HP Pains

[narzy]

I'll keep this short.
HP, never again.

I have a DV6636nr notebook I got for christmas in 2007. The notebook has been a little champ for the most part, never had any problems with it, well until friday night...when it up and croaks for no great reason. 6months and 3 days outside of its 1 year warranty and this little bastard dies.

The laptop won't even get to the bios, it just powers on for 1.5 seconds and turns itself off. I've tried everything to fix it. unplugged everything, removed ram, removed the cmos battery, let it sit but still bupkiss. Took the system board out and there was a short across the solder points where the power controller connects to the system board...fried.

Turns out I'm not the only HP customer with this problem as there is a lengthy support thread on HP's website that details the exact symptoms I'm having. It is the system board, it kills itself and there is no recourse but to replace it.

HP wants to charge me 50 bucks just to talk to them on the phone. Phone sex is cheaper! They want another 400 bones to maybe perhaps fix it...Oh by the way it has one of the NVIDIA chips in it that kill themselves but HP didn't list the laptop on their extended warranty page for my model so I'm shit out of luck. Thanks for that...

"Purchase the extended warranty" you say...yeah, screw off. Shit shouldn't just quit working because it feels like it.

Does Acer make good stuff?

Cliffs:
HP laptop died because of a short across the power connector on the system board
HP is useless. 50bucks to talk to the phone sex operator, 400 to fix the computer
Narzy is pissed off...

 

[AstroManLuca]

Should have bought a Mac. Those never break. Ever.

/trolling

 

[nickbits]

my gf's sister had an hp that had a well known about problem (wireless chip fries the video card or something). they fixed it under warranty--great. but they fixed it with another motherboard that had the same defect so it died again a year later. wtf.

 

[narzy]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
Should have bought a Mac. Those never break. Ever.

/trolling

I own one actually, I love my macbook! applecare is the bestest! I needed a dedicated windows box so the HP was playing stand in. I use it for IT labs, now I'm fucked because I can't afford a replacement right now.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Laptops normally get plenty of abuse. An extended warranty aint a bad idea with mobo's costing a small fortune....

 

[narzy]

Originally posted by: nickbits
my gf's sister had an hp that had a well known about problem (wireless chip fries the video card or something). they fixed it under warranty--great. but they fixed it with another motherboard that had the same defect so it died again a year later. wtf.

there are horror stories about HP repairs littered all over the internet. How that company is still in business is a mystery to me...

I stay far far away from dell...HP is now on that list as well.

 

[narzy]

Originally posted by: PlasmaBomb
Laptops normally get plenty of abuse. An extended warranty aint a bad idea with mobo's costing a small fortune....

I hear ya. This thing sat on my desk or kitchen table its entire life...not much opportunity for abuse.

 

[nakedfrog]

I don't understand how HappyPuppy is responsible for any of this.

 

[effowe]

Originally posted by: narzy

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
Should have bought a Mac. Those never break. Ever.

/trolling

I own one actually, I love my macbook! applecare is the bestest! I needed a dedicated windows box so the HP was playing stand in. I use it for IT labs, now I'm fucked because I can't afford a replacement right now.

Ever consider running windows on a Virtual Machine within OSX? You can also set it up to dualboot right into Windows, just a thought.

 

[BoomerD]

About 12 years ago, against my best recommendations, my son bought an HP desktop.

He had nothing but problems with the dammed thing.

This was back in the days when they didn't have an 800 number for tech support, and before the days of unlimited long-distance, so every call to tech support was an expensive call.
Durnig the 1 year factory warranty, he had the mobo replaced twice, the video card replaced once, and the HDD replaced twice...(all repairs were blamed on the crappy motherboard they were using at the time.

I decided right away that I wouldn't buy HP products after seeing what he and I went through with their warranty.

I did buy an HP financial calculator for school...but the gawd-dammed thing was too smart for me...the manual was about an inch thick...I took it back to costco and bought a much dumber calculator...something I can actually use...

 

[magomago]

When I read the topic title, it had me thinking about something along the lines of menstrual cramps.

 

[Gunslinger08]

I've had my cheap-o Walmat Black Friday deal HP laptop for almost 4 years. Never had any issues with it, other than getting a little hot (I need to take it apart and clean it out). The battery still holds a charge for about 2 hours too.

 

[Porter21]

HP has horrible support. They lack any efficiency in helping solve any matters. I have been on chat with them for hours explaining to them that I know exactly what the problem is while they continue to walk me through their typical steps. I understand this has to be done, but at the end of it she tells me to just take it to the Best Buy Geek Squad?

At my work, we have had problems with numerous printers, and the techs refuse to come out or send us replacement parts until we can guarantee them that the part is malfunctioning (printer is under warranty, but so much for a tech coming out)

My rant of the day

 

[Zolty]

here's what you do, buy a laptop that you don't mind replacing every few years, they break, I don't care how careful you are something will happen to a portable device that you take places. If you don't take your laptop places buy a desktop.

Acer stuff is fine. I would suggest their netbook. Also you can probably replace the motherboard on your laptop and it will fix the problem.

 

[narzy]

to replace the mobo is half the cost of a new lappy...fix something that will break again or replace w/ new...

 

[effowe]

Originally posted by: narzy
to replace the mobo is half the cost of a new lappy...fix something that will break again or replace w/ new...

Still wondering why a Virtual Machine couldn't do the work on your macbook...

 

[narzy]

Originally posted by: effowe

Originally posted by: narzy
to replace the mobo is half the cost of a new lappy...fix something that will break again or replace w/ new...

Still wondering why a Virtual Machine couldn't do the work on your macbook...

I actually do that, sorry I missed your post. I run a couple of VMs on the macbook with fusion and a couple on the HP lappy with virtualbox.

 

[drinkmorejava]

Heh, we have an HP desktop that has been running well for 5 years. Just added more ram and I plan on installing win 7 on it.

On the other hand, I bought a 50g last year after my ti-89 died, tried it for three weeks, and then gave up. Some of the advanced functions were great, but most basic things took longer (ignoring RPN, just try using the CAS editor, it's painfully tedious). Heck, it is almost a ten step process to copy the formula on the previous line. There aren't even dedicated parenthesis buttons, and when you do go to add them, you have to insert the opening and closing at the same time, which is impossible to deal with if you don't know the exact structure before you start typing...it doesn't even save keystrokes because you still have to arrow over to get out of the parenthesis anyway. Being an engineer, I suppose I should respect the capabilities of such a device, but really, it was just a pain in the ass.

You win some, you lose some.