Repair shop swapped my laptop; need some help figuring this out.

[Matt_Stevens]

I sent my wife's failing HP dv9260nr to a company that was supposed to be reputable for a fix. After two months we finally got it back, but it is not our laptop.

Different case. Different serial number. Internal workings are different. I called the company, but could only get voicemail.

Our hard drive is included, yes. So it appears they took our hard drive and stuck it into a similar HP laptop. I know they were struggling to fix it.

Question is, was our laptop superior?

Biggest difference I can find is this... Our laptop had an nVidia GeForce Go 7600 256mb DDR dedicated graphic card.

This system has a GeForce 8400M GS. "Integrated RAM DAC."

Memory is listed as 883MB when I run dxdiag. But that's BS. The memory is 128mb when I get into the system's specifics.

So they swapped us for an inferior system. This system has a basic DVD drive. Ours had an HD-DVD drive. Big difference.

Question is... Besides memory, what is the difference between the two video cards? Was ours superior in ways beyond memory? Is this card better, but lacking because of video?

I really feel screwed here. We will try again to get them on the phone tomorrow, but if nothing, we will file mail fraud charges against them and I will call Wells Fargo to dispute the $225 charge.

AND I will reveal who these people are. They are very VERY big in regards to fixing HP's that have the nVidia graphics card problem.

 

[MadScientist]

You got screwed and got back an inferior laptop compared to your original, but if they had fixed it correctly it would have cost you more than $225. The motherboard would have to be replaced since the video chip is soldered onto it. They took the easy way out and just dropped your hard drive into another laptop.

HP had big over heating problems with the dv9200 series laptops that was frying the video chips. They had a recall on them a few years ago but only for ~6 months.

My daughter's dv9205us Geforce GO 6800 chip died just after the recall ended. HP wanted over $300. for the MB plus labor to fix it. I got a used MB from fleabay for $150., but it's was a big PITA to install.

The left screen hinge was the next thing to break. I had to replace that and the front plastic cover since the hinge screw mounts were also broken.

Last HP anything I'll purchase. http://smidgenpc.com/2010/05/07/laptop-reliability-ratings-which-laptop-is-really-most-reliable/

Why didn't the repair company contact you about what was wrong with your laptop, and about repair options and the cost to repair it?

Why didn't you contact them sooner, before you got it back?

Good luck on disputing the charge with your CC company.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

We got it back Tuesday. I called them Thursday, after my wife sat down to play with it and realized it wasn't hers.

The unit was sent in specifically because of the well known nvidia overheating problem. They quoted 175 to fix (they have a method seen on Youtube and have had many satisfied customers) or 225 for a mb replacement.

What they did is illegal. Add the fact that we now have a crap DVD-ROM drive and no HD-DVD drive, we are more than a bit upset.

They are in another state, so that makes this a federal crime. Needless to say, if I can get a hold of them today, I intend to make it very clear we will not allow them to rip us off and shall push it all the way to court.

The very first thing we will do is dispute the charges and no doubt Wells Fargo will comply. We have photographic evidence out the yingyang.

My wife's laptop...

The laptop they sent us...

 

[Gunbuster]

Call and talk with them, escalate to management or the owner.

Remain calm and do not fly off into wackadoo land about federal crimes.

 

[RebateMonger]

Remain calm and do not fly off into wackadoo land about federal crimes.

Yeah. I had somebody out-of-state using my credit card and the city police here wouldn't even file a Police Report. The FTC has a form you can fill out, but I never did hear back from the Feds when I filled that out.

 

[llee]

Demand a refund- like a boss.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Just wanted to update this thread. My bank finally solidified a charge back to those crooks at Rebootit.biz. That's the company, which I had not mentioned at the top. I wanted to give the plenty of opportunity to make right. They never did.

They sent me a laptop that was not mine, claimed it was, then when confronted, claimed I knew they were switching it out and should be happy to have something that works.

Of course, it doesn't work anymore. Days after posting here the screen started to go blank and now it just won't boot anymore. It's shot. Local place said it's a door stop and wouldn't even quote me to fix it because "it would be stupid money." Oh shocker.

My bank refunded me the entire amount. But it took months (clearly) and so this has not been fun and we have no laptop. Still.

HP will never again get my business. They just suck, flat out. What they did to their customer base is unforgivable.

I tell ya, I wish I had bought a Macbook Pro those 3.5 years ago. It would still hold a decent resale value and been eligible for continued extended coverage.

My wife's nest laptop is a Mac. Has to be.

I'll continue on with my Shuttles. Love 'em.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Laptops IMO are throwaways. If it's broke and out of warranty it's time to get another one. You could of bought a much better laptop with a blu ray drive for around $600.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Well we didn't have $600. When I was able to determine what was wrong with the laptop, I found the business in question, which swore up and down they had a fix. They have numerous youtube videos and many satisfied customers. Unfortunately, they held onto our laptop for four months before finally committing an act of fraud by sending us a completely different laptop back, one with half as much horse power, no HD-DVD drive and suffering from numerous problems. Wrong is wrong and fraud is fraud.

