***PIC UPLOADED*** Custom built PC for my son was damaged when when shipped with FEDEX...

[tbrooks40]

***Updated... here are a couple of the actual pics below...***


pc_damage1
pc_damage2



Hi all...

I just spent the better part of 3 months putting together a mid-level gaming PC for my son who lives in SoCal. After countless hours of testing, sanding, painting, benchmarking, configuring, tweaking, etc. I finally got it shipped via Fedex Ground this past monday.

It arrived yesterday but he wasn't able to pick it up until today. I told him to call me when he picked it up so we could make sure everything was working properly and so forth. He called me and i asked him the condition of the box and he said it looked great. He then said when he took it up to his room he said he heard something clunking around inside. Of course I was like oh shite! I asked him what it sounded like and he really couldn't explain but said he actually "felt" it move a couple ot times.

Well, now I was very worried. The heatsink fan combo was a thermalright slk800a and 80mm case fan. He gets it on his bed and gets the screws off the side panel and things were worse than I could have ever imagined. I was hoping the fan had just unclipped or something but no, the socket that holds the CPU was actually torn away from the motherboard!

After about 30 minutes of him trying to explain what he was looking at I now know the TBred B 1800+ was still in the socket and the socket was laying near the bottom of the case at this point. The heatsink was wedged under one of the CCFL case fans and the fan was laying flat against the other side panel as the PC laid on its side.

They just finished taking pics and are in the process of sending them to me. I will add pics as they get to me. Before I ask for your input I think I should add the following as to

1) I had the computer running at my house here in Michigan for a full month at least during which time I must have trasferred it from my office desk to my work bench to the floor and vice versa over 50 - 100 times without any inkling of a problem.

2) Also, before i sent it off on monday I had it all packed up and ready to go a week earlier and opted to go ahead and order lighting for it. I had it out in my truck for two days brought it back in the house and hooked it back up while i waited for the CCFL fans, green thumbscrews, and Counterstike grills.

3) Lastly, being aware of how heavy the hs/f combo was before,, I packed it up the second time, I re-attached the heatsink and fan with fresh Artic Silver a day or so before I boxed it up again.

Considering the above I was hoping to get your opinions on the following questions...

A) Does anyone know how difficult it would be to reattach the socket to the mainboard considering the fact that neither me nor his mother know anyone off hand that is very good at soldering? Better yet does anyone know if any soldering is even involved in reattaching the socket?

I'm assuming it looks something like this...

ex. pic socket ripped from mainboard

B) Also, considering I was aware of the size of the heatsink but thought it would be ok to send attached to the board, would be justified in filing a claim with Fedex for the damage to the motherboard?

:beer: Thanx in advance for any help you guys can give me :beer:

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Wow, sorry to hear about that.

I don't think I've ever seen a pic of the socket ripped off. I've seen broken clips and broken notches, but not the whole thing coming off.

Are the metal parts intact? It seems from that pic that soldering wouldn't fix anything, as it's plastic that came off the motherboard. Is there some kind of metal locking mechanism that broke?

My initial reaction to this would be that you could get a heatsink that attaches to the motherboard itself through the holes in the motherboard (like an Alpha PAL) and it might keep the whole assembly in place.

I would say that shipping the computer with the SLK800 was a poor choice (I have one and know it's a beast)... but if you're ok with placing a claim with FedEx, I wouldn't blame you. If it was marked fragile or something then I think it would have been reasonable to have it shipped and not break. I mean shipping companies ship thousands of computers daily... this is kind of an excessive case with a big heatsink like that on it, but I'm sure companies like Alienware etc. ship computers with similar huge hunks of copper on them.

Good luck.

 

[RaiderJ]

I would file a claim. That's why you bought insurance, isn't it?

 

[Conky]

I think the mobo is toast.

I also think that you should've used a much lighter heatsink that wouldn't have come loose during shipment or that you should've shipped it separately.

3 months to build? My systems average about three hours to build if you add in opening the boxes and getting everything all together. Loading the O/S is the most time consuming part of a build.

Bummed for you but I don't think it's Fedex's fault your heatsink caused all that damage.

 

[tbrooks40]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Wow, sorry to hear about that.

