Copy/Paste from the e-mail I sent the company, before you read, let it be known that my PC was working all right, with the CPU overheating in a few hours, which prompted the company to send me replacement CPU and heatsink
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Micropro Tech Support @ Costumer Service
Attn: Mike and Pat
Attached is the picture of what this onsite "tech" did to the MBD on the simple task of merely removing the heatsink clamp. Please note that I had to REMOVE the ram and the video card from the system after I saw the brutality he was using on the system. My GEFORCE3 actually bent in an arc when he was applying pressure! I hope it is not damaged. I have also checked my DDR ram chips, they seem to be unscratched.
When this tech finally managed to take the clamp off, he replaced the CPU and heatsink (he even plugged the heatsink to the inccorect plug on the MBD on his first try). He turned on the PC and the only thing that came up was my monitor's self -test. He began t-shooting by putting in the old chip back in a few times, alternating new chip/old heatsink, old chip/new heatsink to test stuff (2nd time around he seemed to have learned how to take the clamp off!), same result. I could clearly see the scratches and damage to the plastic in the CPU slot, but he kept on unplugging card after card until the only thing that was left was the cpu itself..no IDE or RAM or vid card plugged into system. He still wondered why it wasnt booting. He ended up by telling me that I had a bad MBD from the start and that by putting in the parts it had "finished it off". (oh god!)
I am a PC tech, used to work for Gateway (I never told the onsite guy that) and have seen horrors beyond belief , but one thing is having people show you things and another is actually see them happen! This guy is simply unbelievable!
This tech said he would e-mail someone to get a replacement MBD and that he'd be back to replace it and put the new chips in. I know that man is NOT entering my house ever again.
Mike, I would like to return this dead MBD to you folks along with the old cpu and heatsink (which I still dont know which was bad or IF the new ones are defective or not), I would like to request this A7A266 MBD from ASUS be replaced with a special order ASUS A7M266 with DDR support MBD. The A7A266 has too high latency for 3D applications, the A7M266 has beat the A7A266 in performance by a wide margin and is perfect for my needs. Its also cheaper btw. If this can be done, please let me know, you can e-mail me at
*private e-mails DELETED*
If you get this by Tuesday 31st of July, let me know also if there is any way to extend the return period of the old cpu and heatsink. I still do not know if it was the cpu that was bad or the heatsink..and I do not know if the new cpu and heatsink will fix that. If I could keep the old parts until the new MBD arrived, we could check them out and avoid to have to replace another part yet again and delay this even more. *confidential info REMOVED*
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After 5 days of talking with them 3 times a day, they couldnt get past their beaurocracy to get me a replacement MBD because "the tech had damaged it"...I told them to shove their MBD and so called warranty where the sun doesn't shine and sent them the ruined MBD back with refund instructions, got me an A7M266 DDR mbd (which is the one I wanted from the start but those morons couldnt sell it or special order it)...and now my pc works like a charm. New heatsink with Artic Silver on it as well.
[ 08-05-2001: Message edited by: Tac ]
