I am a little puzzled here. A little story first :). I had an older BMW that I had kept for my son. I gave to him once he got his license. Of course shortly after that he rear ends someone. The damage was slight but was enough to have nicked all the front panels and radiator. To my surprise, they totaled the car and gave me $8,000. Apparently it would cost more than that to repair a car even though I could still drive it with no damage to chassis, engine, etc.

Likewise, I have worked for companies selling low volume but expensive equipment as is K. The repair costs were always of this nature. Nothing would ever be repaired for $150. Just the cost of checking the unit in and out is way, way more than this. $3K flat fee to replace the main board in a piece of electronics is not out of line at all. I had a Fujitsu laptop that I dropped and shattered its screen. I called them to ask for a replacement screen. You know what the fee was? $750! I told them I could buy a new laptop for less than. But that was the price that was on the books and that was that.

Another story. The variable speed motor in our furnace went bad. They wanted $1,500 to replace it (as part of the motor) in a furnace that cost $3,500. I open the thing up and see the FETs are all smoked. I look them up. I see that I can buy all the parts for $20. So I do that. Guess what? I replaced them all and the darn thing still did not work! :( I looked carefully and noticed a number of surface mount parts were also blown with no way of identifying their values. So had to bite the bullet and go new. This is the reason why the HVAC company didn't sign up to repair the parts either for $150. Which one of you routinely repair electronics that fail instead of asking the customer to buy new or pay for repair whatever it is?

Now if a customer should be taken care of because of defects in design, that is another thing. But a faulty motherboard in an older system?

So yes, $3,000 is a lot of money if it is you and not the wealthy customer who has to pay for it. But for specialized gear like this, that's what it is.

Great stories! Believe me I get it.
Like I said I am just looking to fix this cheap cause I have better things to spend my money on than an old server that will break again and will(or is allready....depending on whom you ask) be obsolete. It should be of interest that I am not the only dealer out there that is unhappy with the way things have been handled in the past with Kaleidescape. If anything I am the one that has been nice about it...I have not even mentioned Shotguns!
If you do not understand the position I am taking on that I would suspect that you never will.
....new motherboard on the way! $39.99 We will see.....

My issue isn't with $3000 (pennies when you consider the cost of the system).. My issue is with the flat rate without ever looking at it policy.

Imagine if your son needed a new tire and the neighbor needed a new engine for the same model car. Both of you walk into the dealer and both get handed invoices for $3000. Everyone pays the same flat rate?

Well said Sir. That's exactly my problem with K'scape's out of warranty 'care'. Unacceptable.

Speaking of flat rate...I can't stand manufacturers/distributors that treat shipping costs as a revenue source. Some of these places are so out of whack with their shipping rates it boggles my mind. Case in point...2 amps, a subwoofer and some misc parts; 15 dollars to ship from SoCal to Southern NV via UPS ground. Same company shipping a remote they forgot on the first order with the amps and sub; 15 dollars. I was told they would cover next day delivery since they forgot to pack the remote and it was a time sensitive item. No problem, shit happens, people make mistakes, seems they will take care of us. I then get an invoice for the remote and shipping of 15 dollars. All they did was cover the difference for the next day shipping. Really? It costs the same to ship a remote as it does 2 amps and a sub?!?! Where do they come up with these numbers? It's clearly not actual shipping costs. The company in question has been doing this to us for 3 years...now I'm pissed due to the charge on the forgotten item. Turns out I can get most of their products from a local distributor for about the same cost, some items are <1% higher...it's time to help out the locals more.