Had they just said, "we can't fix it", then that would have been that and I would have thanked them.

 

[Lanyap]

Thanks for the update on Rebootit.biz. I have seen their HP laptop repair videos and have considered sending them my client's laptops for the GPU repair. I will reconsider now. It almost sounds like they lost your laptop and sent you another one thinking you would not notice.

If you have to send your PC in for repairs or even bring it to a local shop I would strongly advise that you record your serial number and run a program like PC-Wizard that can list all of your components including their serial numbers. It may not prevent something like this from happening but at least you will have some proof that they swapped out something they should not have.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

I do actually think they either lost my laptop, or had some sort of accident with it and put off dealing with the situation for months until they had no choice (because I had lost patience) and decided to try and pull one over on us.

My wife knew it wasn't her laptop the second she looked at it.

Thankfully we had the original box, pictures of it, including the serial number and windows number on the bottom. There was simply no way they were going to get away with it because we could prove, time and time again, that it was not our laptop.

Changing their story did them no good because their own invoice listed our correct serial number and "motherboard heat sink replaced and reflowed." No mention of a computer being swapped out. We had em dead to rights.

 

[RebateMonger]

Sucky story. Thanks for the follow-up.

Intel keeps trying to push "generic" laptop components, so you could, in theory, get low-cost generic replacement motherboards and displays. But no luck so far. The big laptop makers and sellers want to sell their proprietary stuff.

I can see both sides, but, in the end, the current situation does, indeed, make laptops "throw-away".

 

[Vette73]

Have you contcated the BBB (mostly a joke but soemtimes it helps), state AG's office of the state they are in, etc...????

Also are they in the same state as you? If so file a small claims case against them.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

We spent nearly 2 grand on it, so never considered it throw away/. What sucks is HP knew there was a problem and devised a plan that would delay the effects of it. That was the firmware upgrade that turned the fan rpm's up. They basically pushed the damage back beyond the warranty period. They are being sued silly for it and will likely settle in the end. Whatever. No more HP for me.

I filed with the BBB but that won't help. They are not in my state so I would have to sue them in court down there. I'm not interested in that. I got my money back. That's good enough.

 

[xxcrashxx]

I sent my wife's failing HP dv9260nr to a company that was supposed to be reputable for a fix. After two months we finally got it back, but it is not our laptop.

Unfortunately, they held onto our laptop for four months before finally committing an act of fraud by sending us a completely different laptop back, one with half as much horse power, no HD-DVD drive and suffering from numerous problems.

so i dont get it, was it two months that they kept it, or was it 4 months they kept it? cuz i believe that if something is left for over 90 days, thats considered abandonment in the state that they are in.

Biggest difference I can find is this... Our laptop had an nVidia GeForce Go 7600 256mb DDR dedicated graphic card.

This system has a GeForce 8400M GS. "Integrated RAM DAC."

Memory is listed as 883MB when I run dxdiag. But that's BS. The memory is 128mb when I get into the system's specifics.

so you got a higher end graphics chip, and windows says it has more video memory, how is that an inferior system?? what are the system specifics that you are referring to?? i cant think of any way that windows would show one thing in dxdiag, then display something else in a different spot.

sux to hear that story... i wonder what their side of the story is... i guess the bottom line is dont trust hp, and once a laptop breaks, dont try to repair it... lol

 

[Vette73]

^



The 8400 is a lower end video chip. It is integrated and not dedicated like the 7600. Also the ram it showed was its usage of the systems memory. The 7600 has its bank of ram just for video.

So I take it you work for rebootit.biz

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Listen up... It was months before we finally got the BULLSH*T unit back after I had to harass them daily about their lies and delays.

I don't have exact dates because I am not about to waste my time to look up the dates. But it was longer than two months.

The video card was inferior. Get that? INFERIOR. That is not even questionable. Look them up.

The video card had HALF the ran. Get that? HALF. But worse, it is actually sharing memory, so it really doesn't have its own memory!

And because of that, it ran so slow (when it worked) as to be useless.

And they stole my HD-DVD drive and gave us a standard piece of crap normal DVD-ROM drive drive. Now our HD-DVD's are useless. Yeah, that is a dead format, but my wife liked the drive and had a number of HD-DVD flicks and some burned HD-DVD media. Rebootit never bothered to respond in any way to me or the bank as to the HD-DVD drive. They 100% ignored that topic at every turn.

Kind of like closing your yes, putting your hands over your ears and yelling LALALALALALALA.

Truly sad.

I gave Rebootit every chance to do right. They chose not to and again, the bank found in my favor. I even have the letter from Rebootit's bank stating I was in the right.

Okay, I updated everyone. My part is done and I want to move on. Unless...

If any Rebootit people come in here and lie I am going to shoot a video of the POS they sent me (and how it doesn't work and is clearly not the laptop I sent them) and make sure it is all over YouTube and that any time anyone sees their videos, they will see mine.

