Compaq and HP must be trying to fleece people.
I bought a Compaq Presario 700 way way back in I should have known right from the beginning that the computer was bad news. Right from the start I noticed under the display it had said "CD-R drive" but when I asked about it, the person involved in the sale (I forget his name) said it wasn't available with this model. Why would they put that under the display if it wasn't with the computer?
Everything was fine the first couple of months I owned the computer, it ran pretty nice it was pretty simple to use and so on and so on. Then after a brief honeymoon period, the troubles began.
At first I noticed the fans were running on overtime frequently, and most importantly when I was doing pretty much ANYTHING. There did not come a time when I could run more than one program (say i was running explorer and then tried to talk on aim or something) and it would not slow down, the fans would go off and the computer would crash. I thought it was a virus at first, and did the latest scans and what not, at one point I had a virus and it was actually improving on the computer because it wouldn't let it turn on.
I ignored the whirring of the fans, and found a method to override all of the problems by just hitting hibernate. But most of the time when that happened I found I would have to restart the computer or the screen took forever to come back.
Fast forward a couple years and the final demise of the computer, the keys were falling off almost as easy as running your fingers through your hair and I was hardly touching them. The CD drive started not reading music/program cd's I was putting in them and I hadn't hardly used it in the 3 years I owned it. The monitor, which made alot of clicking noises in the past to assure it was upright and would stay that way, no longer stood upright.
The final nail in the coffin of the computer was when the harddrive fell off, and I noticed the screws were all bent.
A year after that event my significant others uncle put the computer back together, hard drive and all and it turned on and seemed to work alright.
Actually this should be a joint ripoff report with Belkin because they are what caused my computer to finally become DOA.
After uninstalling the router, the computer decided it had had enough and reset all of the TCP/IP settings so that it no longer detected the internet at all. I don't know if it was more Belkin, the computer or the uninstall but I reinstalled windows not once but THREE times and got the same effect. I researched websites to find no answers
My last resort was the Compaq restore disks that so often came in handy in the past when the computer seemed to run a little slower than usual.
I pulled these baby's out and plugged them in, now I didn't use them THAT much but it seems to me that after 2 or 3 uses the files got corrupted and it didn't allow the computer to be restored. I tried over the course of 24 hours 3 different times, thinking maybe the computer was too overheated or overworked with no results.
I finally decided that I should sell my POS computer because obviouslly it being from 2003 it was a little outdated, hoping to collect maybe 50 for it.
I ended up getting 10 dollars for the power plug.
Needless to say I was a little anger.
The best angle of this is that despite purchasing a ESP (extended service plan) up til and having all the papers saying so, Compaq customer care was NO help whatsoever. Me and my significant other spent over 7 hours on the phone trying to tell these people that I had a plan because the policy is I guess if you don't have a plan, you have to pay 45 dollars for tech support. We ended up getting the corporate office number and are awaiting some response in the story, by now I'm so fed up it doesn't matter anymore.
HP online tech support is even worse, the people on the other side treat you as if you are an idiot. They ask one question to you every 20 minutes, for a company that seems to believe they are "one of the best" they sure have lousy CSR's. I had one guy ask me if I had the computer turned on, and if I knew HOW to turn it on. When the question was geared more towards why my computer wasn't recognizing it had a hard drive.
So in turn please do not buy a compaq it's a waste of money and time, I'd turn to a Dell or an I-book anyday over this shoddy excuse of a "computer".
The guy at the computer store that I sold the computer to told me he had 3 in the back room, the same model and that it was a common thing.
Scott
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.
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