I could have sworn I posted a thread about earlier problems I had with my Newer Technologies Pismo G4 upgrade, but I can't find it with a search, so let me quickly summarize. I got the upgrade in August of last year through OtherWorld Computing, and the machine had serious problems right after I got it back. It locked up within an hour or two and then refused to boot completely. I got in contact with Rick Estes at Newertech (he's apparently the president, although I think it's pretty close to a one-man shop). He had me do a few tests and eventually had me send back the card to him. I received it a while later, and while I wasn't too happy with the delays (it had taken longer than they had said to get the machine in the first place, plus another week or more to get the repaired processer card back) it worked pretty well.
I moved back to Japan from the US in September of last year and found a few months later that I was having more problems, apparently connected to a failed L2 cache (the machine was slow, and wouldn't reboot without resetting, etc). Anyway, I got into contact with Rick again and he said to send the processor back to him for a replacement, which I did. This was in early January, and from then on I only received very vague answers as to what was going on with my repair. I had been told that it would take 1 week to do the repair, but (to make a long story a bit shorter) I waited for 3 or 4 months (emailing him every week or so, and even calling from Japan). Most of my emails were totally ignored and when I called him he just gave me some non-committal answers.
FInally it occurred to me to get in contact with OtherWorld Computing, since I had bought the upgrade through them. The way they asked me about my dealings with Rick made me rather suspicous that there was something going on between the two companies that I didn't know about (and still don't). They required copies of all my correspondence with him, and a great deal of time, but they eventually committed to getting me a replacement for my processor. However, it took them about 2.5 months to finally get a replacement for me, making the total time involved over 5 months. I just got the replacement yesterday. All this time my Pismo has been sitting dead, and if I hadn't gotten my 12" powerbook I don't know what I would have done. To make matters worse, Rick had asked that I include my memory (576MB) with the processor card when I sent it in, and that was never returned to me. So not only am I out 5.5 months of time, I had to go out and buy new memory.
Needless to say I am not happy, and I would recommend that people considering an upgrade avoid Newer like the plague. Since they take your original G3 processor, you are totally screwed if it malfunctions.
I am not sure if it was OWC's responsibilty to get me a replacement, so I appreciate that, and the people there were mostly pretty helpful. From what I hear, they haven't had any more luck contacting Rick than I have.
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