Had to file another BBB complaint against HP..

Well, my HP story is a long one, so I'll try to make it short.

Bought an HP dv5030us in March of last year. Had motherboard issues for months that went ignored by HP. Just 10 days before the 1 year warranty expired, the motherboard finally died. I had to send it into HP multiple times over the course of 2 months before they finally fixed it and eventually replaced it.

They replaced it with a dv6345us.

This system has had stability issues since day 1. It likes to lock up, completely, crash, randomly not boot, and even crash while watching DVDs. It has a high pitched whining sound. It even likes to bluescreen when coming out of sleep mode to record TV! Thats all it does. Records and watches TV and DVDs. I can't use it for anything else or it becomes unstable. Its not a Windows issue. I've reinstalled Windows I don't know how many times now, used various driver configurations. Even better, the MacBook I bought to actually have a computer during the first HP fiasco has been running Vista for months, rock solid, just as stable as Mac OS X.


The DVD drive failed and the system had to be sent in for repair. It came back with two things... A new DVD drive and a number of scratches on the lid.

I have not been able to get ahold of my "quality case manager" in the time it has been back in my hands.

So I've had to file another complaint against HP.

I'd rather have my old system back with the replaced motherboard than have ever dealt with this.

 

I suggest not patronizing HP anymore. Even if the next system they send you is completely flawless, and it arrives with a bar of gold, your previous experiences will lead you to find something wrong with it, such as the gold having rusted up.

 

Oh I can guarantee you that I will not. I wish I could return every single HP product I have ever purchased for a full refund.

I never had any issues like this until I bought my first HP system last year. The only hardware issues I had ever had in the 10+ years I've been building my own PCs and those for others would be..... well, I had a bad stick of RAM one time. Another time I had a CD writer that was DOA. Every system I have built for myself, helped others build, or built for another, has been as stable as a Windows PC could be. Even the store bought ones I have owned have been as stable as one can expect Windows from those generations to be. Ironically, that includes one Compaq. But that was well before the HP buyout. I even had an eMachines that lasted for 5 years, shipped with Windows ME.. and upgraded to XP in 2002. I can count the number of times that system fully locked up on one hand.

Windows problems? Aside from the occasional botched USB device install in Windows 98, Windows has been a lot better to me than most people make it out to be. XP and Vista Home Premium on my Mac run as solid and as stable, though not as fast, as Mac OS X does. On my previous systems, as long as I reinstalled XP every 6 months, it was as stable as one could expect it to be.

I've had two HP systems now with multiple hardware issues. My first system had a defective motherboard. Okay, I could have forgiven that. It happens... but when I first notified them of the issues more than a year ago in July, my case manager basically told me I was SOL. When it finally fully failed, I had to send the system in multiple times over the course of two months to finally get it fixed and eventually replaced.

The system they replaced it with has had stability issues since day one. And now HP is, again, ignoring my problems and my case manager is even going so far as to lie about not being able to contact me.

Edit: Just wanted to add that I truly regret not taking the refund I was legally entitled to after the first situation with my dv5030us.

Let this be a lesson to all those dealing with HP's awful support..

if you are to the point where you are legally entitled to a refund (check the laws in your state, California basically guarantees this), then DO it and buy from another manufacturer.

 

Man, sorry to hear about all the bad luck you've had w/HP. One possibility is that the RAM on your dv6345us was bad. I've heard that bad RAM will cause a computer to crash left and right. Either way, it sounds like HP really needs to get its act together in tech support (and with build quality; though that is more hit-or-miss)

Hope all gets better with the support.

 

Most of the time if the ram is bad the laptop wont even start up

 

If only...

There are varying degrees of 'bad.' I've worked with enough server hardware to testify to that. In this context, bad would mean flakey.

 

whoa...patronizing HP? that's weird, he's just talking about his experience with the company. Next time you attack the victim, everyone will know that you work for HP because it's no secret now.

 

pa·tron·ize (pā'trə-nīz', păt'rə-)
1. To act as a patron to; support or sponsor.
2. To go to as a customer, especially on a regular basis.
3. To treat in a condescending manner.

