MORGAN
COMPUTERS
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The Purchaser Writes:
We have had various bits of kit from Morgan over the last 10 or more years. This is the 3rd PC we've bought. The previous ones were all trouble-free.

This is the order placed by phone/credit card on Friday 16th November, 2007:

Philips MT1600 PC - Intel P4 3.06Ghz

£234.99

Visioneer OneTouch 9000 scanner

£23.49

Delivery

£11.75

The order was delivered on Monday, 19th November
I plugged in a working monitor and the gadget for the wireless keyboard & mouse, and switched on. The hard disk light came on for about a minute or so but the light on the front of the monitor remained orange (stand-by) instead of going green and the screen remained dark.
Switched off, unplugged the monitor and plugged it in again. Same result. Repeated; same result. Phoned Morgan, told the computer would be collected on Tuesday for repair.

Tuesday, 20th November
The collection was a no-show.

Wednesday, 21st November
Phoned Morgan and was told the collection had been arranged for today. I was advised to call back around 4:30 p.m. if nothing had happened so that the collection service could be harassed.
Computer collected 14:48 by the same bloke who delivered it.

Tuesday, 27th November
I blinked and phoned Morgan. They said I should get the computer back tomorrow but, clearly, they weren't planning to spoil the surprise..

Wednesday, 28th November
The PC arrived at 4:30 p.m. on a wet and dark by then afternoon. And it worked.
The PC has a wireless keyboard, which sometimes works intermittently. Same with the mouse. It seems that sometimes, I have to move it to wake up the connection to the PC; which explains why I get letters missing when I type. The keyboard needs a key pressed to wake up the connection and that character isn't recorded.

Wednesday, 05th December
The PC keeps telling me it has to restore files from logs or backups when it boots up, and I get the same message even if I do an immediate restart. I find that Acrobat reader doesn't work right after boot up and Total Commander tells me the executable file is corrupted and shuts down. But both work after a restart.
Tried restoring the system to see if that would do some good. Things seemed to be working but I couldn't customize the PC as Windows Classic and all the folder icons in the Start/Programs menu were just black boxes instead of pictures of orange folders. Very curious.

Tuesday, 11th December
Still having problems, tried another system restore but it didn't make much difference.

Friday, 14th December
Tried one last system restore but I ended up with a message saying "The system is not fully installed, please run setup again." I did this, everything seemed to happen as it should but I ended up with the same message and Windows won't load.

Monday, 17th December
Phoned Morgan after deciding I could spend the rest of my life messing with this stroppy PC. The bloke there decided the problem might be a defective hard disk, so the PC is going back again. He mentioned that I'd get it back in 48 hours.

Tuesday, 18th December
The computer collected again.

Friday, 21st December
Whether it was 48 hours from collection or 48 hours from Morgan getting their hands on the PC, it hasn't come back!

Saturday, 22nd December
Received a repair docket from Morgan to tell me any data on the PC should have been backed up as they guarantee only the hardware and they can't be responsible for data. Luckily, I'd spent so little time actually doing anything with the new PC that all I'd managed to do was copy across some pictures and install a couple of programs. So I signed the form and faxed it back to them. Not expecting to see the computer again until the new year.

2008

Monday, January 07th
Phoned Morgan, told the repair department has been shut down over the holiday and they're only just getting to grips with the Xmas backlog. And it takes about 2 weeks to get a repair done. So Lee said he'd chase up the repair department and give me a call back with an idea when I'll get the PC, which is now actually mine, as I've paid the credit card bill - not that I've had much actual fun with it over the last 7 weeks.

Tuesday, January 15th
11:50 a.m. Made another call to Morgan, answered by Dan, who had to send off an email to find out what's happening about the computer. He took my phone number, something which Lee didn't do, and promised to call back when he got a reply to his message.
   I explained to him that it was over 2 months since I'd bought the computer, I'd had no use out of it, I had jobs piling up waiting for it and I needed either the computer back working this week or a refund so I could buy another computer with the grunt necessary to tackle the graphics jobs in waiting.
14:50 Call-back from Dan to say the problem is 'just a hard disk failure' and he'll ship the computer back to me when he gets it on Thursday.

p.s. The scanner is still in its box awaiting a computer to use it with.

Tuesday, January 22nd
Still no computer so sent a fax to Morgan asking if they had decided there was no hope of getting the computer to me and they'd decided to refund the price to my credit card. Received a phone call from Dan to say there have been still more delays but he has it, the PC has been tested extensively, and he can definitely get it to me tomorrow. So I told him, go ahead but if there's any more trouble with it, finito benito, I want my money back.

Wednesday, January 23rd
The bloke who delivered the PC is the same guy who has already delivered and collected it twice. He wanted to know who I'd bought it from! This is supposed to be a factory refurbished, extensively tested multimedia PC. So why is there no sound for the right speaker coming out of the sound card?

Wednesday, January 23rd
The ideal compliment for the new PC is a Hanton H-340W DS 19" flat-screen monitor from misco.co.uk. It costs £100 plus delivery, and offers a screen 16" wide by 10" tall. At a resolution of 14,400 by 900, it lets you put two windows side by side and be able to see what's going on in both of them. Or play a DVD while you're messing about with your websites!

Monday, March17th
I bought a 20-quid Visioneer OneTouch 9000 USB scanner with the PC. I've only just got round to trying it out and it seems to do everything I want, which makes it a very good deal.
   As for the speakers, it's the left one which isn't getting a sound feed (I found that out while checking the connections) but I guess it's something I can live with.

Thursday, 3rd April 2008
My wireless mouse stopped working abruptly during a game of Freecell. I eventually worked out that the batteries had croaked, which leaves me wondering if I'm going to have to keep buying a new pair every couple of months and how long the batteries in the keyboard will last.

Further Developments
I gave up on both the wireless mouse and the wireless keyboard in favour of an optical mouse (infrared) and a 'usual suspect' PS2 keyboard. Much more reliable and much less suspense, wondering if you'll get something finished before the batteries croak.


2009

Friday, 3rd April 2009
Decided to get a 4th computer from Morgan with Windows XP Home, 1 GB of memory and a 200 GB hard disk. Very reasonable price, and I hoped it would replace an old one with just 64 MB of memory, which limps badly.

Monday, 6th April
The new computer arrived, it booted up okay when I switched it on, but I got "System Preparation Tool 2.0" on the screen. Unexpected program; call Morgan. The guy on duty recommended clicking on the 'Factory' button. After half an hour of an hour-glass and nothing happening (while I worked on my other Morgan computer rather than staring at the hour-glass), I called Morgan again. I was told I shouldn't be seeing this program and something which should have done at Morgan hadn't been done. So I'd have to send the computer back. They're normally turned round in 48 hours.

Tuesday, 6th April
The new computer was collected by the carrier.

Tuesday, 14th April
The computer returned, it worked when I switched it on and, after some messing about, I got my cable modem to talk to it. So Windows XP decided it had 107 updates to do after I'd installed AVG anti-virus, Zone Alarm and the Total Commander file manager.

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