PortatechReviews of portatech.com

Very informative and strait forward design, good prices.

I found Portatech after wanting a barebones PC to replace my powerhouse laptop when it died. I intended it for CAD software so it needed to be custom made and powerful. I started with a barebones i7 4790k build because the price was just too amazing. The CPU alone is still averaging $340 and Portatech is offering a compatible motherboard, power supply, CPU fan, and PC Case for only $380 for the most basic components. I have a water cooling system already, so I didn't need any upgraded cooling. But for the already low price I added a hard drive, 8 gigs of ram, and a 600w PSU and the total came to $540. If I were to do an individual built I was looking at $700 for the basic components. I will be telling all my friends about Portatech to continue bringing them business so they can continue to offer their great rates. As an engineering student, it is important for me to have a powerful PC and also keep within a budget. Thanks to Portatech, I have money left over to get a nice video card nd extend my RAM memory at a later date. I will definitely be a return customer for others in my family who need computers.

Just purchased the computer on line with little issue, will have to wait till i receive the computer to submit a more thorough review.

I have bought from Portatech twice before and have always been pleased with their service and prices. My third order is on its way now and I can't wait to build my new computer. Thanks!

I ordered the 'K' version of an i5 CPU for my new computer but received the regular one. I called customer service ready for a fight, but they were able to ship out the correct cpu the same day. Accidents happen I guess, but they took care of it so I won't complain (much... just taking one star off). Otherwise a great experience.

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 have ordered two barebones computers from Portatech. Delivered as promised and built to my specs. THey have been trouble free considering I'm running Linux on both.