I love Amazon Prime!

I truly do! Many a time I've found myself in need of something, quickly, and Amazon Prime has always been there.

However....it depends what your ordering.

I have ordered, over the course of a couple years, 5 motherboards from Amazon.

In every case, without exception, I have returned 5 motherboards to Amazon.

The reason? Very simple.....

Improper packaging.

So what you're looking at is an Amazon "sleeve" container designed to ship items of various sizes.

This is nothing more than a "brown paper bag", which is not designed to protect the contents, but contain them.

Imagine a brown paper bag full of eggs. Grab that bag, put it in your car, drive around, take it out and look inside. What are the chances the ALL of the eggs will be intact? Slim to none!

A computer mother board is inside a box from the manufacturer. There is usually a 2 or 3 mm thick piece of ESD foam on the back side, protecting the contacts. The board and this foam are then inside an ESD (electro static discharge) bag (fancy plastic bag). All this is inside a very small box with no other padding.

These boxes are not designed by manufacturers to be used as shipping containers. To wrap it with another, single layer of cardboard is like wrapping an egg in brown paper and expecting it to survive small impacts.

It won't!

So the wifes PC needs upgrading. I order a motherboard on Monday. It arrives Tuesday, dead as a door nail. I arrange return and order another. That one arrives on Wednesday, also dead as a door nail. So I arrange for return.

I then order the same board from eBuyer.com. It arrives Friday. The motherboard box is inside a larger box, surrounded on all sides by "air pouches".

And you know what.....works like a charm!

Yes, eBuyer was £10 more expensive, but having to deal with Amazon returns, I did not save £10! So if you're thinking about ordering computer parts from Amazon, go ahead, but find another supplier to get the motherboard.

The headache I am saving you from, dealing with Amazon returns, is not trivial.

Plus the epic waste of time. All down to missing packaging.

Have fun!