I ran the utility to create "recovery discs" on my new laptop. It aborted. I registered and emailed tech support for a set of discs. I waited. I emailed again. I waited. Over 3 months, including two emails to the office of the CEO, Mark Hurd, this produced...NO EFFECTIVE COMPAQ SUPPORT!  
 
My laptop is useless without recovery discs and I can't get normal support, escalated support, or support from the office of the CEO.  
 
Will I ever recommend or buy Compaq or HP again? Not in THIS lifetime.

My Presario Laptop has been a piece of work and their (Indian, unintelligable) customer service is horrible! No wonder it was so cheap and made in China. It has had constant issues with parts falling off all together. Now the CD drive won't work anymore (the face fell off) and the power adapter has failed. The battery was known to cause fires but they wouldn't replace mine. It's the last one I will buy, I would look at a Toshiba or another brand first. Thanks

Last year I ordered a Compaq 2190US Laptop. Almost every component other than the CPU and RAM has broken. The power jack, PCMIA Card Slot, and DVD Drive (currently talking to COMPAQ Support on that issue) has not worked.  
I sent my computer in for the power plug. They were supposed to come and pick it up the next day. No one came. I called back and 15 minutes of elevator music later they were trying to blame the fault on FEDEX. I later called FEDEX and they said they never got a pickup order. The next day rolled around. Still no pickup. YET AGAIN I am on the phone talking to another tech support specialist. This time they finally call up FEDEX while i'm jammin to 'the best of kenny g'.  
Then my Hard Drive broke. I went through all of their troubleshooting stuff then they finally figured out that the disk is actually broken. They tell me that some other person is supposed to call me within 48 hours. 2 days later and no call. I called back and they said they would callback in 24 hours. Getting really annoyed, I asked for this number to call directly. Being it their superior's number, they claimed that they did not have the extension. So 24 hours later, STILL NO CALL!! I called them back and they told me they would put in a "high priority" call. 3 hours later I finally got that call. He quickly handled my HD issues and had one sent out using the slowest shipping available from fedex. I also asked if the tech support people that I talked to had his number, obviously he said yes. So now that brings me into this mess with getting a new DVD drive... I would tell you but i'm running out of space, only 5000 characters to use.

I have always been a compaq person and love their tech support when it comes to sending replacement parts and software. However I have found that their service has been degrading over the past couple years. My recent computer was received as a gift from a family member who saw a good deal on a CTO S4000V from compaq and got it since I am at college and constantly needing computer upgrades.  
 
When I got the computer it worked fine until a few weeks later when it started experiencing the windows xp slow boot that a lot of people are familar with. However when I called compaq I had the worse time getting assistance (since the time my laptop was damaged by their shipping) since I am in Canada and it was purchased in the USA.  
 
After a few days of calling and being transferred between call centers They agreed that the only thing that could be advised was a recovery and they said for some reason my hard drive was not the one it was ordered with. I told them about how i got the computer and the details of it and that no restore cds were in the packaging. The sales rep agreed that since its under warranty that she can send it for me.  
 
I received the CDS but the hard drive mever came. I guess it was advertised with a 80 gig hd but for some reason this had a 40gig.  
I thought it might be just slow courierat first, but when the restore cds failed to eliminate the slow boot I called the service center to get some more advice.  
I was informed that :  
 
1-the hard drive was not being send because it was not supposed to be covered by a warranty since the computer was purchased by someone and then given to me as a gift.  
 
2-That they could not give me additional support because of the voided warranty.  
 
I think we got into an argument about whether a warranty if on the machine or the person since the computer was intended for me, not the buyer.  
 
Anyways It turned out that the hard drive was bad and western digital replaced it for me, however that did not end the slow boot. The recovery cds were supposedly the reason for the slow boot, because a store technician installed a bare copy of xp and it ran except for the drivers for all the other parts.  
 
