PortatechReviews of portatech.com

Bought as a gift and was defective. Past 30 days before product was open and unable to be refunded. Pcpartpicker is better bang for buck.

I purchased a system that has been shipping back once already (on my dime, so additional cost now) and still have the same problem as when it was shipped. Also paid for 2-4 delivery, got it in two weeks - and thanks to FedEx, delivered day before needed for gifting. Aside from trying to get this system working as it SHOULD HAVE ON DELIVERY, most likely will never be doing business with them again.

They have some odd ideas of how to install things (like using twist ties to hold a fan in place and in doing so broke a clip on the fan). The parts are 3rd rate companies. My power supply died a month after I got it (I didn't waste my time sending it back as its just more money to spend to get another low quality Power Supply, I just installed an older one) and I still have some sort of problem with the CPU or motherboard where it freezes completely if i use any sort of intense computation with it. I'm going to have to replace them and hope i guess which part is faulty first. Feel like i just wasted a ton of money with them.

The worst customer service and online company I've ever dealt with. Just needed a barebones PC, motherboard, processor, case, and a powersupply. Received the first computer in 2 weeks, and motherboard was DOA. I thought they were supposed to test them? It was one of the reasons we went this route. So that was fine, we took it in stride, things happen. Shipped back everything, case, powersupply, the whole thing, paid $60 in shipping to do it, we didn't want to mess anything up by just returning the motherboard. Received it back. SECOND MOBO was defective. Worked for a few days and then nothing. This time we shipped back just the motherboard to avoid the high shipping charges, and I was looking for a simple refund because I'd bought a new motherboard on newegg.com NOW THEY WON'T PROVIDE A REFUND because they're claiming WE did something wrong and bent the pins. I'm sorry, but bent pins happen when you're installing a CPU, not removing one, and that's all we did. The installation of the CPU took place at Portatech because remember, I paid $60 in shipping so we wouldn't mess anything up. On top of that, they wanted me to return the I/O shield because I mistakenly forgot to include it. I promptly sent it back, and then got an email saying they were returning the entire motherboard back. NO ONE CALLED ME PRIOR TO THIS to let me know they'd found issues with the motherboard, I had to call and ask what was going on. Communication was extremely poor and we were left in the dark about any issues. In fact, everything sounded like it would be fine because they were asking for the I/O shield. Of course I wouldn't have sent it had they told me they had found problems with the mobo. Customer service was extremely short bad tempered and interrupted me frequently. It's mid April and I've been dealing with these guys since early February. Filing with the BBB, worst experience ever.

One of the worst experiences with an online purchase in recent memory. Before and after placing my order I took note of the estimated delivery dates, after payment was complete their website said I should expect a shipping update with a tracking number as soon as the order was shipper. (2-3 days). 2 day before my order was supposed to arrive I still had not received any shipping information. I tried to contact their support without luck. The number they have is usually voicemail even during their stated customer support hours. After many tries I managed to get a hold of someone from this company, who looked up the tracking and shipping information and sent it to me. When my order arrived I discovered a range of issues. They claim that they test the hardware before shipping. This is a lie or if they have someone doing any testing they evidently skip some of the orders. The SSD was not formatted properly, it was not recognized by the BIOS or during windows install. I had to plug in an additional HD with a bootable OS to fix the SSD issues and get an OS running on this machine. The PSU was not secured properly and was sticking out in an awkward angle, another easy fix but I would have expected something this simple to have been taken care of. The biggest issue was the GTX 960 graphics card does not work. I tried it in another machine, still not working. I put in an old 550Ti to see if it's maybe something else, no my 550 got instantly recognized. After many tries and voicemails I got on the phone with their "support" person. After explaining the situation and the trouble shooting steps I had already taken he had me running through nonsense hoops of unplugging the monitor, plugging it back in and the sorts. One would imagine that in a situation like this there would be a simple and easy process to return or exchange a defective peace of hardware. Not with these folks. They did not send any of the manufacturer warranty paperwork. If something doesn't work you have to mail it back to them, at your expense, fill out a bunch of forms that they request and wait to see if something happens. In short, they make a refund/return next to impossible. I have accepted that they sold me broken equipment and I will never see a refund or exchange.