He means 1 or 2, not 3.

 

Lol, what Orev said. Patronizing a company means to shop there. Patronizing a person means to talk down to them.

 

Sorry to have to welcome you to the 'Lemon' club Sauron! I do hope that your BBB complaint indeed goes forward!

In the meantime, it looks like I'll be researching my 'lemon law' rights ASAP...just in case!

 

Definitely do all the research you can regarding Federal and your state's laws.

If I hadn't done that, I probably would have been shafted by HP the first time. They only agreed to finally replace my system, after it being in their hands for 2 months and being sent out multiple times for more issues than just the motherboard, after I let them know I was fully aware of all of California's consumer protection laws. And that California's consumer protection laws are so strong that ordinary people don't even need attorneys to win against a big company like HP.

I've attempted to call HP three times in the last couple of days. I was forwarded to voice mail every time, two of those times the voice mail was full.

This last time, I called 10 minutes before 4... waited on hold.. then after 4PM was given the message they were closed for the day. nice.

 

Wow a new case manager actually called me today! I'll have to call them back here in a minute.

Whats not surprising, however, is that the case manager obviously does NOT speak English as a first language.

 

I just got off the phone with my case manager. They're going to replace the motherboard and the plastic on the LCD screen that got all scratched up when it went in for the DVD drive repair.

This is now 2 HP systems that have required motherboard repairs. All either system has ever done is sit on a desk! I'm too afraid they're too fragile to use as portable systems.

On the other hand, my MacBook has taken abuse day in and day out and it still looks, works, and acts like it did the day I pulled it out of the box back in March.

Sigh

I do have to say one thing though. These forums look and work great here on my iPhone

 

man that should be awful... feel real sorry for you... my experience with hp on the contrary was always good.. in fact my ze5170 pavillion that I bought in 2002 is still working in full condition after all these years, not a single repair, i keep it on all the time even forgetting to off it while going to sleep many a time and I spent countless hours of work from home office time on it, in that way it helped me grow professionally these 5 years.. that is one of the reasons why I went to hp again for a 9500t and I am more than happy with what I got...

 

wait, so what happens if you file a complaint to the bbb?

 

Consider yourself very lucky.

In less than 2 years I have had 2 HP systems that have had DVD drives fail and motherboards fail in one way or another.

When I was building my own PCs and picked the components myself, I never had these kinds of problems. The store bought PCs I had never had these kinds of issues. Only when I bought my first HP, which happened to be my first notebook, did these problems start.

As I said before, I only bought the first HP system because the MacBook was not available yet. I have regretted that decision every day for the last year and a half.

It doesn't matter if HP sends me a gold plated dv9500t "fully loaded". They've lost me, my family, my friends, and every single person I can possibly sway as a customer.

The fact that HP has sold me 2 lemons and has jerked me around with both, treated me poorly, and made me spend hours on the phone with outsourced tech support and people in the US who are not native English speakers has just ruined it all for me. I will never purchase a single HP product again, not even photo or printer paper. My HP printers will run dry and I will buy new ones from another manufacturer instead of buying ink for them.

Any computer I own that I do not build myself will be manufactured by Apple. My MacBook has taken 100x the abuse that these two HP systems had.. well, honestly, both my previous HP and this one have done nothing but sit on a desk because I was afraid to use them because of how fragile they are! My MacBook has been used as a portable system day in and day out. It's been just as rock solid as the best desktops I built with my two hands.

I've told HP I will push for a replacement through all means available to me. The BBB, California's consumer protection agencies, and of course, California's consumer protection laws. HP has sold me two lemons, treated me poorly, and cosmetically damaged both systems when they were out for repairs.

I don't care if its a "like new" refurbished system. As long as its truly equivalent to my dv5030us (which means no better, but no less than a GeForce Go 6150 or ATI Xpress 200M with dedicated memory, not the POS GMA 950 I have now), has no dead pixels, like new casing, new hard drive, battery, and DVD drive that is not manufactured by TSSTCorp and Windows XP (sorry, but Vista is freakin awful.. I didn't like it when I was testing it and I even switched back from Vista to XP on my MacBook), I'll be somewhat happy.

