larwe@larwe.com (Lewin A.R.W. Edwards) writes:

> Even more obviously: Do not buy this product!

That all shouldn't be surprising. Walmart has a long history of
selling products in special Walmart-specific sizes that have less
content than expected so that they appear to be a better buy. (The "1
pound" can of coffee that hasn't physically gotten smaller, but has
less coffee in it.)

They just shaved off a few MHz and figured Walmart shoppers wouldn't
be savvy enough to notice.

Admittedly, at least on the coffee can, they do list the net weight,
just not in giant letters below a banner that says "New!! 20% Less!!"

tim

> That all shouldn't be surprising. Walmart has a long history of
> selling products in special Walmart-specific sizes that have less
> content than expected so that they appear to be a better buy. (The "1
> pound" can of coffee that hasn't physically gotten smaller, but has
> less coffee in it.)

Yeah, but this is more like ordering coffee and getting chicory
war-substitute. Not only is it a slower processor, it isn't even the
RIGHT processor.

Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote:

> The actual OPN on his CPU is
> AHM1100AV53B, which if you refer to AMD's part# breakdown guide, is a
> 1.1GHz (not 1600+) mobile Athlon 4, not an XP-M.

You have to be careful with AMD numbers. The 1600 does not mean the CPU
runs at 1600 MHz. It means that it's comparable, in performance, to an
Intel P4 running at 1600 MHz. For example, my desktop system contains an
XP 1700+ but (IIRC) the CPU is only running at a bit under 1200 MHz.

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Tim wrote:

> larwe@larwe.com (Lewin A.R.W. Edwards) writes:
>
>> Even more obviously: Do not buy this product!
>
> That all shouldn't be surprising. Walmart has a long history of
> selling products in special Walmart-specific sizes that have less
> content than expected so that they appear to be a better buy. (The "1
> pound" can of coffee that hasn't physically gotten smaller, but has
> less coffee in it.)
>
> They just shaved off a few MHz and figured Walmart shoppers wouldn't
> be savvy enough to notice.
>
> Admittedly, at least on the coffee can, they do list the net weight,
> just not in giant letters below a banner that says "New!! 20% Less!!"

A few years ago, Andy Rooney on "60 Minutes" had a piece about several
coffee companies selling cans with less coffee in them, so that practice is
not limited to Wal Mart. And it's not limited to coffee either.



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Followup to this issue:

> 2. The $598 machine sold as "1600+" is actually running at 1.1GHz,
> which would make it a 1400+. It has been confirmed that it does not
> have the advertised CPU in it.
>
> 3. The $698 machine sold as "1800+" is actually running at 1.2GHz,
> which would make it a 1600+ if it was an XP-M. There was never a
> mobile Athlon 4 made in the 1800+ speed rating, by the way. Although I

I just spoke to the computer buyer for Wal-Mart. He physically opened
his "1800+" machine and physically confirmed that it's an old 1.2GHz
chip. Quote-unquote, they have found a "discrepancy" and they are
contacting the vendor to explain it. They are also contacting AMD to
confirm the details. Things are still kind of up in the air as to what
specifically will happen with my case, and with that of the other
person whose details I gave them, but we'll see.

Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote:

> I just spoke to the computer buyer for Wal-Mart. He physically opened
> his "1800+" machine and physically confirmed that it's an old 1.2GHz
> chip. Quote-unquote, they have found a "discrepancy" and they are
> contacting the vendor to explain it. They are also contacting AMD to
> confirm the details. Things are still kind of up in the air as to what
> specifically will happen with my case, and with that of the other
> person whose details I gave them, but we'll see.

So perhaps Wal-Mart was cheated by the vendor?

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Keep us up to date on this. I would start throwing around the word 'fraud'
because it sounds like someone somewhere in the Walmart pipeline is lying.

