On Sat, 2005-12-31 at 21:27 +0000, Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
If anyone has acquaintance with Mercury laptops supplied by Ergo ( http://www.ergo.co.uk/ ) I'd be interested to hear from you!
A lot of the 700A's and the earlier MG Elite's have passed through my hands. The 700A is a nice little machine, perhaps a bit on the bulky side by modern standards. But they are tough (magnesium chassis) and generally reliable. There is a design weakness with the rear mounted USB ports, they are fitted upside down and often get broken by repeated attempts at having the plug pushed in the wrong way...I can repair this for you quite cheaply if the unit you are looking at suffers this fate. Also watch for cracks forming in the lid (around the cosmetic moulded line in particular) I have seen a few heavily abused units with this problem.
I'm particularly interested in the Mercury 700A model, and specifically (at the moment, though probaboy other things later) in the builtin ethernet interface device.
Off the top of my head I can't recall what ethernet chipset the 700A's use. However I think there are a few scrappers in the workshop at the moment so I will check for you on Tuesday when I get back if that is any help.
On a side note...I do tend to hold a bit of a scrap pile of these units (and other Ergo models) between taking in quantities of machines to dispose of. If you get stuck for anything other than batteries then I can probably help.