devs worldwide should get the fastest machine possible for development but should be forced to use their own software on a 386. :-) I appreciate this thinking, and have always thought that web developers should be forced to test with lynx on 9600baud dialup. But I'm just a wee bit sadistic when it comes to web developers. "No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering."
- prongletown 7y ago
  >We need to break their grip on the desktop/server/laptop market. I'm curious as to why you think this "needs" to happen? I have my own reasons, for example, openness of ISA and IP from up top at the browser all the way down to the firmware on the chip; however, I'm curious to hear yours.
  - kbenson 7y ago
    Not the GP, but I can think of a few reasons: - A monoculture of HW leaves us more susceptible to security issues. See Spectre and Meltdown. While not eradicated by other hardware designs, the problem is generally mitigates. See relative difference in what Spectre and Meltdown affected as evidence. - A monoculture of HW may lead us to local maxima of capability. As we approach theoretical maximums of the hardware in specific materials areas, we are presented with more and more complex architectures to eek out smaller and smaller gains. This makes the pursuit of alternative architectures more and more costly to invest in from a business standpoint, knowing that it may be years or decades before it starts to compete favorably with existing products. The more concurrent alternate architectures that can be pursued at the same time will allow for a much shorter time to market for alternatives, should a specific niche fit their capabilities well. (e.g. it's taken a decade, but Apple is making ARM competitive to the point it may be a viable laptop processor competitor, possibly even the better option at some point). - Multiple avenues of research often yield benefits of cross-pollination. CISC/RISC in the past ended up converging somewhat in the middle as they adopted the best features of each other. The most lines of research we have (and used in the market, so they get sufficient funding and attention) the more likely we are to see benefits for all related hardware.
  - markjenkinswpg 7y ago
    A slightly different framing than openness that is used from time to time is owner controllable. Older x86 systems were underdocumented, but at least there was the hope of reverse engineering to replace boot firmware, limit device firmware and develop libre device drivers. Not so on today's OEM systems, the CPUs are coming cryptographically fused to only accept the OEMs boot firmware and with locked down, privileged, security co-processors. I don't want to live in a world where everything new is an iThing that says I can't help you Dave. That could turn retro-computing from a hobby to an essential life skill to preserve freedom!
- floatboth 7y ago
  I'm "going" to write a post about my experience with the SolidRun MACCHIATObin as a desktop… (spoiler: I wish it was faster but it's pretty dang awesome in general)
CharlesColeman 7y ago
How many employees does RaptorCS have? Their products strike me as very ambitious but quite niche.
- tpearson-raptor 7y ago
  This information is not public, however I do want to note that the products are not exactly niche. We'll have some announcements shortly that will help clarify where we intend to go with the newly created POWER desktop market segment.
glitchc 7y ago
Sounds like a faulty PSU. $70 USD is quite on the low end of the spectrum, especially for a chip with a TDP of 130W. Is it a working pull unit? Do you have the ability/option to try another unit?
- classichasclass 7y ago
  The chip he appears to have bought is a 90W TDP part. I have a pretty beefy 650W power supply in my Blackbird, but I think that was overkill, and it was $94. I would certainly try another PSU but I wouldn't immediately think that would be the problem.
lightedman 7y ago
Symptoms pretty much guarantee bad or improper RAM. Source: I've been building systems, including POWER systems, for 30 years.
- tpearson-raptor 7y ago
  You're pretty close, though in this case it's apparently the RAM controller inside the CPU itself. This failure mode is incredibly rare but it just happened to hit this one system, unfortunately.
