HP warranty extension (Nvidia chipset failiure)

Had a problem with my DV2412ca, would not install windows at all, white screen upon loading the recovery software. Even tried with a fresh new Vista CD from the store, same problem, loading the CD for couple of minutes, then white screen.
Anyway, gave them a call and she advise me that my laptop was no longuer under warranty (over 1 year, 13 month to be exact)
I told them, isnt there a warranty extension to cover all those computer with faulty NViDia chipset.... She put me
on hold, then came back telling me that since i was only out of warranty period for 1 month, i could buy a warranty extension for 100.00 and i would have to pay shipping to send the laptop back....(49.00 fee) I said i want to talk to your supervisor (I was mad)
Can you imagine someone calling service rep with a laptop that is no longer working... OUT OF WARRANTY, and the service
rep is friendly ennough to offer you a warranty extension for 100.00 in order to repair your deffective laptop...
THEY WERE TRYING TO STEEL me 100.00 because they were **** aware that they had to cover my laptop AT NO CHARGE.
I wonder how many loyal customer they steel like this. They are simply trying to send the bill for the defective NviDia chipset to the end user.
SHAME ON THEM.

She finally accepted to replair it under warranty. Still waiting for the laptop to come back though.

 

With all due respect, there's a reason why the extended warranty was created. What happens if you didn't have medical insurance? You'd be outraged because of the big bill, but deep down you know it was something you could have prevented.

I'm not trying to make an enemy, but I was in the same boat as you. I've learned my lesson. Warranties = precaution/ satisfaction.,

 

^+1 with Infamous on this one.

Notebooks are electronics. More so, they are electronics that are portable. They are by no means indestructible and, furthermore, are more prone to failure than a desktop for comparison. Now, obviously there are many variables here that I am taking for granted such as the individual who owns the laptop and uses it and how well they treat their unit, but even putting that aside, I have had a PC which I babied and it still had parts go out on me sooner than I thought they would.

In your case, you are stating you are upset at the fact that a notebook you purchased and have owned for 13 months had an issue. Does it suck that it had an issue just outside of warranty? Yes. Is it HP's fault? No. Yes, it is their product that you paid your hard earned money for, but in the same token, you knew when purchasing it that they give you one full year of complete support as well as continued telephone support, however weak it may seem to be, at least it is something. Also, because of the nature of the product you are purchasing, they give you the option quite clearly to purchase additional coverage if you feel that it is wise. If I am spending over $300 on something, I usually will weigh the cost to replace to that of an extended coverage to make a choice as most consumers do as I am sure you did. In this case, unfortunately, you seemed to have gambled and lost. Again, does it suck? Yes, but by no means it because HP was trying to short change you. There were options out there.

Finally, your claim that HP is ripping you off because of a possible defective graphics card is not HP being mean either. Let's say that it is the graphics card that has failed just for a "what if" example. If you take a second to look at the situation logically and, more so, from HP's point of view, you will realize that they have no positive spin to the current situation. On one side, they have the parts manufacturer, Nvidia, that is saying there is no problem. On the other, they have statistics and upset customers saying there is one based on loose numbers of people coming together to ask if others have had a problem as well. By no means are the people on the forums all experts. Even I am a PC technician for a major company and I still learn new stuff everyday. Further, they have no hard published numbers showing that the failure is any higher that the typical 5% - 10% the notebook industry averages. HP can't force Nvidia to do anything. They can pressure them like what most manufacturers are doing now by using another companies product in its place, but it's not like HP knew going in that X batch of product would have Y% fail rate because this chip we are buying is bad. That is just bad business plain and simple. So, it comes down to what is always has. Did the customer purchase additional coverage in case something like this should happen. In your case, again unfortunately, you didn't.

I am glad that HP was nice enough to offer to fix your notebook even though it was outside of warranty. I just feel that, coming from my professional background as a PC Technician, I don't understand how people don't buy some type of additional coverage on a very expensive items such as notebooks that it is not a matter of if but when something will fail. Can you risk it and go 5 years on a unit without a serious problem? Sure, but why worry about it let alone try to be one of the very few who fall into this category?

Not trying to be rude, just kinda putting my own musings out there.

BBGus

 

don't know bout the other two posters above me, but they did the same to me (well almost)
anyways i had the same issue and they said since i am out of warranty they said they would fix it for $298... i was like ***?
and then i mentioned the HP Service enhancement and there was a pause for 3 minutes, and they said that as a one time call in they would do me a "favor" as if he could be the only one to fix my notebook for free, "i guess to cover his *** for trying to scam me out of something that should have been repaired for free

 

I'm not trying to sit there and dog yall about your issues or the less than spectacular service most major manufacturer's provide, I am just saying that not all employees are up to speed on different things and that it can cause problems between you, the end user, and them, the support provider. Yes, in some situations there will be dirty business practices that happen, but I choose to view those times as isolated incidents. Believe me, I have gone through my share of frustration when it comes to parts failures and warranty repairs, but that is a part of it and something to expect, not hope never happens. TwiztOG43, I am happy to hear you got yours fixed as well.