I don't think I've ever seen a pic of the socket ripped off. I've seen broken clips and broken notches, but not the whole thing coming off.

Are the metal parts intact? It seems from that pic that soldering wouldn't fix anything, as it's plastic that came off the motherboard. Is there some kind of metal locking mechanism that broke?

My initial reaction to this would be that you could get a heatsink that attaches to the motherboard itself through the holes in the motherboard (like an Alpha PAL) and it might keep the whole assembly in place.

I would say that shipping the computer with the SLK800 was a poor choice (I have one and know it's a beast)... but if you're ok with placing a claim with FedEx, I wouldn't blame you. If it was marked fragile or something then I think it would have been reasonable to have it shipped and not break. I mean shipping companies ship thousands of computers daily... this is kind of an excessive case with a big heatsink like that on it, but I'm sure companies like Alienware etc. ship computers with similar huge hunks of copper on them.

Good luck.

yeah that pic is pretty difficult to look at... it's not a pic of my board however, just an example of what i'm assuming it looks like as i am still waiting for pictures for some reason. i think they may be trying to send too many at once or something.

i new i was risking sending it like that but i have never had a problem in the past sending the larger heatsinks attached. the worst case prior to this was that a fan had come unclipped. this is the second pc i've sent with an slk800, there was one with an ALX800 alu/cu hybrid, a couple sk6's, and i've sent plenty others with the huge aluminum/copper stock heatsinks attached.

so yes, i thought about the possiblity but having not had a problem in the past, i went with experience i guess. i am beginning to wonder if the fact that it was a Biostar had anything to do with it :Q

i mean geesh - as much AS WE ALL move around our boxes for the socket to get ripped from the board is kinda extreme.

the pic i used was from a review of the Aerocool DP-102 Deep Impact which is a bit heavier and quite a bit taller. now i can see where the height along with the weight would be reason for concern for the heatsink to come off taking some tabs along with it but for the whole socket to come off? that's nuts. the 800a is heavy but it's pretty compact compared to many of these silent jobs you seen nowadays.

thanx for the reply - i'm off to bed for now and will bump this back up tomorrow i guess.

 

[imported_Phil]

An SLK800 weighs, what, half a kilo?

It's never a good idea to ship a PC with something that heavy hanging off the motherboard. I'm afraid your board is toast.

 

[Icopoli]

If you/sender/recipient/whoever put a insured/declared value etc on it, just file a claim with FedEx, and you'll hopefully be able to get a new board/cpu out of it.

 

[rise]

frankly, i can't believe you'd ship a computer with that large a hsf attached nor that you are comparing moving the box from desk to floor and back with shipping via any carrier. that is a ludicrous comparison.

as far as the claim, i guess you'd be fine with your insurance.

 

[boshuter]

You can turn it in to Fedex, but it was a very bad idea to ship it with that heavy heat sink attached. I always package them seperatley if it's a large heave sink, and if it has a high end video card I package that seperatley also. Good luck with Fedex:thumbsup:

3 months to build? My systems average about three hours to build if you add in opening the boxes and getting everything all together. Loading the O/S is the most time consuming part of a build.

LOL.... I can't quit picturing one of the famous "3hr builds".... man, those have to be nice!

 

[compusaguy]

Originally posted by: tbrooks40

I just spent the better part of 3 months putting together a mid-level gaming PC for my son who lives in SoCal. After countless hours of testing, sanding, painting, benchmarking, configuring, tweaking, etc. I finally got it shipped via Fedex Ground this past monday.;

why the hell would you spend so much time on a computer? and it's a mid-level computer at that. and then you ship it fedex ground? you couldn't stand the thought of spending $20-30 more to ship by air next day after spending a huge ass amount of time on this?

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: compusaguy

Originally posted by: tbrooks40

I just spent the better part of 3 months putting together a mid-level gaming PC for my son who lives in SoCal. After countless hours of testing, sanding, painting, benchmarking, configuring, tweaking, etc. I finally got it shipped via Fedex Ground this past monday.;

why the hell would you spend so much time on a computer? and it's a mid-level computer at that. and then you ship it fedex ground? you couldn't stand the thought of spending $20-30 more to ship by air next day after spending a huge ass amount of time on this?

Lay off - the guy's mistake was shipping the computer with the hsf attached; yes it was a major mistake, and yes he'll know better next time.

