I'm done with HP and I'm done with laptops too. :-(

It is with great sadness that I announce I have had it with HP and laptops in general.

I bought a shiny new HP HDX9494 (Dragon) back in October. I loved it. It worked excellent until Christmas eve, when I accidentally knocked over my wine glass and dumped a couple ounces of red wine on the keyboard.

My Dragon still ran, but some of the keys didn't work and some of them "printed" out the wrong characters.

Since then, I obtained an HDX hardware manual and removed the keyboard and attempted many times to flush it with water and finally vinegar. No dice. Some of the characters work, some don't.

Today I went to the extreme of disassembling the keyboard in an effort to see if there was anything further that I could do. The electrical part of the keyboard is a flexible "rubberized" circuit board with silicone nipples on it. When you push on the key, it bottoms the nipple on itself, thus completing the circuit and emitting the character.

The nipples have breathing holes in them. I washed the membrane by itself with water and water squirted out of them. Obviously the wine has gotten into some of the keys and damaged the contacts or something.

Luckily the rest of the machine was unharmed and has been in use since shortly after the wine spill. I am typing this with it right now using a USB keyboard.

So today I set about finding a replacement keyboard. Someone pointed out that I could buy an exact replacement keyboard for only $48 for an Asian supplier. Yep, but they want $40 to ship it to me. $88 total. That was the best price I could find anywhere except...

I found that HP will sell parts directly to customers. http://h20141.www2.hp.com/hpparts/

Lo and behold HP lists a keyboard for my computer as in stock for $65. Great, my problem is solved. So I started to order one up only to find that they won't ship to Canada. (I live in Canada.) So then I called them to discuss the situation and the operator had absolutely no solutions for me. She was "sorry" but there was nothing she could do for me.

At this point I am pretty heartbroken. I've spent a ton of time mucking around with this keyboard issue. At this point I hope its only a keyboard and not something more serious. HP couldn't give a da*n about my problem. It is way too much work for them to ship me a keyboard Internationally or even to get one in Canada. I'll order the Asian keyboard tomorrow.

Sure, I shouldn't have had wine around my computer. But who doesn't occasionally have a beverage at their desk ? And it is a laptop and they generally get used in various living situations which include food and drink.

One bad experience should turn me off of HP or laptops though ? You are right. Let me tell you a little story about my zd7280...

Back in the fall of 2005, I found myself needing to work from several locations. So, after some research, I bought myself the highest end "desktop replacement" computer I could find, an HP ZD7280.

Me and ZD7280 got along fine for just about 18 months, when one day it quit. It wouldn't boot. So I called up HP and they told me the warranty had expired. I did a bit of Googling and found out that these laptops were prone to overheating and were on the verge of being subject to a class action lawsuit.

I called back HP and shared this bit of information. Apparently mine had lasted much longer than the norm ( 18 months !) but they would never the less have a look at it.

So I sent it in. 3 weeks later I get it back. It works for 2 weeks and quits again. This happens 5 more times in the next year.

Finally I tell HP that my patience has run out and they need to replace it with something. (There is more to the story, like the screen got damaged and it got sent to the wrong address a couple times, but lets leave that out for now...)

HP hees and haws and tells me the laptop that I spent $2500 on 2.5 years ago (having only used it for 18 months) is now worthless. After some bargaining, they offer me a new HP dv5-1133. This works for me because my girlfriend needs a new laptop and she likes that model so I accept it. Except that one night I hook it up to our 52" LCD TV and find out that it will only output graphics at 1280x960. It turns out they didn't give me a dv5-1133 which has an nVidia graphics card. They sent me a dv5-1125 which has a built in Intel graphics card. At this point I haven't resolved this issue yet.

At this point I am pretty heartbroken. I've spent a ton of time mucking around with the keyboard issue. At this point I hope its only a keyboard and not something more serious. HP couldn't give a da*n about my problem. It is way too much work for them to ship me a keyboard Internationally or even to get one in Canada. I'll order the Asian keyboard tomorrow.

And I'm probably going to have to live with the dv5 not being able to drive a higher resolution external device.

The conclusions I draw from all this are:

a) HP has terrible customer service. They just don't get it that someone has their life on their laptop and they need it to work day in and day out. It can't suddenly quit one day and leave the owner laptop-less or even worse, with an un-trustable laptop.

b) Laptops are fragile. They are built to be as light and small as possible and in doing so, the manufacturer makes many compromises in heatsinks, keyboards, drives, etc. This affects their robustness and their useful lifetime.

c) Laptops use highly specialized parts. They use special keyboards, graphics cards, heat sinks, motherboards, batteries and power supplies. When something fails, don't expect to find parts easily or quickly.

d) When one component of a laptop fails, generally the whole thing becomes unusable.

