rab@hal.cwru.edu (Roger Bielefeld) (04/23/91)
I just had a (relatively) good experience with a major repair job on my PS/2 Model 80 and thought I'd share it. Background: the machine is an 8580-071 purchased in April, 1988. Almost a year ago, it started acting flaky (locking up at random, failing to boot, speaker coming on at random, screen going into a psychedelic light show at random, etc). I verified that the problem *had* to be in the planar board by observing its occurrence with each of the two memory cards separately when I'd taken everything else out of the box (except for the floppy drive). Solution: I purchased a replacement planar board from Computer Service Supply Corporation (address below). I ordered it by toll-free phone call on a Thursday morning. The board arrived UPS red on the next day at about 1:30 PM. That night I did the planar board swap and the machine worked just fine. On Tuesday (four days later), I sent my old board back to CSSC via UPS in the same box they used to send the new board to me. Cost: They charge $2650 for the replacement board. They give $2060 credit for the returned board. The net exchange price is therefore $590. It was $26 for shipping and handling and $17 or so to send the bad board back to them. Total cost was therefore $633. Other: There is a 120 day warranty on the board. The boards they send out might be boards that they've received and repaired or boards that they've purchased in working order. I was told by phone that they will accept *their* board back (in case replacing the planar board does not solve the PS/2 problem) for a $100 restocking fee, but this does not appear anywhere in any of the written materials from them. They take Visa and MasterCard and may accept other methods of payment (I don't know). They say they will not accept boards with physical damage or boards which have been tampered with or modified. Address, etc: Computer Service Supply Corporation Hilltop Center Bldg C 136 Harvey Road P.O. Box 673 Londonderry NH 03053 603-437-0634 800-255-7815 Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with CSSC except that I saw their ad in Computerworld several months ago. At this point I am a happy customer since I was able to get the PS/2 functioning again for "only" $633. If you have questions about their service, please call them rather than asking me. Roger -- Roger Bielefeld Case Western Reserve University rab@hal.cwru.edu Cleveland, Ohio USA