HP Laptop rant

[UNGN]

I have to rant about my HP laptop and tell everyone with a TX1000 series if it hasn't died yet, you are on borrowed time.

Short Story. 1 year warranty, paid $1100+, died dead at 15 months, suspect motherboard.

Call up the tech line and for $99 they can "fix my problem" with one year phone support (since my 1 year warranty expired). Pay $99 and get transferred to India. Idiot indian who knows less about computers than my 9 year old kid says the motherboard is bad (duh) and it will be $400 to fix (with no warranty, on top of the $99 I just paid) so he spends the next 15 minutes trying to sell me a new HP computer that isn't as good as my current computer for $700. Fat chance I'm going to buy ANOTHER laptop from HP in this lifetime, Indian dude.

So I now have $99, 1 year phone support on a 3lb paperweight.

Look online (which is what I should have done before calling HP) and find thousands of other people in the exact same boat as me and found that if you write an online letter to HP, they will fix it for free. (They have a known defect... a component that fails when it gets hot)

Did that a week ago and HP calls up today and says they will send a box to my house to mail it back to HP for a free repair.

I was about to agree with this when he says "I know you can't but be sure to back up any data you have stored on your computer... so I asked "are you going to wipe my hard drive?" The helpful HP "client manager" says "yes"... WTF? What does my hard drive have to do the motherboard?

Is there ANY way it can be done without wiping the hard drive?

"No, they do full refresh"

Thanks but no thanks, HP.

My lifelong quest to never buy another thing from HP has begun.

I found a guy in Miami that has made a side job of fixing TX1000 motherboards for $120 and the Hard drive stays at my house. The 40 minutes out of my life removing and installing the motherboard in my laptop will be childs play compared to the 2 weeks it would take to restore 100 gig worth of files and programs.

I looked around at the thousands of dollars of HP stuff I have around my house and thought "they're gonna miss me".

 

[87grandnat]

Same thing happened to me! I have a HP dv5000. I called (this was prolly a year ago) and they told me it was a known issue and they woul fix it for free. They told me the fan would go out and the mother board would get to hot and fry. I (and they didnt tell me all my data would be lost) had a very verbal convo with them when I got my laptop back and foundout they didnt change my top case, and mouse pad like i asked and said i would pay for plus having everything wipped off my hard drive. I too told them i woudnt be buying anything else from them...ever

I am going to get a apple laptop of some kind in 6 months or so. I will probably try ebay because most of there stuff is on the high side

later,
Joshua

 

[JOHNDEEREGN]

I have a HP Pavillion dv9000

Prolly on borrowed time as well,, only a few months old too

 

[87grandnat]

yeah you probably are.....but I must say I had mine about 2 years before that happened. Since i had it fixed which was alittle over a year ago I havent had another problem, so hopefully you wont have any trouble anytime soon

Joshua

 

[JOHNDEEREGN]

yeah you probably are.....but I must say I had mine about 2 years before that happened. Since i had it fixed which was alittle over a year ago I havent had another problem, so hopefully you wont have any trouble anytime soon

Joshua

I sure hope your right!

 

[Rodney87GN]

I have a HP Pavillion dv9000

Prolly on borrowed time as well,, only a few months old too

I have a dv9000 also...about a year or so after I bought it the left hinge and left side of the screen is broke and all messed up. Apparently HP knows it's a common problem as they emailed me to offer a free replacement of the whole screen. Is yours like that too?

Anyway I don't think I'll buy another HP laptop because of how cheaply constructed they are.

 

[JOHNDEEREGN]

I have a dv9000 also...about a year or so after I bought it the left hinge and left side of the screen is broke and all messed up. Apparently HP knows it's a common problem as they emailed me to offer a free replacement of the whole screen. Is yours like that too?

Anyway I don't think I'll buy another HP laptop because of how cheaply constructed they are.

Well my hasn"t broke ******yet******

 

[Carr]

My dad's HP, I don't what the model is but it looks like the one that looks like a cheap iMac. Died last month, its been sitting at one of the some geek squad place waiting to get fix, cause no one at geek squad knows whats wrong with it. I just tell him this is why I only buy Mac's.