Sometimes you get lucky and can make it work or minimize the impact on your life, but otherwise you are computerless until the issue is resolved. And if you are relying on the manufacturer for warranty, you can count on having to send it far away and it being gone for a while.

e) When something happens to your laptop, it consumes a tremendous amount of your time and energy. Calling the manufacturer, Googling the Internet, testing things, removing data, backing up data, restoring data, shipping it, receiving it, reinstalling things, getting a back up computer, etc.

From these points, I have arrived at the conclusion that laptops are not suitable for me. I still need a mobile office and I'll miss not being able to have a computer on my lap, but I cannot and will not rely on a laptop for my every day computing needs.

I think I am going to set up some sort of a small form factor shuttle PC and see how that works.

But I am not going to do this laptop thing anymore. I know that I might replace the keyboard on my Dragon and it might work fine for a year, but when it breaks I'll be right back being computerless and at the whim of HP.

If I set up a shuttle and the motherboard blows or the power supply quits or I drown it with another glass of wine, replacement parts are cheap and plentiful and I'll be back in business with a simple visit to the local computer store.

I hope this helps someone.

 

stop drinking wine dude...

 

I personally just think that HP screws over Canada in general

but sorry to hear about your experiences, you should consider another laptop from a different supplier

 

i am very surprised you spent 2.5k on an hp laptop

but that aside, don't let this keep you away from laptops, i have to say that any of the main laptop providers such as dell, asus, apple, sony, lenovo, all have better build quality than hp and none of these will die on you

my friend also has an hp, 2.5 years in and now it's dead

my dell keyboard had a problem, i told dell, they sent me one in a week

...you were just unlucky this time

 

well.....if you dont need a laptop, WHY buy one?????

its more expensive, less expandable, and not as powerful as a desktop or mini desktop for the same price!!

i have no idea why this is in this forum, its more of a rant than anything else.

 

Try going for a business class laptop, with a spill resistant keyboard. Lenovo ThinkPads and HP Compaq/EliteBooks come to mind (they have better CS).

 

that why they have accidental damage plan for sell =\
yep, remember buy a protection plan at least with laptop.

and if you start with sager @ xoticpc.com, i think you will gain more confidence with laptop.
not every retail/wholeseller behave like hp or dell.

sad story, sorry to hear that dude, and make your laptop stay away from wine next time =\

 

In all fairness, washing it with water was probably a bad idea, and vinegar even worse.

For future reference, surgical spirits (read: metho, for cleaning it amounts to the same thing) is your best bet, and there's a small chance that if you give it a shot now you may (very small chance) be able to save the keyboard you have.

I get what you mean about it being a pain to replace laptop parts - I just tried repairing my mate's vermouth-and-coke covered laptop. Got it going just fine, but the tracks leading to the charging circuit were all messed up - they'd been corroded a little before and the drink finally killed it.

That said, I'd hope you wouldn't give up on laptops altogether (can't say the same for HP lol), as they have some great advantages over desktops.

 

sorry to hear about that

however, i have a different experience with my HDX and HP customer service. in sum, i am very happy with the HP customer service where i am from

here is what happened: the HDX is not sold in my country nor was this ever released here. about 2 weeks before my 1 year global warranty expired, my lcd screen just conked out. i brought this to the service center and they diagnosed the problem right there and and then in my full view. they connected the HDX to an external monitor and it worked okay. thus, the problem was only the lcd screen and they noted it down. i was apprehensive on the parts availability as the unit, like i said above, was not sold in my country. thankfully, the HP service center guy said that this is not a problem and they will order the part but may take some time. i said okay and that i was willing to wait. what else could i do anyway?

they said that it may take 3 months but after 2 weeks, i followed them up and said that the HDX was okay already. i guess i just preempted their call to me. anyway, i immediately proceeded to the service center and was glad to see my dragon with an lcd screen all wrapped up in plastic. after booting it up and running some checks, i deemed my HDX okay and brought it home. it still works fine until now

and the best part of all, i did not pay anything. everything was FREE even the diagnostic fee. my only expense was probably the gasoline i spent going to and from the service center

 

man, that is a real terrible call you had. But there ARE reliable companies out there besides HP,,,,, Asus and Sony comes to mind. But good luck figuring the mess out

D3158

 

Let me know if I've missed any relevant points, you by your own actions broke your laptop. HP, which was under no obligation to do so, sent you a new laptop, even though the damage was not covered by the warranty because you failed to purchase accidental coverage even though it was offered at the time of purchase. You're still mad at them? Don't get that one. If you need it to work, buy a better warranty and have a backup.

 

Should you really be mad at HP? Did they break your laptop?

Was it that difficult to have smn from the States buy the keyboard and send it to you to Canada?

Do not blame them for your stupidity!!!

