enders

I built this computer at my ex girlfriends place. With the configuration i had 1 gb of ram, a radeon 9600 video card, and an athlon processor. Anyways, about 2 to 3 months ago, the computer died, and she had over a tech guy to come fix it. He said that the motherboard was fried, and replaced the mother board, the cpu and *supposedly* the ram.

My video card is nowhere to be seen. He took all the old parts with him, so I don't know if they didn't work or if he took them for himself? If the motherboard was blown, could it blow the graphics card and the ram as well? Seems kinda shifty to me. If the stuff did work, then he took 1gb of my ram, my video card and then charged me for 512 mb of additional ram. I am going to call him and ask him what his deal is, but i thought i would ask you guys first. What are some of your thoughts on this? Think i got screwed?

Thanks for the help,
Kiel

tlarkin

I could use a bit more info first...

this was a built system or manufactured?

Was there some sort of warranty involved?

Was this a "tech guy" or an actual corporation and he was just their employee?


If what you say is true that is just asinine, I do onsite work and I would never ever steal from a client, that is just the dumbest thing i have pretty much ever heard.

Also, how did you come about contacting this guy? Phone book, word of mouth, conatcted a company?

enders

I built the system myself, so no warranty. He was just an employee for this company called Doctor Dave. They looked it up in the phone book I suppose...there are adds all over the place for them.

The thing is, my ex girlfriend and her mom don't know anything about computers, so they had no idea what i was talking about. They had no idea anything was missing until i told them. What makes me think he might have is that none of the old parts are here. Wouldn't he leave them for us to throw out? He took the old case and everything else.

I am thinking about calling him directly and asking him what is up, but he can just say they were blown, ya know? There is no way to prove it.

I don't wanna be a dick, but at the same time, i hate to feel that he cheated them...

Kiel

tlarkin

contact his company and express your concerns you'll get more out of it. They will find out what happened and let you know, and if there are any problems they will take care of you. Or at least they should.

enders

Thanks for the reply. I am still curious though. What are the chances that the video card, ram and motherboard blew. My computer was fine for about a year, so it wasn't installation problems. Is that standard that they take all the old parts? I think that is what bugs be me the most, i can't even test them for myself cause he took everything.....grrrrr

thanks guys

tlarkin

no the only time I ever to offer to take something if its busted and they want to recycle it. I know of a few technology brokers in my area who recycle computer componets.

However, no one should just up and take stuff they should always have permission because its not their property. Technically, that is stealing.

Ku-sama

motherboard and MAYBE the videocard, but i doubt the RAM and anything else.... i ested out a flase power surge one day while i was bored at a freinds house, his Athlon 1200+ system that had a bad IDE controller and i shocked the powerstrip with a tazer and all that went was the PSU, motherboard and the caps on the videocard we a little puffy, but the videocard still worked

lhuser

In my experience, I've seen board take out PSUs, HDDs, but nothing else really. My old P4S61 from ASRock fried at spark. It took my 120GB, which I am looking for a bad DiamonMax 9 HDD's controller, and it took my PSU out.

The video card remaind intact, so did the CPU, and RAM. To me, it seems that he took your stuff and flunked a different motherboard and he sold it.

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tlarkin

I have seen everything fail in a system, so its not like the RAM was good. I am saying that we can't be 100% sure. However, what I can say about my experience is, I very very rarely see a processor go bad. Even with machines that have suffered surges from lightning strikes. There are things designed to blow first to protect the processor on a motherboard.

mosfet chips are one of those things.

I would want a copy of the techs work notes too to see how he diagnosed it.

Cromewell

Yeah, any tech should be giving you back your dead hardware. I always do. It's so that when you replace something they know that it needed it and you aren't trying to steal free parts to sell to someone else.
You should call him anyway and ask for your old stuff back.

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