 

[GNX181]

A Rather Simple Solution

What I would recommend is to purchase a 2.5" hard drive enclosure and then remove your hard drive from your HP laptop and save your important data and files. Removing the hard drive is a rather simple procedure and your HP owners manual should have instructions on how to do it. If not, Google your HP laptop model number and a HP page should come up that has a manual you can view. Once you remove the hard drive you slide it into the hard drive enclosure you purchased, probably less than $25, and then you take the cable that came with it and plug it into the USB port on another computer. Then right click on the start icon and click on explore. In the list that come up on the left side you should see the drive that you have plugged into the USB port. Click on that drive and it should show everything that's on there. Then it's just a matter of creating a new folder on the computer you're using and transferring the important items into that folder either by dragging the items to that folder or copying and pasting. Once you have saved what you need you can place the hard drive back in the HP laptop and send it to them to be repaired. Once it's returned from HP you can either repeat the process of removing the hard drive from you laptop and placing it in the hard drive enclosure and plugging it back into the USB port on the other computer and then transferring the files back to the HP hard drive. Another option would be to copy the files from the folder that you saved them to to a DVD and then inserting it into the HP laptop and transfer your files back to the hard drive that way. I know it may sound a little complicated to you but it really isn't and when you consider the alternative of HP reformatting your hard drive and writing over all your important files I feel this is the way to go. If there's nothing wrong with you laptop hard drive, the only other thing I can think of is to buy a new 2.5" hard drive for the laptop and install it and then send it to HP for the repair. After it's returned you can reinstall your original hard drive with all your data, files and photos.

 

[mygn276]

I have the ze 5500 and its is nothing but junk. Buttons falling off and plenty af money spent on the hard drive.:frown:

 

[phillyturbosix]

We have hundreds of PC's where I work. We recently switched to HP different makes and models. All I can say is they are the biggest POS PC ever made! Nothing but non stop problems!!

 

[UNGN]

What I would recommend is to purchase a 2.5" hard drive enclosure and then remove your hard drive from your HP laptop and save your important data and files. Removing the hard drive is a rather simple procedure and your HP owners manual should have instructions on how to do it. If not, Google your HP laptop model number and a HP page should come up that has a manual you can view. Once you remove the hard drive you slide it into the hard drive enclosure you purchased, probably less than $25, and then you take the cable that came with it and plug it into the USB port on another computer. Then right click on the start icon and click on explore. In the list that come up on the left side you should see the drive that you have plugged into the USB port. Click on that drive and it should show everything that's on there. Then it's just a matter of creating a new folder on the computer you're using and transferring the important items into that folder either by dragging the items to that folder or copying and pasting. Once you have saved what you need you can place the hard drive back in the HP laptop and send it to them to be repaired. Once it's returned from HP you can either repeat the process of removing the hard drive from you laptop and placing it in the hard drive enclosure and plugging it back into the USB port on the other computer and then transferring the files back to the HP hard drive. Another option would be to copy the files from the folder that you saved them to to a DVD and then inserting it into the HP laptop and transfer your files back to the hard drive that way. I know it may sound a little complicated to you but it really isn't and when you consider the alternative of HP reformatting your hard drive and writing over all your important files I feel this is the way to go. If there's nothing wrong with you laptop hard drive, the only other thing I can think of is to buy a new 2.5" hard drive for the laptop and install it and then send it to HP for the repair. After it's returned you can reinstall your original hard drive with all your data, files and photos.

Those are all good ideas but if a company is so lame they are going to wipe my hard drive for zero reason (It's not like they were going to warranty their work). I'm going to go elsewhere for the rest of my life. It's not just the the data, files and photos but the 100 gig worth of programs that I would have to reload one by one.

One of my best friends from high school is a marketing executive for HP (he's worked for them for 20 years). Next time I see him I 'm going to tell him straight up his company sucks.

If I pulled crap like this on my customers I would expect them to do the same to me.