gautamcgoel 7y ago
I appreciate Drew sharing this, I was interested in picking a Raptor board up sometime...
kev009 7y ago
I lost a Talos II board due to what we are fairly sure was a shitty PSU on the first few powerups. I replaced the PSU with a store bought Corsair one and the new unit and replaced (under warranty) board has been very reliable. Raptor is a small company and one guy is fronting most of the support load so keep trying, he's not out to screw any customers or provide an inferior product.
- ksec 7y ago
  >Raptor is a small company and one guy is fronting most of the support load so keep trying, he's not out to screw any customers or provide an inferior product. But Radio Silence for a few months... surely that is a bit too much? On the other hand I didn't know Raptor was this small.
  - tpearson-raptor 7y ago
    It's not that small, the information above is not accurate. However, I think people that do not see what we see in the support system are greatly underestimating the volume of Email an OEM/ODM receives on a daily basis, which then must be filtered and sorted through to determine the valid issues from the flood of spam and general inquiries. It's not something we have a solution for yet.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- jigglesniggle 7y ago
  > he's not out to screw any customers or provide an inferior product. Can he actually manage returns? His suppliers should be eating the cost of faulty boards, and the article makes me think they aren't. Continued problems customer side should result in a replacement. In the US you have full rights to a return to the person who took your money for 30-90 days (depends on state). Requests that you use the warranty or contact the manufacturer are unenforceable. Considering this, it is unwise to wait for longer than that period before requesting your money back. The federal statute of limitations for being sold a defective product is 4 years, but that is a lot harder to enforce. Remember the AMD Ryzen returns? Why wait 2-3 months for a replacement? Demand your money back from Newegg and buy another, they have to process the refund. Also -- most FFLs either state gun returns are outright illegal (a lie) or only accepted for 3 days (against state law) with a steep restocking fee (also against state law). This is the worst case I know of.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
grubles 7y ago
Please don't dismiss Raptor over this. I've had nothing but a great experience ordering from them. I do not have a Blackbird but my Talos II Entry system (1-cpu slot vs. 2) works flawlessly.
- iforgotpassword 7y ago
  So you were lucky to receive a system that just works without issues so you never had to contact their support in the first place. That way of reasoning would work for even the shittiest company on this planet. I'm really glad I read this piece. The geek in me was playing with the idea of getting a Talos 2, but the pricing makes me really hesitate. Knowing that if I'd end up with a problematic unit their support will be absolutely worthless is important information.
  - grubles 7y ago
    Actually I did have to contact support since the shipping took a few weeks. Understandable given the exotic hardware and, well, they're small and they support freedom in computing, so I have no qualms waiting. I got a reply relatively quickly, but this was before they started shipping the Blackbirds so it's possible they are just swamped with orders.
  - tpearson-raptor 7y ago
    We've shifted our policy to allow rapid RMA of problematic units, which is more in line with other vendors. Please be assured you won't be stuck a problematic unit, especially with our well-established Talos II line. For Talos II, which has been on the market for two years, we have a well established support system in place, which asks for some basic diagnostics to verify a faulty board (this is rare) before authorizing RMA for repair or replacement. With Blackbird there was more of a focus on trying to understand any new faults found in the field, given their tendency to disappear when the units were brought back for analysis. Over the months after Blackbird shipments started, we learned that the majority of those were related to improper customer component installation (CPU, RAM, PSU, chassis), and are in the process of expanding the existing RMA policy to cover the Blackbird line.