 

And the bolded statement is exactly when HP won't be inclined to help you out...at all. 'Cause why spend more $$$ on a lost customer? You don't...business rule #1.

Now, I am no problem with you saying that...and I'd agree in your situation any day. But don't tell HP that.

 

Well, I haven't told them that

But even if I did and they refused to help me because of it...

I know the courts in California would force them to do otherwise. I am willing to take it that far and hope it doesn't have to come to that. But I've researched all the consumer protection laws here and I know they are all on my side.

On another note, the system has gotten to the point where it is completely unusable.

Its funny how I am once again typing a complaint about HP on my MacBook that I had to get because an HP system failed.

 

Listen we should do something about this
may be we can arrange appointment (even online) or even hire a lawyer
coz I've been suffering from issues from this company for more then 10 montes and i've decided to do something about this ' please people don't give up.

 

sorry to hear man, hp has had my notebook for over a month. They have promised shipping dates... but up until now, i have not received it back yet. :/

 

I have had some horror stories in terms of notebooks from HP. My 1st notebook was a zd7000 that had the infamous GeForce 5700GO video card that i purchased summer 2005. The one that would melt every 2 months -_-. I sent that notebook in a total of 6 times in a yr and a half time span, with 4 of the times being GPU issues. HP replaced that notebook with a ZD8000, with the x600 vid card in March 2006 after the zd7k motherboard was out of stock for a month and a half (mid Jan~end Feb). They were kind enough to upgrade and give me the ADP warranty. Now fast foward to July this yr, the zd8k that i got was sent in 4 times, with 2 being graphic issues. I complained and they just recently sent me a new dv9500t. I am hoping the issues with the previous ones were mainly due to the prescott processor, but as much as you may have issues with HP, i doubt Dell or Gateway would offer 2 replacement computers, each one significantly better than the previous in spec for no charge. That I have to give HP the credit, it takes a little effort to get them to acknowledge errors, but they do take care of you.

 

not true at all.


The very first thing I do with new ram (or a machine with random crashes) is to run Memtest86 and get a clean bill of health on the memory system.

That's where you should start first.

 

I agree. In fact, it's very possible, even common, that you could have bad RAM and your system will boot just fine. And you'll blame Windows for being sucky because it crashes so much.

Check out the memtest guide in my sig.

 

I hope it will not going to happen with Compaq but what is the difference between in store warranty and HP warranty? I find in store warranty is easier than HP warranty when dealing with defective products.

 

I just gave hp a call and was told that my esd is on 10/23. I sent my notebook to them in JULY, due to an error in their bios. I've been given so many estimated ship dates it's not even funny anymore...

 

joystik, ask to be elevated to a case manager.
India Tech support wont be able to help you, they'll jsut keep pushing back the ESD. If they wont give you a case manager, demand to speak with a supervisor and say the service is not acceptable.

 

Hi All,
I am also sick and tired of HP and planning to file a BBB complaint against HP in Texas. I bought an HP Pavillion dv6200 laptop last year for a premium price from HP website. I somehow got tricked into buying a Vista machine which has no XP support or drivers. I bought the laptop primarily for my PhD homeworks and research.

The laptop worked fine for few weeks, but as soon as my usage increased I started seeing random crashes with random messages like "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL", of "BAD_SYS_CONFIG", etc etc. Once the crashes start the laptop goes into cycles of reboots and starts doing launch-up repair for like forever. The laptop also had a heating issue. After dealing with the outsourced support to India and doing stupid things like re-installing drivers and doing numerous recoveries, I finally managed to send my laptop for factory repair after a month or so of pain. I myself being from India, know that HP has outsourced its support to a low quality call center managed by Sutherland where employees are paid all less as $200 per month and are not at all trained in computers! HP cheats and sucks big time there and these people claim that they are true HP employees, a lie!

