Gaming Do not buy from HP

[klein]

Hello gbatemp, I have come here to tell my story about how Hewertt Packard treats its customers.

About 16 months ago I bought laptop from them, a tx1000. It worked fine for my needs, but about 2 months ago the wireless went out. This wasn't a problem for me since I only used it for work to type on trips. However, last week the display went out and I am no longer able to access the hard drive, go into safe mode, or flash my BIOS.

So I have contacted HP about this problem, and they told me to pay $400 to fix this. I know those laptops life spans aren’t this short, so I did some research on why it could be going to so quick. After looking online I discovered that some other brands of HP, the dv2000 and dv9000 have gotten an extended warranty because of a faulty NVIDIA chip, with symptoms including the wireless going out followed by the whole thing going kaput.

Putting the two together, I realized my laptop has the faulty chip, and I found out from some news sources to confirm that it is the same chip.

Here is an e-mail I have sent to their CEO on their website. He has put it up for people to tell him about issues or for feedback. Links backing up my claims are in my e-mail below.

"Hello, I am **** ***** and I am e-mailing you regarding a problem with my notebook computer and your customer services. My issue is regarding the tx1000 model notebook and a defective NVIDIA chip, along with how HP is regarding my customer

About 16 months ago I purchased your computer going into my second year of college. I needed a laptop computer as part of my work, and to write up school assignments. This was a big investment for me at the time, and my brother assured me that HP was a good brand when it came to notebooks.

Well about two months ago I started having issues with my laptop. The wireless would randomly work and stop working. This wasn't that big of an issue since I could work on my projects at home and be able to bring the information to work. However, last week the whole thing failed. The screen would no longer turn on, and I could no longer access my hard drive. The LEDs on my laptop would work, but nothing I could did would help this problem.

I contacted your customer service, and the reply I got was that it would cost me $400 to fix this problem. This is insane that the thing would break so early! My brother's computer has been working for over three years with very minor problems, and one of your laptops totally shuts down barely after the warranty expires?

After looking up some information on the internet, I have seen that there has been an extended warranty on the dv2000, dv6000, and the dv9000 laptops. Other news sources have cited this is because of a faulty NVIDIA chip.

TGDaily (http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/42472/118/) has a quote from NVIDIA that states:
"The chip claims arise out of allegedly defectively designed NVIDIA chips G86, G86A2, G84, C51, G72, G72M, G73, G72A3, MCP67 and NV42."

After looking in my owner’s manual I have seen that the tx1000 model has the C51 NVIDIA chip. Why hasn't it been recalled, or at least the warranty extended? This is not an isolated problem because on the HP forums I have found two threads with 100+ posts commenting or stating they are having the same issue as me.
(http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447626+1246477498308+28353475&threadId=1245319)

(http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447626+1216537966704+28353475&threadId=1245147)

After some time I managed to talk to a case manager named Milo Billard. Milo has said that he is aware of people saying they are having a problem on the forums, but he would only give me 50% off of the repairs. This is unacceptable for me to have to pay for buying a defective product.

I feel that your company should take responsibility for this problem if it is so widespread. Like I stated before, this was a major investment for me. I expected to have purchased a high quality computer that I could use throughout the rest of college, and now it’s worthless. I am deeply hurt by how your company treats its customers. I need a computer for my job, and I would like to reach a fair resolution. I hope that we can reach a conclusion that will restore faith in your company."


So basically, HP treats its customers like crap and I am never buying from them again, and unless you have some fetish for owning defective computers I would advise staying away from all HP computers. What really makes me mad is that my case manager admits that HP knows this is a problem, but that they refuse to do something about this! If anyone wants to know more about these issues, or have an HP laptop that is acting up, go to www.hplies.com , or at least support everyone who got screwed over by HP.

If you own a laptop made by HP that is a tx series or dv series, it is not a question on whether your computer will act up, it is when it will act up. Every computer in those series has the bad chip and it will always edventually fail, often right after the warrenty expires.

 

[KingdomBlade]

For some insane reason, when I saw HP, I thought you meant Harry Potter.

That's because all businesses, big, small, or medium, the most important thing is money. Nevermind the costumers aren't happy, as long as they earn some cash, they get pretty happy. Then, eventually forget about everything about the costumers.

 

[klein]

I just hope that next time someone here reads this topic and maybe a year down the line and remembers this thread. If they lose even one sale because of my experience at least it will be somewhat justified.

 

[Joe88]

I already know not to buy from them
they make low quality crap


/looks at his 2 broken HP laptops
I got them for free though, I tried to repair them but was impossible without a whole replacement
the gfx chip is broken in one and the other has something to do with the mobo

 

[CatScam]

I had the same problem but I have a older ZD7000 & it had a bad NVIDIA chip & the LCD display no longer works, although the external monitor port works fine. After doing some research I found that HP got sued & settled, but when I called to have my laptop fixed they stated that it was to late & the cut off was 2 months earlier, & because the laptop was old I didn’t pursue the situation any farther.

But here is a HP printer story that is even a bigger rip off, a friend had a new all in one HP printer she had stored for a year after moving & after hooking up it would not work. I tolled her that the cartridges were most likely dried out & had to he replaced. So she had the printer do a ink test & it tolled her to replace the color cartridge even though I tolled her to replace them both. So after she replaced the color cartridge & had no luck she decided to call HP & they tolled her that if a printer is not in use for a year it deteriorates & they can sell her a new printer for $200. So she calls me up & wants to know what I think, I tolled her to replace both the Black & color ink cartridges & the next day she calls me up to let me know everything is working. HP may have some good deals on hardware but they are lying snakes.