kkarakk 7y ago
As much as I like the whole "oh we're a boutique business!" model this kinda stuff has been my experience routinely with anything computer related. Don't be the small business/entrepreneur outlier unless you're a multi-million dollar business, they can't afford to care about your 2k dollars too much
lostgame 7y ago
This is unfortunate. I have loved the POWER architecture since Apple’s G5. (Though I am aware that was a variant.)
nullc 7y ago
I have three talos II boards, no issues with them except I stupidly cut power to one during a firmware update. The raptor co staff was exceptionally helpful to me on IRC in fixing it.
tpearson-raptor 7y ago
Timothy Pearson from Raptor here. I'd like to first extend apologies from the apparently poor support experience from Raptor Computing Systems -- that being said, there are a few exceptional circumstances in play with this system: 1.) This particular case is one that Raptor needed to consult with IBM engineering to determine the correct course of action for. There is a very rare CPU failure mode (we have only seen it happen twice) that manifests with similar symptoms and a ZCAL failure. The root cause here is an apparently defective CPU that slipped past IBM final test, and work is underway to make sure that these marginal, but defective, CPUs are caught instead of being shipped out. 2.) There is definitely more than one person in support, however Raptor has been overloaded with both spam and off topic inquiries. Raptor has attempted to manage this load without much success, despite deploying new features such as the troubleshooting guide at https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Troubleshooting/Support_Request_Checklist https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Troubleshooting/Support_Reque... we continue to receive support requests that are missing vital information, and with descriptions that are so generic that the problems could range from "PC not plugged in" to "used non-ECC unbuffered RAM" to "tried to install Windows" (yes, all of those have happened, repeatedly). 3.) We are currently gearing up for a major push on owner-controlled computing. Higher level technical resources are assigned to those projects temporarily, which means unusual issues like the ZCAL problem are being resolved at a slower rate than normal. I'd ask that the general community please bear with Raptor as we work through these problems. What we're doing is hard, it's not as simple as shipping a RISC-V SBC in a known configuration, we have the entire complexity of the traditional PC ecosystem in play. AMD's release of the uber-fast (but ultra-locked-down and owner-disrespecting) Rome CPUs has not helped the owner controlled computing world, and I am still of the opinion that POWER is a better long-term investment than RISC-V in the desktop and server space. FWIW I use a Blackbird desktop as my daily driver, and have not had any complaints with it (in fact it's given me less problems over time than my previous daily driver -- a corebooted ASUS KCMA-D8). Raptor has a Wiki with a ton of information available at wiki.raptorcs.com and I am definitely open to further suggestions on how to make the nascent POWER desktop community a bit more self sufficient than it is now. Remember that x86 vendors don't need to offer significant post-sale support, partly because the Linux community has already filled that role, and as a result they can continue to offer low prices, strengthening the lock-in effect. If owner-controlled computing is to succeed in the marketplace, we need to figure out the best way to ensure that vendors aren't bearing the brunt of those costs and being forced pass them on in higher product pricing. I believe support has reached out to you now that we understand the CPU will need to be replaced. Can you confirm this? Thanks!
gautamcgoel 7y ago
Update: https://twitter.com/RaptorCompSys/status/1176432946670186498 https://twitter.com/RaptorCompSys/status/1176432946670186498