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" wrote in message
news:608b6569.0410251141.7ef68d12@posting.google.c om...
> Followup to this issue:
>
> > 2. The $598 machine sold as "1600+" is actually running at 1.1GHz,
> > which would make it a 1400+. It has been confirmed that it does not
> > have the advertised CPU in it.
> >
> > 3. The $698 machine sold as "1800+" is actually running at 1.2GHz,
> > which would make it a 1600+ if it was an XP-M. There was never a
> > mobile Athlon 4 made in the 1800+ speed rating, by the way. Although I
>
> I just spoke to the computer buyer for Wal-Mart. He physically opened
> his "1800+" machine and physically confirmed that it's an old 1.2GHz
> chip. Quote-unquote, they have found a "discrepancy" and they are
> contacting the vendor to explain it. They are also contacting AMD to
> confirm the details. Things are still kind of up in the air as to what
> specifically will happen with my case, and with that of the other
> person whose details I gave them, but we'll see.

"Jon Cortelyou" wrote in message news:<8Vdfd.9933$6q2.5971@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>...
> Keep us up to date on this. I would start throwing around the word 'fraud'
> because it sounds like someone somewhere in the Walmart pipeline is lying.

Trust me, the word was used more than once in my fax of this morning.
If people actually care, I'll PDF it and put it up on my web site.

I need to stress once more: So far, I have no reason to complain about
the Wal-Mart side of things. Everything I have seen is consistent with
a fraudulent vendor. For all I know, these things are drop-shipped
direct from someone else and never see the inside of a Wal-Mart
warehouse. And the Wal-Mart people I've dealt with have all been
responsive, have acknowledged that there's a problem without trying to
invent any B.S. explanations [frankly I was expecting some of these],
and they haven't given me the brush-off (unlike ECS, who gave me what
amounted to a "no speakee English" answer, and MTS who were no
better).

Of course, it would have been HELPFUL if Wal-Mart had torn down one of
these things before committing to buy 1,000,000 of them. I don't think
that buyer will relish explaining the situation to his managers. But
the machine LOOKS like it's what it's advertised to be. It takes some
prying and poking to reveal the truth. And luck. I happen to use
Linux. On powerup, the powernow! driver prints a table of recognized
speed configurations. That was where I started to get my first sniff
of skulduggery. If I only used Windows, I might never have noticed.

Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote:

> Of course, it would have been HELPFUL if Wal-Mart had torn down one of
> these things before committing to buy 1,000,000 of them. I don't think
> that buyer will relish explaining the situation to his managers.

How do you know they didn't? What to stop a crooked vendor from supplying
an up to spec sample, prior to the order being placed then using
sub-standard parts in the production run? Then again, perhaps Walmart may
have to do some sample testing of production systems.

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> > Of course, it would have been HELPFUL if Wal-Mart had torn down one of
> > these things before committing to buy 1,000,000 of them. I don't think
>
> How do you know they didn't? What to stop a crooked vendor from supplying

True. If they'll fake it in the first place, they may as well seed the
test pool. I just assumed that Wal-Mart would treat it like a toaster;
look at the box, it says "four slot toaster, black", look at the
toaster, it has four holes and it's black, ergo it's the right
product. Regardless of whether all four slots actually lead to heating
elements..

Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote:

>> > Of course, it would have been HELPFUL if Wal-Mart had torn down one of
>> > these things before committing to buy 1,000,000 of them. I don't think
>>
>> How do you know they didn't? What to stop a crooked vendor from
>> supplying
>
> True. If they'll fake it in the first place, they may as well seed the
> test pool. I just assumed that Wal-Mart would treat it like a toaster;
> look at the box, it says "four slot toaster, black", look at the
> toaster, it has four holes and it's black, ergo it's the right
> product. Regardless of whether all four slots actually lead to heating
> elements..

If they suspect such a problem, they'd have to pull random samples from the
production systems, so that the vendor doesn't know which computers will be
tested. If Wal-Mart goes to the vendor and asks for additional "samples",
we can guess the result.

Proper testing costs money, which can be a significant factor, when you're
working on slim margins. However, given they now know there's a problem,
they'll have to pull samples and verify them. If they're being drop
shipped, then they'll have to arrange for some dummy purchases, so that the
vendor doesn't know they'll be tested.

Also, checking computers is a bit more involved than checking a toaster.