Since it sounds like the case is custom painted and I don't know what else, it's not unreasonable that it would take a fair bit of time to make.

 

[compusaguy]

oh okay.

personally i think the mistake was sending the computer using a delivery method where the box is slammed into several trucks repeatedly and then kicked by the drivers. he should have paid for air next day if he was serious.

 

[Conky]

Originally posted by: boshuter
You can turn it in to Fedex, but it was a very bad idea to ship it with that heavy heat sink attached. I always package them seperatley if it's a large heave sink, and if it has a high end video card I package that seperatley also. Good luck with Fedex:thumbsup:

3 months to build? My systems average about three hours to build if you add in opening the boxes and getting everything all together. Loading the O/S is the most time consuming part of a build.

LOL.... I can't quit picturing one of the famous "3hr builds".... man, those have to be nice!

They are as generic looking as whatever type case I put them in. No paintjobs or extra lights for me, but I always use good parts... pure function is the goal. They must be OK too because people are always bugging me to build one for their friend, and their friend, etc. It pays for the beer.

I am to computers what a pit crew is to an Indy car... I know what I'm doing and I don't screw around. :beer:

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Yeah Ive worked loading trucks for UPS and i can tell you straight away, anything over 15-20 pounds is going to get thrown around by the unloaders & loaders. I would normally try to get them close to the ground before doing it, but I would still do a sliding throw with bigger packages. So if your PC came through me it would have gotten smashed.

On that note I would like to point out one thing to you guys:
When shipping via Ground service, be it FedEx or UPS or whatever, the item will be loaded onto many trucks by several different people. The people are threatened by management to maintain a rate of 250 packages loaded per hour lest they be fired. Now it may not sound that tough, but when you've loaded & scanned 500 packages and something heavy comes down the line you're going to be a bit sloppy with it. My point is that if it is something of real value either have it marked FRAGILE or send it via another method besides Ground.

 

[Markfw]

I think the best response here is the heatsink that attaches to the mainboard. File a claim, you should get it.

 

[fireontheway]

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
Yeah Ive worked loading trucks for UPS and i can tell you straight away, anything over 15-20 pounds is going to get thrown around by the unloaders & loaders. I would normally try to get them close to the ground before doing it, but I would still do a sliding throw with bigger packages. So if your PC came through me it would have gotten smashed.

On that note I would like to point out one thing to you guys:
When shipping via Ground service, be it FedEx or UPS or whatever, the item will be loaded onto many trucks by several different people. The people are threatened by management to maintain a rate of 250 packages loaded per hour lest they be fired. Now it may not sound that tough, but when you've loaded & scanned 500 packages and something heavy comes down the line you're going to be a bit sloppy with it. My point is that if it is something of real value either have it marked FRAGILE or send it via another method besides Ground.

Good advice,thanks for the insider's look.

 

[Googer]

The first $100 of any damages are automaticly coverd by Federal Express, If you paid for insurance on this package then you will be entitled to more. You won't be able to resolder the socket back in place, instead the motherboard will need to be replaced. I would replace it with an nforce2 based motherboard from newegg
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-153&depa=1

The going value for the Epox motherboard the was damaged is $113, and that is the amount you will want to tell Fedex in order to get you claim. I have personaly done this before with fedex for a similar problem, they deliverd my motherboard to the wrong address when I had to RMA it back to Intel.

EPOX 8KHA
$113 http://store.yahoo.com/pcpartscollection/epepddrsocmo.html

 

[imported_Kensai]

Sorry to hear about it.
And remember to send your heatsinks and other large blunt objects seperate.

 

[imported_fatal]

Thats why AMD reccomends a 300g weight limit

 

[Philgag]

Make sure to check no other components have been killed... A large heatsink loose in a case can bumps into expension cards (thinking mainly video card here) and cause quite a lot of dammage!

good luck!

 

[bookman]

Packages sent via Fedex (and UPS) have to survive a three foot drop onto a concrete surface. Keep that in mind next time you send anything.

