HP's/Compaq's...proprietary parts???

[Hurricane Andrew]

A PC at work just had the power supply fry, so I figured I'd replace it with an Antec from a customer of ours located nearby. Unfortunately, what I found out was that the PSU in the Compaq EVO d500 is a bit wider and shorter than a standard ATX power supply, and had to be special ordred from Compaq ($120 for a 250W PSU!!!), since a standard ATX PSU won't fit in the case.

How many other vendors do this, and how many other parts aren't "standard" on HP/Compaq's? I mean, how about the HeatSink retention bracket? How about the MOBO itself? What gives? I've never run across something like this with PC's from other OEM's like Gateway or Dell. Is this unique to HP/Compaq's, or do some other vendors who make boxes for businesses do the same thing?

Frankly, it ticks me off that Compaq would do this. It makes my life more difficult and increases potential downitme now that these systems are all out of warranty. I don't think I'll be ordering any more PC's from them, that's virtually certain.

 

[qbek]

I believe most OEMs do this. The point is to lock you into their WAY overpriced upgrades/replacement parts.
Too bad most of the people realize that after the fact (when something breaks and needs to be replaced or upgraded).

 

[DaveSimmons]

Dell mobo / PSU used to use nonstandard wiring.

Almost all SFF / cubes use custom PSUs

Many mATX PCs including both major brands and generic cases have used custom PSUs

It's pretty common for anything smaller than ATX form factor.

 

[PetunZ]

My girlfriend's computer went dead a few months back, and I tried fixing it for her. It was a Compaq computer and it was a PAIN to troubleshoot and fix. Long story short is that we ended up selling the darn thing and now she uses her laptop. The computer lasted a good 5 years though. We'll probably get her a dell next time around.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Dell mobo / PSU used to use nonstandard wiring.

Almost all SFF / cubes use custom PSUs

Many mATX PCs including both major brands and generic cases have used custom PSUs

It's pretty common for anything smaller than ATX form factor.

Hah! I spit in their general direction! When I built my Scanner PC, I used a standard ATX power supply. True, I had to remove the case and make several modifications to it, introducing numerous electrocution hazards, but I did it! So hah.

 

[Zepper]

Yup, almost all the big box-pushers use some proprietary parts or other. The unusual pinout on some Dell PSUs caused a lot of problems - don't know if they are still up to that particular trick or not. Non-standard form factor PSUs are a big HP trick - though you can almost always find generic replacements for non-standard PSUs Enhance and Sparkle both have long lists of different form-factor PSUs. And PC Power & Cooling sells some with the Dell pinout.
. eMachines used a unitized front panel wiring connector that made it difficult to replace their mobos with standard mATX ones - you would have to rearrange the pins in the shell and/or cut and splice some wire in to extend the connector to reach. The whole mess is a PITA, that's why I build my own and recommend that to everyone in my sphere of influence. Or have places like Monarch or ABS build a 100% standard box for you.

.bh.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Dell mobo / PSU used to use nonstandard wiring.

Almost all SFF / cubes use custom PSUs

Many mATX PCs including both major brands and generic cases have used custom PSUs

It's pretty common for anything smaller than ATX form factor.

Custom PSU's in SFF are necessary though, otherwise you would be screwed trying to make it SFF with a standard ATX PSU.
Other people using non-standard parts isn't good though, except in things like servers of "special" boxes (again similar to SFF PC's, like media centre PC's in odd cases).

 

[daniel49]

yes, thats compaq alright had a compaq mb go bad last year. case was propriatary, mb was proriatary, power supply was propriatary, drivers and were propriatary, only a recovery disk so ended up buying an os.

salvaged ram, optical drives, floppy drive, hard drive after finally freeing it from the death grip cage it was imprisoned in,processor was salvagable but since most of the machine was going to be new, replaced it with one twice as fast