113 points by stargrave 7y ago

This is really disappointing to hear. I've been thinking of getting one. Thanks for documenting the issues.

So, the root of the problem seems to be in the shipping? I had assumed this would be a story about Power9-based machines...

Cuuugi 7y ago
read past the first paragraph.

Porthos9K 7y ago

That's a shame, but I hope this doesn't deter others from trying and popularizing non-Intel architectures. We need to break their grip on the desktop/server/laptop market.

Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
Author here. Counterpoint: my HiFive Unleashed (RISC-V) experience has been extremely positive.
- thomasjames 7y ago
  Do you mind mentioning which RAM module you purchased? On the wiki it looks like some are officially supported and others have been added by users. Maybe if the issue is related to the RAM, others have experienced similar problems. Also, I am looking at the bundle, but don't see any RAM included with it. Was this something that had been offering in the past but since took down?
  - Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
    > Also, I am looking at the bundle, but don't see any RAM included with it. Was this something that had been offering in the past but since took down? It's an add-on. Click "Add to cart" and then you'll have the option to add it on the next page. > Do you mind mentioning which RAM module you purchased? On the wiki it looks like some are officially supported and others have been added by users. Maybe if the issue is related to the RAM, others have experienced similar problems. Not interested in troubleshooting in HN comments, but thank you. There are some leads in the IRC channel that I'll follow up on when I have the chance.
- classichasclass 7y ago
  I'm sorry to hear about the problems with your Blackbird. I was an early purchaser as well but my unit arrived rather earlier than yours and didn't have any hardware issues (and I had experience with the platform anyway from the Talos). Raptor support was very good in the early days but I haven't had cause to need it lately and I suspect the load is exceeding their capacity. That's a good problem to have in some respects but if your story is any indication, it could be a sign of looming trouble.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  So... any chance of riscv support on sr.ht sometime in the mid-future? Especially if this undermines the plan to get POWER supported.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
    Hm, I have wanted to get RISC-V support on builds.sr.ht, but there are a couple of problems. The main blocker is that I still haven't got a good Alpine port finished for it, the main blocker for that being the lack of a good bootloader available that lets me load a kernel from the filesystem. uBoot is almost there but they need to add an mmc driver before it's ready. Once that's available (or after I have time to investigate it myself), I'll be rebuilding the Alpine port on top of a stable release, then I can start thinking about putting together support for builds.sr.ht.
- seltzered_ 7y ago
  To ask an odder question, why be an early adopter to new machines as someone that also wrote https://drewdevault.com/2019/01/23/Why-I-use-old-hardware.html https://drewdevault.com/2019/01/23/Why-I-use-old-hardware.ht... ?
  - Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
    I don't exclusively use old hardware. I own and regularly use a wide variety of hardware.
    - iforgotpassword 7y ago
      Kudos for that post! Exactly my way of thinking and working. My laptop isn't 11 years old since my last one died in 2014 but I specifically bought a slow Pentium as a replacement. On the up side I still get 6 hours of battery life today. My former boss always said that all devs worldwide should get the fastest machine possible for development but should be forced to use their own software on a 386. :-)
      - Porthos9K 7y ago
        > My former boss always said that all devs worldwide should get the fastest machine possible for development but should be forced to use their own software on a 386. :-) I appreciate this thinking, and have always thought that web developers should be forced to test with lynx on 9600baud dialup. But I'm just a wee bit sadistic when it comes to web developers. "No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering."
prongletown 7y ago
>We need to break their grip on the desktop/server/laptop market. I'm curious as to why you think this "needs" to happen? I have my own reasons, for example, openness of ISA and IP from up top at the browser all the way down to the firmware on the chip; however, I'm curious to hear yours.
- kbenson 7y ago
  Not the GP, but I can think of a few reasons: - A monoculture of HW leaves us more susceptible to security issues. See Spectre and Meltdown. While not eradicated by other hardware designs, the problem is generally mitigates. See relative difference in what Spectre and Meltdown affected as evidence. - A monoculture of HW may lead us to local maxima of capability. As we approach theoretical maximums of the hardware in specific materials areas, we are presented with more and more complex architectures to eek out smaller and smaller gains. This makes the pursuit of alternative architectures more and more costly to invest in from a business standpoint, knowing that it may be years or decades before it starts to compete favorably with existing products. The more concurrent alternate architectures that can be pursued at the same time will allow for a much shorter time to market for alternatives, should a specific niche fit their capabilities well. (e.g. it's taken a decade, but Apple is making ARM competitive to the point it may be a viable laptop processor competitor, possibly even the better option at some point). - Multiple avenues of research often yield benefits of cross-pollination. CISC/RISC in the past ended up converging somewhat in the middle as they adopted the best features of each other. The most lines of research we have (and used in the market, so they get sufficient funding and attention) the more likely we are to see benefits for all related hardware.
- markjenkinswpg 7y ago
  A slightly different framing than openness that is used from time to time is owner controllable. Older x86 systems were underdocumented, but at least there was the hope of reverse engineering to replace boot firmware, limit device firmware and develop libre device drivers. Not so on today's OEM systems, the CPUs are coming cryptographically fused to only accept the OEMs boot firmware and with locked down, privileged, security co-processors. I don't want to live in a world where everything new is an iThing that says I can't help you Dave. That could turn retro-computing from a hobby to an essential life skill to preserve freedom!
floatboth 7y ago
I'm "going" to write a post about my experience with the SolidRun MACCHIATObin as a desktop… (spoiler: I wish it was faster but it's pretty dang awesome in general)

