I just sold my gaming computer, and the person emailed me and told me that he turned it on, and 15 minutes later it shut off. When he tries turning it back on, it keeps turning off. When I shipped the computer, it was completely fine. My guess was maybe the CPU fan fell over so it's overheating? Any ideas? I told him to take a look. If it did fall off, would that hurt the CPU? Or should it still be fine? And if it did break, would the USPS insurance cover it do you think?
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Computer broke in shipping?
- Thread starter adamvk
- Start date
This is a tricky question.
If it runs fine for 15 min and then shuts off, it could very well be an overheating issue. How much does the buyer know about computers? If he can check the CPU fan and tell if it fell over or not and such, and fix it if it did, then it should be fine. There's always the chance that it might have knocked some other wires loose/unseated some components, but there shouldn't be any damage considering that it did run for 15 minutes.
In terms of insurance, did you buy insurance for the shipment? USPS usually by default doesn't cover damage insurance. If you did buy, it might be possible, though that'll be one long drawn out argument as they try to avoid paying you/the buyer. Also, if there's no damage to the shipping box itself, they can very well claim that you did not package it properly, and blame you for it. The only time they pay out insurance is if either the shipment was lost, or there was visible damage to the container itself.
If it runs fine for 15 min and then shuts off, it could very well be an overheating issue. How much does the buyer know about computers? If he can check the CPU fan and tell if it fell over or not and such, and fix it if it did, then it should be fine. There's always the chance that it might have knocked some other wires loose/unseated some components, but there shouldn't be any damage considering that it did run for 15 minutes.
In terms of insurance, did you buy insurance for the shipment? USPS usually by default doesn't cover damage insurance. If you did buy, it might be possible, though that'll be one long drawn out argument as they try to avoid paying you/the buyer. Also, if there's no damage to the shipping box itself, they can very well claim that you did not package it properly, and blame you for it. The only time they pay out insurance is if either the shipment was lost, or there was visible damage to the container itself.
Yep, turns out it was that the CPU fan fell off. He put it back on, and he said it worked fine! However he said a few hours later that a bunch of white lines came on the screen, and then it shut off again. He said he took the video card out and then it worked fine...so apparently now the video card is having issues. Luckily I always buy EVGA because of their lifetime warranty so hopefully it shouldn't be a problem.
Ocellaris
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The fan bouncing around could have cjipped something on the back of the card. If so, evga won't wartanty that.
Really? Damn it. Ok, hopefully that's not the case. I'm going to contact EVGA as soon as I get the serial and hopefully something can be done.
Ok apparently just everything is breaking now. He said he moved the video card to another PCI-e slot and that fixed it, but he said now files on the hard drive have been corrupted, and it still powers off randomly. How do I deal with this? He said he wants to ship it back, who would be responsible for paying for shipping? This has just turned into a huge mess of a nightmare. I'm trying to file a claim with USPS. The computer was packaged fine, so it just doesn't make sense. The seller has sent me videos of the computer doing these things, so I know he's not trying to scam me. Any suggestions?
Filed a claim with USPS. Computer was shipped in original packaging, in which the computer is surrounded by foam blocks, and then the original cardboard box was put into yet another cardboard box. The fact that the CPU fan had fallen off when the computer arrived rings some red bells......
Ocellaris
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the fan falling off means it wasn't attached correctly or needed additional support for shipping, not that someone kicked around the box. What type of cooler was it?
unless the seller took pics of a damaged box being delivered, USPS will not cover the claim.. They are responsible for getting the box there without destroying it.
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