--

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> A few years ago, Andy Rooney on "60 Minutes" had a piece about several
> coffee companies selling cans with less coffee in them, so that practice is
> not limited to Wal Mart. And it's not limited to coffee either.

As a matter of interest, I used to work at [big plastics company that
makes toys, specifically LARGE toys, among many other things]. Quite
often you will find items (toys are where my specific experience lies)
in Wal-Mart, in colors or color schemes that aren't available anywhere
else. These tend to be paler colors (orange, for example) The reason
for this is:

a) raw plastic resin pellets used in these applications are clear,
translucent or white and have a powdered pigment mixed in just prior
to molding.

b) certain pigments are cheaper per pound,

c) lighter colors require less of a given pigment per pound of plastic
resin.

So the Wal-Mart special versions are often lighter colors, and in some
cases missing certain expensive colors (e.g. the regular version of a
ride-on toy might be bright red with blue doors, the Wal-Mart version
might be orange with yellow doors). This occasionally has unintended
side-effects, particularly for outdoor items, because a lower pigment
content means UV can penetrate deeper. Many plastics decompose or
discolor under UV.

Update on this situation:

> 2. The $598 machine sold as "1600+" is actually running at 1.1GHz,
> which would make it a 1400+. It has been confirmed that it does not
>
> 3. The $698 machine sold as "1800+" is actually running at 1.2GHz,
> which would make it a 1600+ if it was an XP-M. There was never a

I was called today by the operations manager at the Wal-Mart customer
service center. There was an urgent meeting today with the vendor this
morning. (I would *love* to have been a fly on the wall. Bet there was
blood on the floor). One of the main issues at this meeting was to
determine if it's every single laptop affected (actually there is a
third intermediate model, CN6301, available on samsclub.com, which is
practically certain to be in the same situation). The upshot, although
he didn't tell me this in QUITE those words, is that the vendor is
going to be eating every dime of Wal-Mart's expenses in fixing this
situation.

As far as what that fix is going to be, I don't know yet, because he
didn't have full info himself on the results of the meeting. But the
ops mgr said specifically that Wal-Mart will put a notice on their web
site and send out a mass email to all the affected people telling them
what the remedy is and giving instructions for upgrade return, rebate
check, or whatever it might be. As far as that goes, I'm happy with
the way things are proceeding. And they are proceeding about as fast
as I could reasonably expect.

I am, however, NOT terribly happy that the three affected models are
still being sold on walmart.com and samsclub.com. The guy I spoke to
today said that it's not as simple as just editing an HTML file, this
data is extracted from vast and mysterious databases and loaded en
masse periodically. Plus they want

I am also NOT happy that all of a sudden from work (and often from
home), when I go to walmart.com, I get a message saying "Sorry!
Walmart.com is temporarily closed for business". Strangely, when I ask
a friend (or the abovementioned ops mgr) to visit the site, they have
no problems accessing it at the exact same moment I'm trying to access
it. Clearing cookies makes no difference. I wonder if IP addresses
that I've logged on (in the sense of, entered my email and password)
from are being blocked.

As far as my specific case goes, I'm sending back the (unopened)
second laptop tomorrow. It isn't clear to me what my restitution is
going to be at this point. The situation is still developing.
Obviously, the fact that I'm still without a laptop (and going to be
without for at least another two weeks, probably) also has me a tad
PO'd.

More news when something transpires. I think there will probably be a
final answer on what's happening later in this week.

Good to see Wal-Mart is recognizing it as a serious problem. Your story is
an unfortunate one but you can take some consolation that are helping out
what is probably thousands of customers to get what they actually paid for.

It's somewhat surprising that it appears you are first person to bring up
this problem to them.