I guess what I am trying to say is while I understand and respect your emotions/reasoning behind your frustration and anger, I also sympathize with the support people who have to deal with these situations when they have little to no power to help depending on corporate policy and other outside influences considering the fact that I face the same thing when I am working on warranty repairs for Staples.

BBGus

 

That is not correct, nvidia have taken a $196m charge for the problem, indemnifying the notebook manufacturer $200 for each chip failure.

From a recent interview:
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20080905PD206.html
"Currently, we are negotiating with partners to recall products and hope to give consumers a satisfactory resolution."

If the translation above is correct then i think the notebook vendors need to be asked why they aren't following through on the recall nvidia has asked for.

That is a bit simplistic, the customer bought a product with a certain performance level and lifetime expectation neither of which appear to have been met. They have a claim against the seller for misrepresentation. The warranty is just a secondary insurance.

 

well they did get it fixed, but returned it in a way that i did not send it to them.
i am sending it back to them to fix all the things they messed up DURING THE REPAIR.
they scratched the top cover of the lcd, and forced larger screws into places where the small screws go, now you can see all the places on the palmrest where they tried to force the screws on the underside. that also goes with the hard drive area and the Wlan card area.

although i have a pretty good case manager helping me on this, i still never got a call back from tech support.

 

What's the Case Manager's name?

 

i do understand why you buy a warranty extension and why you dont. But knowing the problem lots of laptop has with the NVidia chipset, this is not to the customer to dig/search on internet as i did to learn that there is a 12 month warranty extension that cover my laptop. When i spoke to the lady at HP, she seems to be all surprised i had this problem and was more than willing to SELL me an extension even if i didnt need one. But what i do not understand is the reason why the customer has to mention about the warranty extension to them to get it.
I know that lots of users today are using their laptop without knowing what or who is NVidia, or AMD, or ATI, so how can they be aware of the Nvidia chipset problem ? Now when they call HP for support/repair, is HP offering them an extension of 100.00 + 49.00 shipping as they did with me ?

 

Contact a Case Manager:

1 877 917 4380 EXT 94

Mon-Fri 9AM-10PM EST

 

My apologies, but I was unaware Nvidia had finally taken steps. In that case, I take back what I was saying. I still stand by what I say when it comes to extended coverage as well as what I say when it comes to not all employees being up to speed on everything.

To TwiztOG43, I'm sorry to hear that they didn't treat your system with better care and hope everything works out for you.

Again, my main ranting was centralized around the idea that we, the people who provide repair services, are not always up to speed on everything and that I just hope people can have some patience with us. It's not entended as an excuse, as I know there are service people both telephone and service centers that should never be allowed to touch a computer, I just hate when someone blows up at me because a computer dies for whatever reason and it's my fault because I'm the person that is trying or can't fix it.

BBGus

 

Complaints about the HP laptops with NVidia chip ticking time bombs are growing by the day. There's an active thread on these forums -

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=233974&page=8

Here's an active thread on HP's website (which unfortunately is being heavily censored) -
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service...274587&admit=109447626+1224352814387+28353475

One of the posters is collecting email addresses and details of machine failures.

 

Bravo, when you pay for a product you do so on the belief it has a certain quantity plus life expectancy under normal use and if the consumer was not of this belief, the product would soon fail to be of commercial interest, causing many who work in the industry to be superfluous!

 

I'm sure HP has a knowledge base that employees are supposed to keep up with. I know Sprint does. The employee is responsible for knowing about policy changes.

As well, this is not an issue that should involve having to buy an extra warranty. Nvidia issued a recall and HP has extended those laptops affected with bad NVIDIA GPU's (though not all of them, by any means, which is also cheap on their part) for 2 years. The stipulation of the repair is that they only do 1 repair, after that,y ou are on your own if you are outside the warranty. What HP is trying to do is charge NVIDIA for every bad GPU they received, but they are only passing that on to "SOME" of the affected customers, and ONLY if the customers push for the free repair. HP is being greedy, looking for extra profit out of this situation, as is Dell and Apple.

And HP is notorious for sending back units even more damaged than they were when they were sent in. HP makes some great machines, but truly, their customer/repair service is some of the WORST in the industry besides possibly Alienware.

And if/when this happens to me, They'll get one chance to fix it and I will document it very carefully, and after that I'll spend the money to file against them in small claims court, because I am not going to waste days of my time like some people here have. Time is money, I am the customer, not them. HP Seems to become very attentive when people file in small claims against them, and I pla n on them listening very well to me if I ever have this problem and they want to give me the run around.

 

baaawwwwwwwww

My advice:

Don't tell them something broke before you extend your warranty.

GPU recall or not, it's always in your best interest to just get things fixed.

 

I don't think repair is enough since the computer returning to you will have the same components. My lappie experienced it's first GPU failure 10 months after purschase and got a new GPU as well as a motherboard. 8 months later disaster struck again.

What I'm saying is that the life expectancy of all the HP, with the affected Nvidia GPU is, 2-3 years. They are all bound to die and when they do, consumers will be out of warranty forced to buy a completely new computer because the motherboard needed will either be out of production of repair will exceed the value of the computer.