 

[Zepper]

. Sorry for what happened but...
As others have said, never ship an oversized HSF attached unless it is screw mounted to the mobo - and even then think twice about it. When I use an oversized HSF on my machines here, I tether them to the PSU or something above them with zip ties to take some of the weight off of the socket. I've pretty much stopped using oversized HSFs anymore as they just aren't that much more effective.
. Also mentioned above: Never ship by ground anything that you want to arrive in one piece. Besides what the others mentioned, I will also ship hard drives packaged separately and sometimes the optical drive too. I have the rails and whatnot pre mounted and checked for proper fit and mark the appropriate cable ends with colored stickers to make it easy for the recipient to add them in on arrival. If I sense that the recipient is 'mechanically impaired' , I might go ahead and use a mobile rack on the HD. I'd much rather pay for one of those than have to hassle with RMAing a drive.
. Then there is the matter of packaging. The box most cases are shipped in IS NOT ADEQUATE for shipping assembled systems. Two inches of the rubbery high-density polurethane foam all around is the absolute minimum - yes, Virginia, that means a special box. Most bigger towns have places where you can get them (moving companies and local freight companies for example) along with sheets of the foam for proper cutting and fitting. I will often use the box the case shipped in as an inner box inside another box with at least an inch of the polyurethane rubbery foam all around.
. Any moving or shipping company like UPS, FedEx, etc. has shipping guidelines and tips on their web sites. "Pack and Ship" stores often have packing and shipping guides available (but their packing supplies are WAY over priced).
. As they say, "A learning experience..."

.bh.

 

[aka1nas]

Don't forget that those big thermalright heatsinks are over the weight limit AMD specifies for socket A clip-on sinks.

 

[tbrooks40]

well, thanx for the input guys - yes, i should have used a motherboard that had the four screws to attach it to the mainboard. the reason i took the risk is b/c there was absolutely no one there i was comfortable leaving this job for. yeah, i'll just use a different mainboard the next time.

as for the time it took to put it together - it didn't even take a day to get it up and running the time consumption came in where i wanted to get it running like my pc's run so he didn't have the normal xp slow downs after a few months b/c of all the mess running in the background, unnecessary services running, etc.

i also wanted to make sure all the games he plays worked well so i did quite a bit of game testing and reconfiguring settings and so forth.

i also had it oced just a bit so i had it running prime95 and 3dmark off and on for days at a time until i got the vidcard and cpu tuned to pushed but safe enough speeds also accounting for the heat difference there in SoCal as opposed to this time of year in Michigan. my office is on our indoor porch and its cooler in here than in the rest of the house.

what took the most time was all the mods and case painting and repainting i had to do to get it looking right. i also built a fan and light bus for all the fans and the CCFL fans. to make perform like i wanted them to i had to cut some blow holes in the front and back and a really tough one in the front panel.

then i had the worst experience with SVC which was very unlike them. it took two weeks total to get the right thumbscrews i ordered originally with the fans and grills. it also took a while as i'm including the time it took to find, purchase, and get shipped all the parts that came from the for sale/trade boards. thanx to all those that helped out in this regard.

thanx for all the input guys - i'm probably just gonna take this one on the chin especially if its just the mainboard that needs replacing. BTW, i finally got a couple of pics - one is kinda fuzzy but you can see where the heatsink endedup...

pc_damage1
pc_damage2

...these are the only ones i have gotten of the six so far.

Originally posted by: Philgag
Make sure to check no other components have been killed... A large heatsink loose in a case can bumps into expension cards (thinking mainly video card here) and cause quite a lot of dammage!

good luck!

this was really a big concern for me - in addition to the things you mentioned i'm also concerned about other parts of the mainboard, the memory, and now possibly the hdd considering the hs made its way below it

Originally posted by: compusaguy

Originally posted by: tbrooks40

I just spent the better part of 3 months putting together a mid-level gaming PC for my son who lives in SoCal. After countless hours of testing, sanding, painting, benchmarking, configuring, tweaking, etc. I finally got it shipped via Fedex Ground this past monday.;

why the hell would you spend so much time on a computer? and it's a mid-level computer at that. and then you ship it fedex ground? you couldn't stand the thought of spending $20-30 more to ship by air next day after spending a huge ass amount of time on this?

there was a lot more involved than you realize i guess... read my last post if you care to - and you'll see why the hell!

you sound upset?

