Brand new ACER 7535G laptop goes bust!!

I wish to share my experience of owning an ACER 7535G laptop for a fleeting few weeks. I bought it from Currys on 9th August 2009 for £599.99, because my other laptop was getting kind of old. I work as a software developer so I needed to install all my development software on the new one. Because of this I could not even use it for the first 2 weeks because I did not find time to get everything on it (taking out Windows Vista and installing Windows XP being one of those). Eventually I started using it regularly about 3 weeks after I had bought it. Then exactly 5 weeks after I had bought it, it died on 13th September 2009!

It froze when I was working on it. The screen became garbled although I could still read the last thing I was working on (this to me suggested something wrong with the GPU, or its driver). I had to do a hard reboot by pressing and holding the power button. The next time it froze again before the windows login dialog was displayed, and there were a few pixles on the screen glowing psychedelically, and this time there was also some sound of static coming from the speakers. I tried to hard boot it again and after that nothing ever came up on the screen. The power and other lights do come on, but other than that it is completely dead.

The real shame about it was that it happened exactly 5 weeks after I had bought it. I took it back to the currys that I had bought it from and all they could do was send it back to Acer. They say that if it had happened a week earlier they would have offered a replacement or a refund, and obviously I would have gone for the refund because after this I do not have any confidence in the quality of Acer products.

Now I can only hope they will replace the laptop instead of repairing it. I really really do not want to be owning a repaired laptop just 5 weeks after spending £599.99 on it.

I will post the updates about the situation with my "new" laptop here when I have any but I would definitely not recommend this product to anyone, in fact I would advise to actively avoid it.

 

Which GPU does it have?
Might be a faulty Nvidia chip.

 

Actually its got 2 GPUs: ATI HD 3200 and ATI HD 4570. This laptop has one of the new ATI technologies about using a low end GPU to save on battery power when high end GPU is not needed.

 

RMA it

New technology always has a hiccup here and there. Might be the same case here.

 

Guys, please stay on topic. This thread is NOT about Acer's quality.

Some posts have been deleted.

 

Its been 10 days now. I still haven't heard a word from Currys/Acer. I am going to wait for a few more days before I call them

 

I would just politely inform Currys (Whom your contract of sale is with) that this is unacceptable and quote the sale of goods act, that the item was not of merchantable quality and that you expect a replacement or full refund. Ask them in the store for the name of their registered head office too as it shows you mean business. Keep calm and back it up in writing.
Don't be fobbed off... a repair on a £600 item after 1 month is not acceptable.
Proof the sale of goods act works... I got a new replacement freeview receiver after 5.75 YEARS because it was not compliant with the latest updates/changes to transmission... it should have been. That was from the manufacturer, Daewoo.
A 70% refund on a 2 year old DVD freeview recorder( Argos), again not compatible with latest changes, and I was not prepared to wait for manufacturer to come up with software fix.
A free service call from Sony to update firmware... freeview product again. They wanted £60. No chance when the item was advertised as "future proof"
And the biggy... a full refund on a new month old Audi whose engine self destructed.

So don't accept anything less than a new product
Oh yes... I think Acers are pretty good. Been well chuffed with mine... 3yr old and gets looked after but "hammered"

 

I just got back into the forum to update the status and thats when I read Mooly's post. Its a very good advice. Unfortunately my job has kept me really busy and I had no time to visit the store. Its located some way out of the town in a retail park. Anyways, thats what I will have to do I think, to go there and sort this out.

About the current status, its been over 28 days and no word from Curry's. I called them and the only thing thay can tell me is that it is still with Acer. This is absolutely unacceptable and I think Curry's/Acer should be ashamed of having a customer who paid 600 pounds and never got to use the product.

 

Call acer directly might solve your problem more quickly. Curry's and PC World both sucks when it comes to the after sales service.
I have the exact same laptop and got Black & White screen (Like old TV units)when i switch to main GPU (ATI HD4570) & onboard GPU works fine without any problems. However I restored the system and now it's working fine. problem is poor ATI gpu driver.(Actually ATI has nothing to do with it & Acer is responsible for the driver updates. You can use new Acer Ferrari one 200 driver if you need to update factory installed version )