But the matter lies in a faulty computer that cant be serviced anymore, with a slow boot problem (5 minutes on the windows is loading blue screen) thats driving me up a wall. and a company that puts a warranty on a person not the machine

I ordered from Compaq (against all instincts of bad reviews and having owned 5 trouble-free Dells)because the had the best prices on custom laptops on the Internet by at least a few hundred dollars. From my experience so far, their tech support is the best I've ever dealt with. I've never waited longer than 5 minutes to talk to a technician. Their computers are another story. The first time I turned mine on, I had a lock-on pixel in the lower left corner of the screen. The odds of that happening are 1 in a billion, or about 1 in ever 1000 laptops (so they tell me), so i figured I wouldn't worry about it. Three weeks after I get my laptop, the harddrive crashes. You can imagine how raged I was. It was the Toshiba 80GB. Again, their tech support was really helpful and supposedly were having a replacement HDD overnighted to me ASAP. The expected delivery date rolled around, and no sign. I called tech support again, and I was told they were out of stock and they were expecting a new shipment in within 5 days. I asked, "Why are you out of stock? Is this just a generally defective product that everyone is replacing?" No direct answer of course. If they were not defective, they would have plenty right? So the second expected delivery date rolls around... no sign. I called again and was told they were on back-order and it would be another week. So, I'm still waiting for my computer that I've had for a little over a month, and it has worked for less time than it has worked. Bottom line: If they took attention away from perfecting their tech-support, which is fine, to building more reliable PCs, they would corner the market.

I had great luck with both pc's i have purchesed from compaq

I purchsed a Presario 8000T, custom desktop, for approx. $2000. Right out of the box, it would not boot up. Spent approx. 5 hours with Tech Support before they decided it should come back for repair. Promised 9 day turnaround. Day 11 and they have apparently lost my computer. E-mailed a tracking number with FedEx that does not exist. Tech Support does not know where it is. "Thinks" it may be at another warehouse sitting. Apologizes and tells me to wait another week to see if it turns up.

I bought the Presario x1010us, Centrino 1.3 I first saw at compusa, but decided to order it online, wrong move. The notebook arrived with a series of issues beginning with a bad assembled touchpad, half of it was raised with 3 major bumps that looks like screwheads under it. The integrated wireless is useless it drops connection every 4 or 5 minutes even at a foot from the wireless router. I got it with a defective keyboard, some keys did not respond. The top doesn't snap as it should, one corner stays open about 1/8th of an inch. I would restart the notebook and I will get "System Disc not found error". I called Hp/Compaq right away and they sent for FedEx for an express repair/replacement order. The tech promised me to send my notebook back in 2 days. A week passed by and it wasn't delivered back. I called customer service and no one knew where it was, not even if it in fact was received. I had to send them a fax and Alicia from customer service called to say that they were waiting for an approval to replace the keyboard, she approved it and sent the notebook back to me next day. I expected a perfectly working machine, however I received half programmed, none of the drivers were installed, windows xp home had the "30 days remaining activation", it looks like they re-formatted the hard drive, but didn't activate windows and did not install the drivers. I had to call microsoft and bought a new license and I reconfigured the drivers. The touch pad wasn't replace or repaired, it gets lock or won't move even if the cursor moves it goes back to the same place, it still has the same bumps. The Hard drive failed and I had to buy a new and replace it, I had to call microsoft again and I had to go through a lot of questioning to convince microsoft of what happened. As if it is not enough the top still doesn't close, it looks like they used a hammer or tried to bend it with a wrench since it has a series of hits and scratches on its corners. I called HP/Compaq and let them know, they only said: "Oh, I am sorry, that happens often" "Can we send for your notebook again?" I said no, I asked him if I could buy the touchpad so I could install it myself. He said no, we have to have the notebook to diagnose to see if it needs to be repaired. I told him that the only way I could send it was to be sure they would replace the touchpad and I was willing to pay. He said no, he kept saying the same "it needs to be diagnosed and if it was defective it was going to be repaired or replaced". Why would I waste my time sending it back and expect it to be fixed when they would not do a thing? I learned my lesson: "Never buy an HP/Compaq product again."

I ordered a new ML370 G3 server towards the end of may. The salesman (Jason Morris) said it would be in on Tuesday, June 10th. A week before that I checked the web site. One web page said it would be in on June 10th. Another web page said it would be in on July 19th. BIG DIFFERENCE. I called yesterday, Wednesday, June 11th because the server did not come in. I talked with someone would said the server would be delivered on Tuesday, June 17th. The web site still shows the original date of June 10th as well as the July 19th date. Jason is out this week. I'm now trying to work with Travis Massey. Neither one has returned a single phone call, yet.