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Originally posted by: compusaguy

Originally posted by: tbrooks40

I just spent the better part of 3 months putting together a mid-level gaming PC for my son who lives in SoCal. After countless hours of testing, sanding, painting, benchmarking, configuring, tweaking, etc. I finally got it shipped via Fedex Ground this past monday.;

why the hell would you spend so much time on a computer? and it's a mid-level computer at that. and then you ship it fedex ground? you couldn't stand the thought of spending $20-30 more to ship by air next day after spending a huge ass amount of time on this?

Lay off - the guy's mistake was shipping the computer with the hsf attached; yes it was a major mistake, and yes he'll know better next time.

Since it sounds like the case is custom painted and I don't know what else, it's not unreasonable that it would take a fair bit of time to make.

exactly!

this was somewhat of a special project for my son that uses his PC to play game mostly and the last one he had when south on him - well, WinMe decided it wanted to quit :disgust:

so i built him one with fancy lights, grills, knobs, in his favorite color - he was soooooooo happy with it...


...at first

Originally posted by: bookman
Packages sent via Fedex (and UPS) have to survive a three foot drop onto a concrete surface. Keep that in mind next time you send anything.

thanx a bunch this is very good info to know!

Originally posted by: Crazyfool

Originally posted by: boshuter
You can turn it in to Fedex, but it was a very bad idea to ship it with that heavy heat sink attached. I always package them seperatley if it's a large heave sink, and if it has a high end video card I package that seperatley also. Good luck with Fedex:thumbsup:

3 months to build? My systems average about three hours to build if you add in opening the boxes and getting everything all together. Loading the O/S is the most time consuming part of a build.

LOL.... I can't quit picturing one of the famous "3hr builds".... man, those have to be nice!

They are as generic looking as whatever type case I put them in. No paintjobs or extra lights for me, but I always use good parts... pure function is the goal. They must be OK too because people are always bugging me to build one for their friend, and their friend, etc. It pays for the beer.

I am to computers what a pit crew is to an Indy car... I know what I'm doing and I don't screw around. :beer:

what? omg...

...good for you bud :roll:

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
Yeah Ive worked loading trucks for UPS and i can tell you straight away, anything over 15-20 pounds is going to get thrown around by the unloaders & loaders. I would normally try to get them close to the ground before doing it, but I would still do a sliding throw with bigger packages. So if your PC came through me it would have gotten smashed.

On that note I would like to point out one thing to you guys:
When shipping via Ground service, be it FedEx or UPS or whatever, the item will be loaded onto many trucks by several different people. The people are threatened by management to maintain a rate of 250 packages loaded per hour lest they be fired. Now it may not sound that tough, but when you've loaded & scanned 500 packages and something heavy comes down the line you're going to be a bit sloppy with it. My point is that if it is something of real value either have it marked FRAGILE or send it via another method besides Ground.

i didn't realize this either - thanx for the very important imput. yes, i believe the box had fragile on it in a couple of places from the time it was sent to me originally.

you did say you worked for UPS right? yes, i see it - thanx again for letting me know this!

Originally posted by: rise4310
frankly, i can't believe you'd ship a computer with that large a hsf attached nor that you are comparing moving the box from desk to floor and back with shipping via any carrier. that is a ludicrous comparison.

as far as the claim, i guess you'd be fine with your insurance.

did you read the whole OP or just what you needed to type something negative?

read it again and you'll see that i moved it from my desk to the floor, to my work bench, to my truck and it survived two days in my truck and was then taken back out of my truck unpacked, repacked, and back in my truck again after a week or so and driven 25 miles to the nearst fedex where it was transferred from my truck the fedex counter without a problem!

so as far as comparing it to it being transferred in and out of serveral vehicles and so forth - yes, i think its a fair comparison, whether it is being moved from my truck to the inside of my house or from truck to truck or whatever it had been moved and driven around quite a bit prior to making it to fedex.

maybe try reading ALL of the OP next time?

 

[akugami]

The most important thing is the three foot drop rule. If you're not comfortable having it dropped three foot and surviving then get more padding. I also think it would have been a good idea to get some foam to pad the inside half where the CPU HSF was. That might have given it a cushon to stop the HSF from ripping off the case. Although with the way this sucker was dropped even that probably wouldn't have been enough.