Anyways, they replaced the motherboard, speakers, heatsink fan and keyboard and sent the computer back. After that, I didn't install any extra software and kept the laptop for observation by only engaging in surfing and watching youtube videos. The computer worked ok for a while and the problems re-occured in couple of weeks. All this time I had to work on my university computer as this laptop was barely of any utility and didnt have the luxury of having time to watch when and how the laptop crashes.

The crashes are so random in nature that they are hard to reproduce whenever the laptop is sent to HP. They come after 2-4 hours of use and then appear in streaks. Eventually the laptop was sent again after doing 2-3 recoveries (painful job). The laptop was returned back from HP saying that the computer boots fine and they couldn't replicate the problem. I was like I complained about crashes and not about no being able to boot it. The HP technicians in US seem to be absolutely dumb, worse than those ignorant call center workers in India.

Meanwhile, I was coaxed to buy another year of service plan to be able to get my problems fixed (worth $100). Now after 10 months of playing this hide and seek game with HP, I was referred to the Quality case manager in US (which also I doubt). He plainly refused to do a replacement and wants me to send this computer again for repairs. He refuses to commit on what would HP do if the problems persist after a third repair attempt. This is the third and last time I am sending the laptop, and after this I will file a BBB complaint.

Its been like 10 months and the laptop has been totally unusable for any serious work. I can only surf web on an ever slow Vista and wait till the computer crashes next time. I have forwarded this mail to everyone in my university and companies I have worked so that no one ever buys HP again and it has worked too by benefiting Dell through large POs.

 

The way you figure this out is by running burn tests on the system that stress each part. Download "Sisoft Sandra" and run their burn in tests. It will test the cpu, graphics, memory, etc... and if there's a problem with them, it might cause the system to crash. The point is to know which test was running during the crash. You can skip the hard disk test though, as that needs a blank disk.

You can also try to test your memory by using memtest86 (see the guide in my sig).

Other possibilities are some software that you might have which is not compatible with Vista. Have you installed any tools or utilities other than stuff like Office? Also, have you performed a system restore? That will delete your data, but it will also give you a clean system. Also try to run spyware and antivirus scanners.

Yeah, it's a pain, but the goal is to get your system working so you can use it.

 

Looks like I have a "lemon" too and will be also filing with BBB.

See:
HP repair "Good/Bad/Ugly" just got very UGLY!!!
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=213610

 

Wow this is shocking to here. I'm strongly looking into the HP Pavilion dv6700t as my first laptop. I am no computer idiot, and I have read some very nice reviews of the system. I plan to do a clean install of Vista home premium and upgrade my ram myself later so I can go ahead and buy the laptop at a lower price.

What really sold me is my HP desktop I had to buy for my job. I had the intentions of using a really old Desktop PC to work my online job, but it finally crapped out and I HAD to go out and buy a pre-built system. I had ABSOLUTELY NO problems with it. I only had to downgrade to Windows XP because the software I had to use wasn't entire Vista compatible yet. Since I clean installed XP, I've upgraded my Ram, video card, processor, and network card (gotta love gigabit ethernet on an OC-12 connection). I've not had a single problem with my Desktop at all except for the occasional virus because of my own carelessness with untrustable websites.

So it is really shocking to here about the problems people have had with their HP laptops. It sounds to me that as long I keep it in good condition and never send it in for repairs, I should be safe.

PS - BBB complaints honest-to-god do little to no good unless you have an exceptionally extreme complaint. BBB will probably shrug it off as something like an annoyed/frustrated/impatient customer issue. BBB really doesn't do much good, and I'd honestly like to file a BBB complaint about the BBB, too bad they aren't a business.

 

The fact is that most people don't run into these issues, but there will always be a percentage of people who get a bad machine, and of those people, some complain loudly. Also, not everyone at HP is the best at their job, so it's their fault too.

The BBB is a good resource for consumers, but only if they look at it and make decisions based on their reports. Since HP is such a huge company with so many sales, the number of complaints would have to be astronomical for them to really do something about it. But as always, vote with your $$$ and if you don't like the way a company treats you, get your money back or don't buy from them again.