Portatech proved to be by a wide margin my worst computer purchase ever. To start with, I paid for a line item including “On-Time Guarantee” and the PC arrived about two weeks late. What exactly that guarantee provides is unclear because by way of compensation for the late delivery Portatech offered nothing. The delay was annoying, but the excitement of its final arrival soon turned to horror. They shipped a fully-assembled $1800+ PC in just the case box. A case box, as should be obvious to Portatech, is designed and intended to protect a case not a fully-assembled PC. What’s more, I paid for a line item that included “Heavier packaging” so again that line item proved worthless. The package they sent had a slightly crushed Styrofoam mold as it was never intended to support the weight of a fully loaded PC in transit, but it didn’t look bad enough to send back unopened. I installed dual boot Linux and Windows and both OS would crash randomly about every half hour or hour. I called Portatech Support who initially tried to have me mess with drivers. I explained that it’s not a driver issue since it was happening on two OS with completely different drivers, and at this point I just wanted it to be noted on my record in case I needed to return it. After a few more days of random crashes every half hour or hour, I decided to open the case to check on things. I found that the clip on the PCI-e slot containing the video card had sheared off along with the mount for it. I found the clip in a location that strongly suggests an assembler sheared it off during improper installation rather than due to a bump in transit. It was wedged between two heat spreaders on the top of the motherboard, which makes sense if it was sheared off due to improper installation. If it sheared off in transit it really couldn’t get wedged in there so tight by random jostling. I thought about moving the card to another slot, but that would open a hole in the back and I figured they owed it to me to fix it. So I went to send it back. Portatech instructs customers to send back with full insurance. Problem #1 – no shipper will cover damage in the inadequate packaging, i.e. the case box Portatech sent me. Problem #2 – Portatech has no intention of reimbursing return shipping even though the defect was clearly their fault most likely at assembly but if they choose to blame transit damage they were the ones who packed it so poorly. So I sent it back, fully insured to cover loss knowing that I would have to fight Portatech if it suffered damage that the shipper would not cover due to poor packaging. I spent over $90 for return shipping with full insurance. Portatech returns it to me with the case box inside another box and a little filler for cushioning. It’s still nothing like professional-grade PC packaging for shipping but better than last time. I confirmed they replaced the motherboard with the broken clip and booted up the PC. It was still crashing every half hour to hour or so. I suspected that they used the same video card and that it had been damaged by whatever damaged the PCI-e slot… After all if something was forceful enough to shear off the clip and post it could easily have damaged the card. I bought a replacement video card and it fixed the crashes. Why Portatech didn't think to replace or at least burn-in test the card after the slot suffered damage is incomprehensible. Since I had no intention of shipping my machine back to them, I got a monster upgrade on the video card and just ate the loss of the damaged one even though by all rights that’s a Portatech warranty issue. Although I ate the cost of the video card they damaged, just considering it an upgrade, I asked them to cover the costs of the return shipping. It seemed fair since the PC was defective on arrival through no fault of the shipper. After pinging them a few times, they refunded me a little less than half the actual shipping costs based on how they instruct customers to ship products back to them under warranty. They offered no explanation how they came up with that amount, but at this point I’m done with them. I just want to warn others about this experience.

First of all my computer i ordered does not operate as it should to this day and i ordered it a year ago. I ordered a pc with an fx-8320 and it would not operate on 8 cores without freezing or just straight up instant reboots. i sent it back once saying it had a faulty cpu they said they replaced everything, but still had the same problem so i returned it again saying motherboard/ cpu is broken , they said they replaced everything again same problem , so i sent it back again said they replaced everything once again same problem. so i put manners into my own hands and bought a new motherboard, PSU, and RAM, well still have the same problem... turns out it is the CPU DUH... but i thought they said they replaced it ... THEY LIED! IT WAS A SCAM! ALL THEY DID WAS REPLACE THE RAM! SO NOW I NEED TO SPEND $150 ON A NEW CPU, WORST COMPANY IN THE WORLD! and guess what i figured this out after the warranty was over, so they basically screwed me over. if you read this whole review, thanks now you know not to buy from this company. oh and the shipping times were terrible

I ordered a motherboard/CPU combo with memory, OS, etc. on June 13, I still am waiting for delivery which is now scheduled for June 31. These items were not even shipped until June 21 even though I paid extra for "expedited shipping". This is service right out of the 1980's and mail ordered computers. Next time Amazon!