Yep You Got Ripped,
Computer repair shops here in ther US don't order replacement parts from China. There are several wholesale distributors right here in the US not to mention retail stores that have most anything they need or could possibly order from China. And there again, the shipping and import fees would cost more than the motherboard itself if shipped from China. HP and Compaq are the same company. They just sell under different brand names. They flooded the market for years with these Compaq Internet PCs and thats about all they had the power to do, browse the web and do email. People try to run more high performance programs like photo editing or MS Office or better yet, video games. So they end taking their computer to a shop wanting to increase it's power and this is not possible as these computers are not designed to be upgraded more than adding a little memory. The computer shop talks them into letting them build them a high performance computer to run these programs and games. 9 times out of 10, that person just gives that old Compaq to the repair shop to avoid all the inviromental laws involved in just throwing it away.

Sorry this happened to you, rlj1959

Mel, how much did it cost you for that "new" MB and the other things he/they did to the computer? If you don't mind telling...
I'm just curious, now that this other info has came up.
I'm just kind of surprised and curious about this "china mb" when any similar mb would work.


Mainly because I rehabbed a "broken" HP desktop with a spare Asus MB /cpu and got rid of all the HP proprietary baloney with a clean formatting & install of dd's XP cd - she is still using it although we upgraded all the internals since that first time.

I have the receipt right in front of me. And everybody in the neighborhood goes to this guy and they love him. He fixes everybody's computers.

Okay, here's the breakdown.

1 MB - brand new - $150.00
1 Ram DDRI 19B/400 (at least it looks like 19B to me)- $65.00
1 clean up the system (I was there when he took off the cover of the tower and used this blowing thing and the dust that came out of that blew me away) - $50.00

Total - $265 and that's what I paid him last February.

And there is a note that says ONE YEAR WARRANTY FOR RAM.

Rip-off or no rip-off???

lol
mel

Well ,it's hard to say... he may have sent for an exact HP MB, but that doesn't explain why it says Compaq during the boot up....

but then again maybe that's what he had to get so he could reuse your same CPU & RAM since it is 7 yrs old.

The receipt doesn't say a part or model # for the MB?
if so you could google that # and see what it is for sure.
unless you want to download one of those system/device identifying programs.
but I don't know that it really matters too much-as long as it works well now.

but he didn't suggest at all that your computer is probably not worth the cost to do the fix ups due to it's age???
Your hard drive could have been plugged into a newer or new machine so you could still access the info on it.

7 years is getting old for a pc - unless the insides have all been upgraded along the way.


I just upgraded my power supply, got a spare cpu as I thought mine was going bad - a cheap one off ebay 15.00- (mainly for test/ backup), added a gig of RAM, all because I thought things were having a problem but I think it is now the onboard video...
sometimes pcs are not easy LOL.


My mb is having issues with the onboard graphics - causes the display to go all weird at times and have to reboot (monitor is only 5 months old)
my mb is 4-5 yrs old - most of the new mb have different cpu types & ram types now. So I'd have to buy all new stuff if I upgrade with new mb.

So just late last night on ebay I found a refurbished exact mb like I have right now - and luckily it's not too far from here - so if it does have problems - the guy knows I'm not too far away...

So anyway I spent 70.00 for this refurbished mb just so I can reuse my same cps & Ram - I'll let you know if it works out or not...

I think you are absolutely amazing and I wish I had your brain.

I'm also putting up a new question for you. It's a doozy. And if you want to have the best laugh of your life, go to "On the Lighter Side, and read my latest post. I put up THE FUNNIEST YOUTUBE VIDEO you have ever seen.

Believe it.

Melody

Hi Jo*mar,
He couldn't have ordered a motherboard from China. The shipping and import fees would have been around $125.00 by itself. The reason the computer says Compac when its turned on is because of the bios chip on the board. If she new how to go into the bios setup and turn off the bios splash, it would show the date of the bios and I will bet you anything that it is a lot older than Febuary 2010. I'm sorry for her but this lady simply got ripped.

If the receipt don't say anything about the warranty for the MB then its not brand new and thats where he got you. That ram is probably 1GB/DDR400 and it cost him about $30.00. I have bought plenty of it so I know what it cost. Yes mam, he took you to the cleaners.

All I can say is

lol, Melody

Well, obviously I'm not going back to HIM again. And he was so nice.

He did give me one piece of advice when I asked him about buying a laptop. He said "don't", look at all the laptops I have to fix. And he had 20 laptops all over his store in different sorts of condition He said "laptops are notorious for needing repairs, so get a desktop.

He did however (while I was waiting to get my computer back), since his store is only a few blocks from my house, he always let me come in, use his computer and go on these forums. I never did any purchasing or private info but I thought that was nice of him.

Too bad (after what you told me about not buying parts from China). I don't trust him anymore.

Melody