 

Fair warning: there be a rant a-comin'.

When I first read this thread, I was new to dealing with the problem first-hand. My dv2000 had just started emitting the one long, two short beeps signaling the demise of my nVidia GeForce Go 7200 video card. I used my 10-year-old Dell desktop to research the situation, cursing the HP for having only 1/5th the lifetime of my Dell.

I called up customer support after a fair amount of research and after concluding without a doubt what the problem was. The first person I talked to gave me the exact same story (perhaps it was the same guy) as the OP on this thread. I guess I'd forgotten the OP's post by that time (I'd read a LOT about the problem), and I thought to myself, "Wow, self, is it possible that I can extend my expired warranty by a year? For only $99? That almost sounds too good to be true."

I even asked the HP rep, "So what you're telling me, let me get this straight, is that I can choose to spend $420 to replace the motherboard and video card, or I can buy this $99 extended warranty and have it fixed -- is that what you're saying?" He said it was. To be honest, this question/answer series went around at least three or four times, with him confirming each time that Yes, this was a complete warranty and would cover the repair, including shipping both ways. Mainly, I continued to be skeptical and ask my question in different ways, and he continued to insist that this $99 warranty would solve all my problems. I'm convinced there was no language barrier issue. We understood each other. (The question of whether he understood HP's policies is another matter entirely.)

Finally I said, yeah, sign me up, $99 is much better than $400. I passed calculus... ten years ago... and I can still display some mad skillz with a little simple arithmetic. That's nearly $212 in savings, right? Sweet!

It was finally time to bid adieu to my first HP rep. He didn't do tech support, so I was passed along like a plate of appetizers to the next guy. We'll call him HP guy 2 (HPG2 for short). It didn't take long for HPG2 and me to realize that our relationship wasn’t meant to be. He started off by having me do silly things like re-seat my RAM and HDD. I think he liked hearing the beeps – I even thought I heard him singing along with them. After running through his basic script, he told me I’d have to send it in for repair. I said, “Great, because I just bought this fancy new warranty extension.” (I’m paraphrasing.) He didn’t seem as enthused, and went on to tell me about the $420 I’d need to be giving HP. I said, “Oh, but HPG1 told me my new warranty would cover all that.” HPG2 broke the news that No – I’d just bought a year of phone support. You might be surprised to know that I was a little pissed to hear this news. Obviously I demanded a refund of my $99, which he said could only be done through a case manager, who would have to call me between 8 AM and 5 PM, which is a pain if you happen to work. (I later learned their hours are 5 AM to 8 PM Pacific.)

The next day, a case manager calls me. One thing I’ve failed to mention to this point is that I mentioned the HP warranty extension to both of the HP reps. Both of them told me that my computer was not covered by it. (I had already checked their website and had seen that my service tag was not among those listed, but I did not believe that the nVidia issue was limited solely to those that were listed. From what I’ve read, it affects all of certain types of chips.) I went around with both of them a couple of times, insisting that they were mistaken and that this issue was bigger than their little list was admitting. They weren’t buying it. (Or, perhaps, they’d been told not to buy it.)

The case manager I spoke to looked at my file and offered me the warranty extension without prompting. He refunded the $99 I’d wasted on the “phone support” and promised that HPG1 would be “retrained” or “taken care of.”

I’m nearly done, but there’s one last thing I must mention. I just received my repaired dv2000 today. It works! But instead of a dedicated video card, it seems to have been outfitted with Intel integrated graphics. This is probably not a terrible thing, since the nVidia was mostly good at crashing my computer and ultimately dying, but it does kind of **** me off that HP didn’t think it was necessary to mention that they had replaced a major component of my computer with a less advanced version. I paid extra to upgrade to the 7200 because I didn’t want the Intel GMA. On the plus side, I can now sell this computer with a clear conscience, since I won’t be foisting a time bomb on some unsuspecting eBayer.

The moral of this story, in my opinion, is not whether a company deals with this sort of problem eventually, but whether it does so in a transparent way that shows respect for its customers. From what I’ve seen so far, HP has failed. Unfortunately, so have most of the others.

 

Does anyone know where an official response from HP is located for the nvidia problem.
My friend has a HP with the 8400 nvidia chipset and needs to have some official response from HP stating the warranty has been extended for those with affected chipsets.

 

Here's the link for HP:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01087277&lc=en&cc=us

only the models on the list are covered

 

I think you should check the HP forums.

 

I'm back, and I'm still ticked. No, make that more ticked.

I decided to send the computer back again because I didn't want to give up all rights to the better video card that I'd paid for originally.

I got it back today, and guess what? Same exact video card as before, except this time it looks like they took a little less care with the repair. I tried to reinstall my original nVidia drivers, and then tried to install the lower-end 6150 drivers (just for chuckles), but the only ones that work are still the Intel 945GM.

Anyone else have a similar problem? Has anyone gotten a faulty nVidia replaced with a working nVidia (and not something else)?

I'm not sure if I have the heart to send it back again... My case manager and I are going to have some words...