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" wrote in message
news:608b6569.0410271233.222e723a@posting.google.c om...
> Update on this situation:
>
>> 2. The $598 machine sold as "1600+" is actually running at 1.1GHz,
>> which would make it a 1400+. It has been confirmed that it does not
>>
>> 3. The $698 machine sold as "1800+" is actually running at 1.2GHz,
>> which would make it a 1600+ if it was an XP-M. There was never a
>
> I was called today by the operations manager at the Wal-Mart customer
> service center. There was an urgent meeting today with the vendor this
> morning. (I would *love* to have been a fly on the wall. Bet there was
> blood on the floor). One of the main issues at this meeting was to
> determine if it's every single laptop affected (actually there is a
> third intermediate model, CN6301, available on samsclub.com, which is
> practically certain to be in the same situation). The upshot, although
> he didn't tell me this in QUITE those words, is that the vendor is
> going to be eating every dime of Wal-Mart's expenses in fixing this
> situation.
>
> As far as what that fix is going to be, I don't know yet, because he
> didn't have full info himself on the results of the meeting. But the
> ops mgr said specifically that Wal-Mart will put a notice on their web
> site and send out a mass email to all the affected people telling them
> what the remedy is and giving instructions for upgrade return, rebate
> check, or whatever it might be. As far as that goes, I'm happy with
> the way things are proceeding. And they are proceeding about as fast
> as I could reasonably expect.
>
> I am, however, NOT terribly happy that the three affected models are
> still being sold on walmart.com and samsclub.com. The guy I spoke to
> today said that it's not as simple as just editing an HTML file, this
> data is extracted from vast and mysterious databases and loaded en
> masse periodically. Plus they want
>
> I am also NOT happy that all of a sudden from work (and often from
> home), when I go to walmart.com, I get a message saying "Sorry!
> Walmart.com is temporarily closed for business". Strangely, when I ask
> a friend (or the abovementioned ops mgr) to visit the site, they have
> no problems accessing it at the exact same moment I'm trying to access
> it. Clearing cookies makes no difference. I wonder if IP addresses
> that I've logged on (in the sense of, entered my email and password)
> from are being blocked.
>
> As far as my specific case goes, I'm sending back the (unopened)
> second laptop tomorrow. It isn't clear to me what my restitution is
> going to be at this point. The situation is still developing.
> Obviously, the fact that I'm still without a laptop (and going to be
> without for at least another two weeks, probably) also has me a tad
> PO'd.
>
> More news when something transpires. I think there will probably be a
> final answer on what's happening later in this week.

Just discovered this thread and read it with amazement. From what you
are very clearly saying, I gather that:

1/ any intentional fraud from Walmart is extremely unlikely. It just
sounds like their purchasing procedures are not thorough enough and that
they got taken for a ride. The hacked BIOS really is incredible.

2/ you never said anything about the machine not performing as expected
and you do not seem to have heard of any complaints in this regard. This
is probably why you were apparently the first to discover the fraud. So,
basically, since the machine appears to perform as you can expect in
this price range, it is easy to see how Walmart may have been duped.
Furthermore, no offense intended, but I suspect that demanding computer
users seldom buy their equipment from Walmart and the others are
probably happy as long as their machines do what they expect and they
look no further. It is fortunate you were savvy enough to discover this.

3/ the way Walmart will eventually deal with your problem will be very
interesting. I do not doubt one second you will get a full refund; what
will be interesting is to know what steps they will take to "make it for
you". You actually did them a great favor since, in this day and age,
the last thing Walmart wants is a bad publicity. Cutting costs is one
thing, blatant fraud is another.

4/ We will probably never know what will happen to the Walmart buyer who
managed to get his company into this mess and to the executives of the
company who deliberately hacked the BIOS ... I am not sure it is wise
for a company like Walmart to get into technological products like
computers. Of course, as someone mentioned, $5 on a machine can still be
profitable if you sell millions of them but problems like the one you
discovered can eat this kind of profit very fast and more importantly,
damage your reputation.

5/ As an aside, I wish the way chip makers like Intel and AMD sell their
products offered more visibility. Who would want to buy to "cheap"
Cadillac because 2 of its 8 cylinders have been disabled ? I wish some
kind of standard existed which would put some clarity in this area.

Curious to see what the end will be ...

--
John Doue

> Good to see Wal-Mart is recognizing it as a serious problem. Your story is
> an unfortunate one but you can take some consolation that are helping out
> what is probably thousands of customers to get what they actually paid for.

