"Good job, fast shipping, and low price. Seller was very good at communicating the shipping status as well."
"They had what I needed, packed it very well and shipped quickly. Got what i needed and I'm still using it today. Thanks guys."
"Very disappointed. Ordered the CPU on April 19th with a shipment date of the 24th!! It should have been shipped the next day (Saturday) or at the very latest on Monday the 22nd.
A week or so after I receive the product, I may follow up with anther review."
"After searching for a new CPU for my HP laptop I found one here for a great price, shipping was a bit high but inline with other sellers online and when you need it, you need it. I placed the order and waited,I did not recieve any shipping info so after a few days contacted CPU Medics to get some tracking info. I was told that they ran out of stock the same time I placed my order and more was in transit and they would express ship it to me as soon as it came in.
When I received the tracking info it showed that it was due to be delivered via UPS Ground not the express as promised.
As you can imagine I was not happy and when asked to leave a review here, I left some negative comments. As it turns out I may have over reacted. Adam contacted me and told me that he personally went to the shipping department and made sure my order was sent out Express mail and I received it 2 days later, sooner than I expected.
Alas the CPU did not fix the problem but looking back the service was great."
"On 5/2012, I ordered 4 2TB Seagate Constellation ES disk drives. These are enterprise class drives designed to run in servers 24/7. The prices looked pretty good on the website. I placed the order and got a phone call that the price was incorrect, and I needed to send additional money to get the drives. OK, I did that because I needed the drives and didn't want to shop around (I was thinking bait and switch, however). With the extra payment, the prices were roughly comparable to other vendors. Anyway, I received the drives and saw they were Seagate drives OEM for HP. I didn't think much about it until this weekend, when one of them failed. I tried to file a warranty claim with Seagate, but because they were HP OEM drives, Seagate said I had to go back to the vendor, that they didn't handle the warranty for OEM drives. I emailed CPU medics (as well as spoke to Adam), and he said the drives are only under their 30 day warranty. I thought I was getting standard Seagate Enterprise drive warranty, but I guess not. Enterprise drives cost usually double what a standard consumer drive costs because they are designed to run 24/7 and they have a manufacturer’s warranty for 5 years. Consumer drives typically have a manufacturer’s warranty for 3 years. I have purchased many drives from different manufacturers (Seagate, Western Digital, etc.) have NEVER had a manufacturer’s warranty refused on a non-OEM drive. Sometimes the manufacturer will as for proof-of purchase to verify the start of warranty period, but oftentimes not.
From the email I got from Seagate: "Unfortunately, the drive with serial number 9WM26AYY does not have a warranty with Seagate. Our records show this drive to be an OEM drive, which generally means that it was either a component of a non-Seagate system, or it was sold to a company with the intent of being used as such. Usually, OEM companies will purchase the warranty along with the drive, which means that it is no longer honored by Seagate, but by the company that purchased it. The drive is clearly labeled by the OEM. I recommend contacting the place the drive was purchased from to see if they can replace the drive for you. I would also recommend making future purchases from an Authorized Reseller or Distributor."
To put this in perspective, I will describe what OEM and white box components actually are. I have been in the computer business (selling hardware, networking, building workstations and servers, etc.) for over 30 years, and know the business fairly well. It is well known in the business that the individual components of an expensive workstation or server are worth far more that the discounted cost of the machine. This is true for cars: If you had to buy each piece of a car, the cost would be FAR greater than the actual cost of the car. Same with computers. Here’s what happens: A VAR , integrator, or just an exporter orders a large quantity of HP servers at a good discount (I am using HP as an example because these drives were HP labeled). HP and their salespeople are happy because they have sold lots of machines and made their sales numbers. HP makes a profit on each machine sold because they purchase the components from the various manufacturers (Seagate, Intel, etc.) at significant discounts, not only because they purchase in quantity, but because they purchase these without the manufacturer’s warranty. Because these components are going into their systems, HP will warrant the entire system for whatever length the end user chooses to pay for (1 year, 3 years, etc.). One caveat here is that because the original manufacturer wants to be sure that these components aren’t diverted into the marketplace, they require HP to put their own logo on them (in addition to the original manufacturer’s logo to) indicate that these are OEM components. Thus, an OEM Seagate disk drive will be dual branded Seagate and HP. However, the company or person who purchased these servers has no intention of installing them. Instead, they are like a “chop-shop”. All the components are removed from the machines and re-wrapped to make them look like new. Memory chips, disk drives, expansion cards, motherboards, etc. are placed in anti-static bags and heat sealed, and the CPUs are placed in anti-static carriers. Then all the components are repacked in white boxes (because putting them in HP boxes would violate trademarks and expose the chop-shop to legal troubles), except for the disk drive, which generally don’t come in boxes. These components then enter the supply chain, where they are sold at a discount on the retail market. Disk drives, CPUs, expansion cards and memories are typically sold as retail components, and the HP motherboards and power supplies are typically sold as aftermarket replacements. Sometimes, HP will find that they have excess inventory of disk drives, processors, etc., and dump these onto the retail market. The retail components are generally labeled OEM, “White Box”, or “gray market” components, and are typically sold at much lower prices than the original manufacturer’s prices. This is because they have no original manufacturer’s warranty. Sometimes, the reseller puts a 30 days warranty on them, sometimes not, but that is irrelevant because they are not warranted by the original manufacturer.
Some unscrupulous vendors don’t identify these components as OEM or “white box”, and try to sell as new at current new prices. Some vendors even try to mark up the prices of these components by claiming that they are “better” because they are HP branded. Again, the branding does not designate quality, it only designates that they were intended to be used in an HP system.