This review was modified by its author, stroke4, on 6/12/03 12:26 PM.

Worked with HP/Compaq sales as well as Dell and two other small time companies. Compaq apparently is trying its hardest to make a come back. I have ordered a 8000T Presario 3 gig and special ordered it. They gave me a nice discount to boot. It comes with a thirty day money back Guarantee if I am not satisfied.  
It is expandable with what ever parts name I want to use and they gave me more options than any one else.  
At the most I would have saved $300 by building it myself and would not have had the 3 year parts and labor warrantee which includes an accident coverage.  
That means if I kick it down the stairs two years from now they will fix it.  
Of course after all these other bad reviews I do not want to seem stupid buying from Compaq yet I trust my reasearch and I will take it strait to an expert to see if it is the trash so many say it will be.  
We shall see. So far they are the best in sales and in price. PLEASE WISH ME LUCK!

I bought my Presario 5451 from Sears in 1999 for about $ 1300 and have been really dissatisified with it. It reboots from time to time - when I work on my project (and lost the data !). Connecting to internet is another horrific moment, not knowing whether it'd get connected to the internet or get shut off. And the machine is extremely slow ! I am not a computer wiz - so these things really drives me nuts. After we bought a used really old but much more reliable Gateway, life was much calming down - and I am now even happier with my new Dell. I just do not know what to do with my Compaq - even if I gave it to elderly people for free so that they can get connected to the internet (as suggested by a friend of mine), I am afraid that they would get heart attack......

This review was modified by its author, cmp569111, on 4/30/03 8:37 PM.

Bought an Armada M700, from an authorized Compaq Reseller, it came damaged, had to send it in 2 times for repair, they replaced the LCD even though it was not the problem. It failed Recently, HP now controls the Tech support, and Customer Relations for the merged company. HP refuses to honor my warrenty, telling me at first that it expired before I bought the laptop, then when I presented them proof of purchase date, and the paper work from CompUSA concerning one of the times it was serviced, they changed their story and stated that the warrenty was only vaild if I purchased directly from them, After this when I presented proof that DMT was an offical reseller of their products, they changed their story again saying that the laptop only came with a 90 day warranty, when I presented paperwork from Compusa showing the warranty orginaly went though 2004, they stated that the warranty was only good for one year, and that they would not fix the laptop, this is in spite of the fact that I contacted them before a full year had passed. HP/Compaq has the worst service and support I have ever encountered and I suggest you stay away, I had though that Dell was bad after my issues with them, but I was wrong they are saints compared to this.

I had great luck with both pc's i have purchesed from compaq

I purchased, three months ago, a notebook from Compaq. After two months the notebook, one evening, would not boot up. I called tech support and they had me "reseat my ram" and do a few other things like drain the battery and try to start the computer. Nothing worked. So they sent me a foam packed box and I shipped my notebook off to be fix with its one year warranty.  
 
I called today to check on my notebook, which they have had for a week and a half now. I was informed that the pin holding the motherboard is broke and they say this is mechanical and not covered with the harware warranty. And they say that I must have broke it so it is not their fault. The price they quoted me was $600. I only payed $899 to buy the notebook new.  
 

This review was modified by its author, ctballroom, on 1/14/03 11:21 AM.

I bought a used Compaq Presario 5050 because the original owner hated it and had nicknamed it HAL because it did strange things on its own...I bought it for $1000.00 with all peripherals including extra software and stuff not original with this Compaq, and then sold it almost right away because I needed money. The person who bought it from me had it kicked, stuff has been spilt on it, the original floppy drive and hard drive were toast....Then just recently August 2002 I bought it back from him for $50.00 because he couldn't get it to work at all.  
I spent some time cleaning its guts out...Put little 3GB and 6GB Western Digital hard drives in, replaced the 64MB of fried memory with 168Mb SDRAM, put in a YamahaXG Digital sound card, and a NVidia TNT-2 PCI video card...This system now performs like a beast...outperforms my AMDK6/2-500Mhz system handsdown...Next I am going to get a 733Mhz upgrade processor package and really see what this system can do...and maybe up the memory to 256MB and get a PCI GeForce card....  
 
Compaqs rule if you can tame them...