 

[MadScientist]

Glad to hear you finally got your money back, but now you don't have a working laptop.
The Geforce 8400M GS is a very inferior video chip compared to the Geforce GO 7600 256MB chip, even compared to my daughter's GO 6800 chip in her HP.

Was the laptop they gave you the same model, an HP dv9260nr, or a different model?

If it's not booting up it may be a bad MB. It's probably not worth getting the replacement fixed, but you may be able to find a refurb MB on eBay and fix it yourself. For the dv9200 series HP does have excellent detailed service manuals on their website. The only good thing about these laptops.

I purchased the refurb MB for my daughter's HP dv9205us and a few refurb Dell MBs from Asendtech. They have an online store and sell on eBay. I am not affiliated with them.
http://www.ascendtech.us/

My daughter's laptop is still functioning, but still runs hot. I just ordered her a laptop cooler.

Your laptop and my daughter's may be included in the Nvidia settlement. http://www.nvidiasettlement.com/index.html

 

[xxcrashxx]

So I take it you work for rebootit.biz

i dont know who rebootit.biz is, but i do fix computers through craigslist, and i had one person who didnt like my prices post slanderous things on craigslist against me, claiming that i held their computer hostage when they wouldnt pay me. they went as far as having the police visit my house, claiming that i had stolen his laptop, and i wouldnt return it. after i explained everything to the cops, they just left. once the guy picked up his computer, he would copy my heading on craigslist so that people would find his "review" when they also found my post. i had a large number of people that would contact me before this guy posted stuff against me, after he made his post on craigslist, i only had a few people contacting me to fix their stuff per week. and i dont think there was a sudden moment of brightness in computer users at that time.


all im trying to say is there are two sides to every story. and plenty of times if anyone has a bad experience with one company, they will tell the world, and sometimes twist things around. i believe some of the things Mr. Stevens says, but not all of it until i hear what the "crooks" have to say.

 

[MadScientist]

I watched the rebootit.biz video on how they fix the HP dv series nvidia video chip problem. They don't replace the MB or video chip but assume that the video chip is still functional but due to heat caused by HP's POS heatsink/heatpipe cooler it has become desoldered from the MB.

They use a pencil torch to heat the video chip to ~210C for ~60 seconds to reflow the solder to reconnect it to the MB. This is akin to baking your MB in the oven at ~425F to try to revive it, but they concentrate on the video chip.

I'm curious as to what their success rate is. First the video chip still has to be functional and the solder reflow has to work perfectly.

I'm guessing on Matt_Stevens MB this fix did not work and they shipped him back another laptop.

 

[MadScientist]

i believe some of the things Mr. Stevens says, but not all of it until i hear what the "crooks" have to say.

What don't you believe? I think it's quite clear that they shipped him back a different inferior laptop.

 

[Lanyap]

I watched the rebootit.biz video on how they fix the HP dv series nvidia video chip problem. They don't replace the MB or video chip but assume that the video chip is still functional but due to heat caused by HP's POS heatsink/heatpipe cooler it has become desoldered from the MB.

They use a pencil torch to heat the video chip to ~210C for ~60 seconds to reflow the solder to reconnect it to the MB. This is akin to baking your MB in the oven at ~425F to try to revive it, but they concentrate on the video chip.

I'm curious as to what their success rate is. First the video chip still has to be functional and the solder reflow has to work perfectly.

I'm guessing on Matt_Stevens MB this fix did not work and they shipped him back another laptop.

I watched several of their videos and some use the pencil torch method but I also found a video with them using a reflow station. I used the oven bake method on one and it only lasted several months before it started having problems again.

 

[tcsenter]

The 8400M GS is in fact a discrete solution just like the Go 7600. The "integrated RAM DAC" refers to the digital to analog converter, which has been integrated on all video chips for years now. It has superior features (DX10 and HD video support) but lower 3D gaming performance than Go 7600.

 

[Ruger22C]

Make sure you report them to resellerrating.com, bbb, and insiderpages.com, what they did is completely wrong.

I'm trying to find a place to contact them on their site, so I can direct them to this thread.

 

[Maverick6969]

I agree with Ruger22C.

To the OP, I'm really sorry that this happened to you. I'd be quite PO'd myself if I were in your shoes. I can confirm HP laptops made from that generation were indeed faulty and were poorly designed (specifically in terms of heat dissipation. I should know, I used to work as a bench tech and have worked on hundreds of laptops from 2006-2008. I've seen problems with all brand names, dell, hp, sony etc. HP has by far the worse track record. I have not worked on any recent model HP laptops. But from what I saw, I have no desire whatsoever to recommend or buy HP laptops. They simply suck. HP should have stuck with what they know best - making laser printers. Instead they leashed a slew of poorly designed laptops (like yours) causing nothing headaches for their users.

As for this scumbag company reboot.biz or whatever... just consider yourself lucky that you were able to get to a full refund from your bank. For future reference I would never ship out my laptop for repair unless it was done in the same state or city. Here in Chicago we have a choice of some very solid reputable companies (local suburbs) that have been in business for years. I realize depending on where you live, it's not always possible to find a local repair shop.