In the case of my Seagate Constellation ES drives, these drives are all dual branded HP and Seagate, and are OEM drives unsupported by the original manufacturer, Seagate.
I now have 3 other drives in this same status. The drives roughly cost around $200 each. I can purchase the equivalent Western Digital drives for around $190 (I just purchased 2 for another server).
I now have to purchase another drive because I was sold a drive with basically no manufacturer's warranty.
Thanks, CPU Medics. I certainly won't get the new drive from you. Total bait and switch."
4/4/2013 UPDATE
Mr. Adam Rudnick of CPU Medics offered to replace the drive with a remanufactured Seagate drive provided I remove this review and absolve him of any responsibility for the other 3 drives. Of course, I refused.
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"Awesome customer service, awesome drives!!!! I will be back to purchase more in the future!"
"Paid over 40 dollars for 2 day UPS Air. Ordered on 3/7/13. Got an email today 3/11/13 that is just shipped. Hopefully will get refunded my 40 dollars for the 2 day Air."
“The order came in on a Thursday, shipped on Monday (2 business days). The item's availability says "usually ships within 2-3 business days" on the webpage in which the part was ordered from. The shipping method that you choose and pay for is not the processing time, it's the shipping service from UPS.”
"Did a great job. The first drive came quick, but unfortunately died within about a month. Being in the IT business, I know that sometimes parts are just bad or new parts are defective. Adam called me right after I emailed about the defective one. They sent a replacement drive right away and did not ask that I return the dead drive. "
"I needed a replacement keyboard for a 4 year old laptop. The manufacturer no longer was able to provide part. CPU Medics was one of the few firms listing the part in the original color (bronze) that appeared to have it in stock. I ordered the keyboard from them specifying no substitutions and was delighted when it shipped 3 business days later (per their published lead time). I installed it this afternoon and it works well.
I looked at a number of on line reviews of the firm before purchasing and wanted to let others know that they delivered as promised."
"New hard drive arrived on-schedule. No problems installing or with performance afterwards. Smooth transaction. I would do business again with CPU Medics if any other laptop/workstation hardware issues arise that they have the parts to fix."
"Great customer service, they followed up on a problem with a number of phone calls and agreed to work out a very fair solution. Thank you."
"Fast service, great pricing, excellent product."
"I ordered a part for my tablet through CPU Medics. I hadn't ever gotten the email telling me about the item being shipped so I decided to go to the website and write them. The very next day I got a response and all of my issues were resolved in less than 5 minutes. The company representative who called me informed me that there was a hang up with the manufacturer and a few orders had been affected. I was the first who had notified CPU Medics about it as the manufacturer had not. CPU Medics had already resolved the problem and had my order set to ship (upgraded the shipping to complimentary Next Day Air) and I had a date as to when to expect my order. Of course, this all happened around the holidays, but I was in no rush. I can say that I am happy with the way the representative was honest and forthcoming about what happened but more satisfying is that by the time he called me the company had already resolved the problem and the generous spirit of the company was reflected in their upgrading my shipment. I was more than satisifed, had no questions, no complaints, and realize that although I'm a customer and something within the process of me ordering/paying for my order and my receiving it was broken...we are all imperfect humans living in an imperfect world and cannot expect perfection each and every time from any one person or entity, be it commercial or not. Patience has become a commodity and in a world where the customer hides behind the shield of "the cusomer is always right" but truth be told, the customer who chooses to do that must also excercise the good judgement he was endowed with and recognize his/her own fallible nature and therefore make allowances for such "hiccups" in transactions such as those driven by technology, who itself is not infallible. "
"Tell me how I should feel. I ordered CPU parts from 3 companies all on the east coast and on the same day 12/15. I'm on the west coast. 2 companies had the parts in my hands by 12/20 and 12/21. 1 week not bad. 2 weeks might be acceptable being Christmas and all. It took 3 weeks to receive this order. 20 days with a DOA computer. Thanks guys. I'll take my business elsewhere."
“The order came in on over the weekend and we shipped it out Thursday morning (4th working day) due to the holiday rush of orders - The item page did say approximately 3 working days for availability. UPS had this package in their possession for 14 days, they apparently had a "major service disruption due to severe weather conditions, and there will be unavoidable delays" according to an email they sent us on 12/20 (we even forwarded this email to the customer to show him UPS was delayed). The tracking information on their website also reflects the same thing if the tracking was checked. We emailed all this information to the customer in case he was not aware but we did not receive a response.”
"it was the best purchasing experience I have had. Not at anytime was I made to feel that my order was not important, I was given the time I needed, never put on hold, I was called on my cell phone and got emails when I was told to expect them. I was made to feel like I was top priority. Many times in the past with other vendors its like I am not going to help you until I see some money first..again thanks for all the help and the attention"
A rep from CPU Medics, cpumedics2011, has responded:
“Customer purchased a generic Seagate model number, after the customer placed his order, we called him to inform him we only had new pulls (OEM) available with the exact model number he purchased, not generic Seagate. Customer approved as long as the model of the drive was the exact one purchased and agreed to the small markup (the initial price of the model he originally purchased did not cover our cost of the OEM drive, so we had to markup to cost). We sent 575262-001, this drive has a market value well over what he paid, ranging from $350-500 and we gave it to him at our cost, less than half the average market price just to fulfill his order. After almost a year later under 24-hours a day, 7-days a week usage of the drives (these are for Servers) one of them started to fail.
The customer assumed they came with a standard 5 year warranty and ask that we honor it (not sure why, no reseller offers that warranty). The customer never asked about extended warranty, we have our warranty clearly stated on the website. Despite the order being almost a year out of warranty, we still tried to help and offered to replace the drive but that was not good enough for him.”