I wish you all the luck with your situation klein but it’s going to be a bumpy road.

 

[dawn.wan]

Yes HP does suck. The BioMetrics is just a SCAM. Play it smart and get a ThinkPad

 

[UltraMagnus]

never really had any problem with their printers myself, and I have an A3 colour inkjet and B&W laser from them.

as for your specific problem, your laptop broke outside of its warranty, that really isn't their problem.

 

[klein]

never really had any problem with their printers myself, and I have an A3 colour inkjet and B&W laser from them.

as for your specific problem, your laptop broke outside of its warranty, that really isn't their problem.

What this says is that their products don't last a long time, so if you want to have an HP computer you are going to have to shell out $1000 every year. People have also found that they have been underclocking their chips to make sure they last beyond the warranty. There are also news sources saying that they knew about this problem before it was released.

 

[Harsky]

Bought the same tx1000 laptop when I was on holiday in Hong Kong. Warranty was pretty much out the window when I took it back home to UK since I realised that it only applied to Hong Kong and thus I spent the next 2 years handling it like a baby and it worked well. Then I shelled out for a Dell laptop and the old TX1000 got sold to a family who seems to have tons of gunk thrown about at it but STILL manages to work.

But HP is still not a company I ever wanted to buy a laptop or any computer product from again.

 

[ZPE]

I think Dell were having these Nvidia problems too with the 8400 and 8600GT chips, I'm not sure but yeah I guess your motherboard got fried due to the gfx card.

 

[Mangofett]

Nvidia in laptops is generally bad. 8600gt and now even the 9600gt in macbook pro laptops are having issues as well.

I haven't had any HP laptops, only desktops. Both worked great for me.

 

[Overlord Nadrian]

HP sucks. Best one IMO is MSI. They make crap sometimes but generally it's all good.

 

[DSGamer64]

Note for the OP, buy a f*cking extended warranty when you make a purchase! Yes it may cost you a bit of coin but what's 200 dollars to cover any repairs that would be needed over 2 or 3 years? Considering it costs a boatload to fix a laptop, even a disc drive can be over 300 dollars, it would make sense that you get an extended warranty, as laptops are the most horribly unreliable machines available in terms of durability. Warranties only last one year, and at best laptops last 4 years before going completely tits up. HP are a great manufacturer, I have a desktop that has lasted 5 years now, including the hard drive as they use quality components, my brother has a HP laptop that is great aside from the fact that it slid out of his backpack and killed the graphics card, but thankfully the warranty fully covers it for 3 years.

 

[DSGamer64]

Yes HP does suck. The BioMetrics is just a SCAM. Play it smart and get a ThinkPad

Or play it smart and buy an Asus. ThinkPads are complete and utter dog shit, they weigh like a ton of bricks, have terrible battery life and sluggish performance, hell most netbooks run faster then those pieces of crap.

 

[Raki]

Yes HP does suck. The BioMetrics is just a SCAM. Play it smart and get a ThinkPad

Or play it smart and buy an Asus. ThinkPads are complete and utter dog shit, they weigh like a ton of bricks, have terrible battery life and sluggish performance, hell most netbooks run faster then those pieces of crap.

Yeah Asus ones are nice..quite sturdy, but still cheap and nice designed

 

[jesterscourt]

I can vouch for Asus and their treatment of customers, my first 901 had a fan issue. The sent out a brand new one. Now I have two neoprene sleeves

 

[da_head]

yeah i have a fuckin hp right now. it was cheap as hell but damn does it get hot

(my nuts!)

 

[Skyline969]

Dell isn't too bad, except don't even think about trying to get something repaired with them. Their customer service is shit, at least from what I've seen in the past with how they treated my parents' claims with their old Dimension desktop. My touch controls for media (volume, play/pause, etc) didn't work at all out of the box, but I know if I send it back to them they won't do a thing about it. I'll only send this laptop back if it completely dies on me and refuses to work at all.

But aside from poor customer service, the machines themselves are incredible. My laptop (Inspiron 1525) cost me $700 and I got a 3 year extended warranty, and it runs circles around my friend's Toshiba Satellite Pro, which cost him $1000.

 

[playallday]

Dell has poor customer service? Not for me, they have given me a new screen (I broke it), a new PSU and a new motherboard on my old Dell.

 

[DSGamer64]

My HP desktop had a hard drive die on it only a few months into purchase, but the customer service wasn't bad. They shipped out a replacement pretty fast and had phone, email, live chat services that all responded relatively quickly and they were helpful. Although I'm pretty sure I won't buy their stuff again, a hard drive dying in a few months, I've never seen a hard drive die period...

Blame the company that manufactured the hard drive, which I bet wasn't HP, they probably outsourced to get it like a lot of companies do to make pre-builts, get the cheapest parts possible to pass it on to the consumer. However it is interesting that my HP desktop has an Asus motherboard, no wonder it is still running fine after all these years, a lot of budget brand motherboards would have long since been dead, dunno how many can last 5 years without blowing up, only thing wrong is that the onboard audio chip died at the end of last year. I have yet to have to replace anything in my HP desktop, were AGP cards not insanely overpriced I would have dropped a better card in.