Yes, I'm very pleased with the way this has turned out.

Actually - I'll reveal this now, though I was previously keeping quiet
about it - I was contacted by a couple of laywers (independently) who
specialize in class actions of this type, asking if I wanted to become
a lead plaintiff. Naturally, the egregious nature of the case and the
potential size of the class had them salivating. I chose NOT to go
with that option because I feel that litigation ought to be a last
resort [you might guess, I'm not an American citizen ]. As it
happens I am very glad I made that decision, because Wal-Mart
investigated and acknowledged the issue immediately, pretty much fixed
it within a few days, and basically have dealt with the situation very
openly and proactively ever since I got in touch with them directly.
The issue has occupied ME for about three weeks, but most of that time
was initial research, dealing with the useless tech support company,
waiting for shipments to arrive, that sort of thing.

Once I sent the final fax to Wal-Mart, I got a call back the very same
day saying they'd opened a machine and found the same issues I
described, and two days later they had already met with their vendor
for, presumably, a rather irate "please explain" session.

The web site was mostly fixed as of yesterday, it now shows accurate
CPU speed info. (A reasonable inference from that, by the way, is that
every one of these machines sold has this fakery inside it. If it was
a glitch, they would have fixed the machines to match the advertising,
not vice versa).

Going down the legal route would have taken months, probably would not
have led to a significantly better settlement for the average class
member (but I reserve judgement on that until I find out what they're
offering other customers), and merely enriches the legal profession.
Stupid to do this when the company in question is so obviously willing
to fix the problem without intervention.

> It's somewhat surprising that it appears you are first person to bring up
> this problem to them.

It was deliberately concealed by the faked BIOS, which would have
stopped many investigations right away. People running Windows do not
have an easy way of telling that the PST only goes up to 1.2GHz, and
they might not even know what the correct CPU speed is supposed to be;
AMD certainly doesn't make it easy to find out. Anyone who called the
MTS tech support line would have been given a brushoff answer. So
there were numerous hurdles. I guess I'm just a persistent SOB who is
lucky enough to run Linux I spent about 60 minutes on the phone to
MTS, emails to AMD, a long email discussion with an owner of the
slower model, one letter, a few phone calls and one fax to Wal-Mart,
plus miscellanous web research, before I got to the point where I was
able to say "I've given you definitive proof that the product is
mislabeled".

Also, I have to admit, at a couple of points I came close to just
giving up and saying "It's good enough, whatever, I don't believe what
I'm being told but it'll do".

Jon Cortelyou wrote:
> Good to see Wal-Mart is recognizing it as a serious problem. Your story is
> an unfortunate one but you can take some consolation that are helping out
> what is probably thousands of customers to get what they actually paid for.
>
> It's somewhat surprising that it appears you are first person to bring up
> this problem to them.
>

It's probably a case of several people having had the problem and it
becoming such a big issue that it can't be brushed underthe carpet much
longer. All customers with the problem are toild "you're the first".

Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote:

> Actually - I'll reveal this now, though I was previously keeping quiet
> about it - I was contacted by a couple of laywers (independently) who
> specialize in class actions of this type, asking if I wanted to become
> a lead plaintiff. Naturally, the egregious nature of the case and the
> potential size of the class had them salivating.

Given that Wal-Mart also appears to be a victim here and considering their
response, when they found out, it's unlikely you'd get a judgement against
them. Lawyers don't allow facts to get in the way of a lawsuit.

--

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floda reltih wrote:

> Jon Cortelyou wrote:
>> Good to see Wal-Mart is recognizing it as a serious problem. Your story
>> is an unfortunate one but you can take some consolation that are helping
>> out what is probably thousands of customers to get what they actually
>> paid for.
>>
>> It's somewhat surprising that it appears you are first person to bring up
>> this problem to them.
>>
>
> It's probably a case of several people having had the problem and it
> becoming such a big issue that it can't be brushed underthe carpet much
> longer. All customers with the problem are toild "you're the first".

Or perhaps the average Wal-Mart shopper isn't capable of noticing. Having
worked in computer support, I'd suspect that's a likely reason.

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