CharlesColeman 7y ago

How many employees does RaptorCS have? Their products strike me as very ambitious but quite niche.

tpearson-raptor 7y ago
This information is not public, however I do want to note that the products are not exactly niche. We'll have some announcements shortly that will help clarify where we intend to go with the newly created POWER desktop market segment.

glitchc 7y ago

Sounds like a faulty PSU. $70 USD is quite on the low end of the spectrum, especially for a chip with a TDP of 130W. Is it a working pull unit? Do you have the ability/option to try another unit?

classichasclass 7y ago
The chip he appears to have bought is a 90W TDP part. I have a pretty beefy 650W power supply in my Blackbird, but I think that was overkill, and it was $94. I would certainly try another PSU but I wouldn't immediately think that would be the problem.

lightedman 7y ago

Symptoms pretty much guarantee bad or improper RAM. Source: I've been building systems, including POWER systems, for 30 years.

tpearson-raptor 7y ago
You're pretty close, though in this case it's apparently the RAM controller inside the CPU itself. This failure mode is incredibly rare but it just happened to hit this one system, unfortunately.

gautamcgoel 7y ago

I appreciate Drew sharing this, I was interested in picking a Raptor board up sometime...

kev009 7y ago

I lost a Talos II board due to what we are fairly sure was a shitty PSU on the first few powerups. I replaced the PSU with a store bought Corsair one and the new unit and replaced (under warranty) board has been very reliable. Raptor is a small company and one guy is fronting most of the support load so keep trying, he's not out to screw any customers or provide an inferior product.

ksec 7y ago
>Raptor is a small company and one guy is fronting most of the support load so keep trying, he's not out to screw any customers or provide an inferior product. But Radio Silence for a few months... surely that is a bit too much? On the other hand I didn't know Raptor was this small.
- tpearson-raptor 7y ago
  It's not that small, the information above is not accurate. However, I think people that do not see what we see in the support system are greatly underestimating the volume of Email an OEM/ODM receives on a daily basis, which then must be filtered and sorted through to determine the valid issues from the flood of spam and general inquiries. It's not something we have a solution for yet.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
jigglesniggle 7y ago
> he's not out to screw any customers or provide an inferior product. Can he actually manage returns? His suppliers should be eating the cost of faulty boards, and the article makes me think they aren't. Continued problems customer side should result in a replacement. In the US you have full rights to a return to the person who took your money for 30-90 days (depends on state). Requests that you use the warranty or contact the manufacturer are unenforceable. Considering this, it is unwise to wait for longer than that period before requesting your money back. The federal statute of limitations for being sold a defective product is 4 years, but that is a lot harder to enforce. Remember the AMD Ryzen returns? Why wait 2-3 months for a replacement? Demand your money back from Newegg and buy another, they have to process the refund. Also -- most FFLs either state gun returns are outright illegal (a lie) or only accepted for 3 days (against state law) with a steep restocking fee (also against state law). This is the worst case I know of.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

grubles 7y ago

Please don't dismiss Raptor over this. I've had nothing but a great experience ordering from them. I do not have a Blackbird but my Talos II Entry system (1-cpu slot vs. 2) works flawlessly.

iforgotpassword 7y ago
So you were lucky to receive a system that just works without issues so you never had to contact their support in the first place. That way of reasoning would work for even the shittiest company on this planet. I'm really glad I read this piece. The geek in me was playing with the idea of getting a Talos 2, but the pricing makes me really hesitate. Knowing that if I'd end up with a problematic unit their support will be absolutely worthless is important information.
- grubles 7y ago
  Actually I did have to contact support since the shipping took a few weeks. Understandable given the exotic hardware and, well, they're small and they support freedom in computing, so I have no qualms waiting. I got a reply relatively quickly, but this was before they started shipping the Blackbirds so it's possible they are just swamped with orders.
- tpearson-raptor 7y ago
  We've shifted our policy to allow rapid RMA of problematic units, which is more in line with other vendors. Please be assured you won't be stuck a problematic unit, especially with our well-established Talos II line. For Talos II, which has been on the market for two years, we have a well established support system in place, which asks for some basic diagnostics to verify a faulty board (this is rare) before authorizing RMA for repair or replacement. With Blackbird there was more of a focus on trying to understand any new faults found in the field, given their tendency to disappear when the units were brought back for analysis. Over the months after Blackbird shipments started, we learned that the majority of those were related to improper customer component installation (CPU, RAM, PSU, chassis), and are in the process of expanding the existing RMA policy to cover the Blackbird line.

