$60 To Fix A Computer That Shouldn't Be Broken

I put that machine together and it wouldn't bring up anything.  I mean, I followed the instructions plus watched some videos on YouTube on how to put these things together.  It's not that hard. I toyed with it last night and then played with it again this morning. Nothing.

Loaded that sucker up into the car, took it to Fry's Electronics. The guy hooked it up, tried to turn it on, nothing.  He took the panels off the casing, checked my work, said it looks like it's set up properly.  Great, I said, I bought all of this stuff here, please fix it.

Of course it isn't going to be free.  The guy tells me I need to have them do a System Build.  It's already built.  Yes, but we take it apart and install on component at a time until we find the problem.  Right.  $59.95 plus tax.  What am I going to do?  Say no?  Have a bunch of parts that don't work?  The manager I was dealing with yesterday who told me to bring it in isn't in today and won't be back in until Tuesday.  I agreed to it very reluctantly, no choice in the matter.  I'll take a guess: defective motherboard.  They do get damaged sometimes in transit or otherwise simply refuse to work.  Who knows, who cares, I have a 3 year warranty on the thing, that's all I need to know. 

So, I go pay the fee and then come back with the receipt.  It's pay in advance, apparently.  The guy that was dealing with me had to go on a delivery call, so another dude took over.  He wants me to sign a paper and explains that if they have to do diagnostics, it would be another $69.99.  NOW I had something to say.  WHAT did I JUST pay for?  "You are paying for a system build".  NO, sir, that's NOT what that other guy said.  Why on earth would I pay you to build the thing?  It's already built!  I want to find out what's wrong with the blooming thing!!  I flatly refused.  The guy went to the copier and got another paper, apparently he didn't want to deal with it.  The first person told me they would check each component as they put it back together to find out what's wrong with it, there was no mention of even MORE money.  Ridiculous.  He removed the "potential" fee from the paper.

Thank you and left.

Good grief.  One thing's for sure, I am definitely glad I didn't buy all this stuff on line.   It has certainly been a learning experience and I haven't even got the thing running yet.  They wanted to charge even more money to install the OP system.  No thanks, I have ample experience in that - find out what's wrong with it, get it booted and get the bios info on the screen, I will deal with it from there.  I have Windows XP and The Last XP version 17 on discs, I don't need to pay them to do that stuff. 

That's it.  2 days was their quoted time.  Whatever.  All I know is I better not get hosed for replacing some defective part. 

And that's that for right now.  I have pond stuff to tend to and I want to get it done while it's still early.

ben