Daniel_T
Yeah- got it. I get hundreds per week! Still what I said is sound advice on the technology aspect of the problem.
Sounds like you're between the rock and the hard place. The shop knows more than you but not enough to put their devil's work right.
Refresh my memory, when they back the chip out, it still doesn't work?
That would usually be bridged BIOS legs, and/or a leg off on the CPU, or a misplaced wire or damage to the flat ribbon cables during assembly/disassembly.
They can't blame the chip.
www.thinkprice.com and
www.lik-sang.com have such replacement flat ribbon cables.