kkarakk 7y ago

As much as I like the whole "oh we're a boutique business!" model this kinda stuff has been my experience routinely with anything computer related. Don't be the small business/entrepreneur outlier unless you're a multi-million dollar business, they can't afford to care about your 2k dollars too much

lostgame 7y ago

This is unfortunate. I have loved the POWER architecture since Apple’s G5. (Though I am aware that was a variant.)

nullc 7y ago

I have three talos II boards, no issues with them except I stupidly cut power to one during a firmware update. The raptor co staff was exceptionally helpful to me on IRC in fixing it.

tpearson-raptor 7y ago

Timothy Pearson from Raptor here. I'd like to first extend apologies from the apparently poor support experience from Raptor Computing Systems -- that being said, there are a few exceptional circumstances in play with this system: 1.) This particular case is one that Raptor needed to consult with IBM engineering to determine the correct course of action for. There is a very rare CPU failure mode (we have only seen it happen twice) that manifests with similar symptoms and a ZCAL failure. The root cause here is an apparently defective CPU that slipped past IBM final test, and work is underway to make sure that these marginal, but defective, CPUs are caught instead of being shipped out. 2.) There is definitely more than one person in support, however Raptor has been overloaded with both spam and off topic inquiries. Raptor has attempted to manage this load without much success, despite deploying new features such as the troubleshooting guide at https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Troubleshooting/Support_Request_Checklist https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Troubleshooting/Support_Reque... we continue to receive support requests that are missing vital information, and with descriptions that are so generic that the problems could range from "PC not plugged in" to "used non-ECC unbuffered RAM" to "tried to install Windows" (yes, all of those have happened, repeatedly). 3.) We are currently gearing up for a major push on owner-controlled computing. Higher level technical resources are assigned to those projects temporarily, which means unusual issues like the ZCAL problem are being resolved at a slower rate than normal. I'd ask that the general community please bear with Raptor as we work through these problems. What we're doing is hard, it's not as simple as shipping a RISC-V SBC in a known configuration, we have the entire complexity of the traditional PC ecosystem in play. AMD's release of the uber-fast (but ultra-locked-down and owner-disrespecting) Rome CPUs has not helped the owner controlled computing world, and I am still of the opinion that POWER is a better long-term investment than RISC-V in the desktop and server space. FWIW I use a Blackbird desktop as my daily driver, and have not had any complaints with it (in fact it's given me less problems over time than my previous daily driver -- a corebooted ASUS KCMA-D8). Raptor has a Wiki with a ton of information available at wiki.raptorcs.com and I am definitely open to further suggestions on how to make the nascent POWER desktop community a bit more self sufficient than it is now. Remember that x86 vendors don't need to offer significant post-sale support, partly because the Linux community has already filled that role, and as a result they can continue to offer low prices, strengthening the lock-in effect. If owner-controlled computing is to succeed in the marketplace, we need to figure out the best way to ensure that vendors aren't bearing the brunt of those costs and being forced pass them on in higher product pricing. I believe support has reached out to you now that we understand the CPU will need to be replaced. Can you confirm this? Thanks!

gautamcgoel 7y ago

Update: https://twitter.com/RaptorCompSys/status/1176432946670186498 https://twitter.com/RaptorCompSys/status/1176432946670186498