 

There are other places to get the keyboard from. I only gave you one source which I found to be reliable and generally has more parts available than others.

Nevermind that HP doesn't sell parts to Canada, they don't sell the entire range of parts on any model, anywhere. There are parts that they won't sell to US customers either. That's why I always source third party.

Just so you can better judge the price, here's another company that sells the keyboard:

For $99

http://www.excelcomputerinc.com/htm... HDX9000T, HDX9100, HDX9200, HDX9300, HDX9400)

Another for $65:

http://www.sparepartswarehouse.com/HP,Laptop,Part,448159001.aspx?r=fr&cat=140868

 

That was the price point for a 17" desktop replacement in 2005; I had a ZD7000 that I paid over $2K for in Dec 2004. When HP replaced the ZD for me with a 'comparable' DV9700, I was amazed the retail for the unit was less than $1K.

 

Spare parts warehouse uses some sort of 3rd party to handle "international" sales. It doesn't look very credible.

I'm not sure about excel. I'll look into them further.

 

I spilled the wine. I made that clear. My first laptop quit through no fault of mine. 5x !

That shouldn't be necessary ! Sheesh, how about a little customer service. They sell the laptop in Canada, how about selling parts for it too !

:raises eyebrows: People don't consider me stupid. Your comment is out of line. I'm sure one day we will all spill a drink on a computer.

 

I didn't say my HDX was defective. I am not expecting HP to fix my HDX, only sell me a keyboard. Is that too much to ask ?

As far as accidental warranties:

a) the cost of the parts/fixing hasn't been the issue with my zd7280 or my Dragon. Its the time and energy. Do any of you work for a living ? I'm a busy man.

b) laptops are fragile. I used a plain old $15 keyboard on a CNC machine a while back. It got drenched with coolant. Hot metal chips landed on it, so hot they melted into the plastic. That keyboard kept on chugging. We finally replaced it with a new one and a plastic cover when chips got under the keys and they couldn't be pressed right or they stuck. Compare that to the keyboard that gets killed by a small amount of wine.

 

I do need a laptop. I'm the prime candidate for one if there was ever one. But laptops aren't reliable, parts are hard to get, they take forever to fix and customer service is terrible. Thus I'll be moving to some sort of mobile computing platform.

 

Update: I called HP Canada again, this time through the customer support line rather than the spare parts line.

HP Canada will NOT sell me a keyboard for my laptop. I am not authorized to work on HP laptops. The only way they will help me with my laptop is if I send it in to them.

I did this about half a dozen times with my zd7280. I saw how this works. The turn around is about 2 weeks... once they get my laptop in, they will determine that the keyboard is bad and then they will order one from the US. Meanwhile I sit without a computer AGAIN. And we take the chance that it gets damaged in shipping or when they work on it.

Did I mention that one time my zd7280 came back with a damaged LCD ? So the next time it quit, I asked them to replace the LCD. They did. With a 1440x960 model. It originally came with a 1680x1050. I then had to spend about 2 hours with tech support explaining to them that it wasn't a driver issue, that HP had installed the wrong replacement screen.

Once we got that squared away, they told me they couldn't get an 1680x1050 LCDs in Canada and thus I would have to put up with a 1440x960 model.

I am not making this up.

This whole situation just sucks. HP Canada has absolutely no idea about good customer service. If they cared about me, they would contact the US parts people and have them ship me a keyboard. I'll pay for it. I'll put it in. I'll use my HDX with the USB keyboard in the meantime. It doesn't have to be shipped anywhere. But no, that is not how HP does things.

 

He didnt break the laptop it died because it kept over heating. They sent him a new laptop because they knew it was their fault. There is no reason you should have to buy a warrenty to have a working pc for more than 2 years. If they cant produce a proper cooling system then they should have to replace every fried laptop that left there factory. He has every right to be mad considering he spent 2.5 k on a defective laptop and got a pos integrated card replacement. HP tried to screw me with my dv2500 gpu fried after 1 year told me they wanted 400 to fix it because it was out of warrenty. There is no reason a gpu after burn in should die like that. Fought them and got it fixed for free. They know about the defective nvidia cards and refuse to offer a replacement without a fight, even thought they fixed my pc for free im never dealing with them agian after they tried to screw me like that. The hdx is a diffrent story thats his fault but thats not what your talking about.

 

Thanks j-dogg.

I wonder if someone makes a case that would allow me to mount a 20 or 24" LCD and a motherboard in it like an iMac. It wouldn't be portable like a laptop, but it would be portable enough for me.

 

Sorry to hear about the problems , but why not get a business class laptop , for half that I bought an 8510-w with 3 year in house repair warranty and 3 year accidental damage protection . The build quality is light years ahead of the consumer units and it performs as well or better . I paid $1600.0 with full 3 year ADP in house repairs , been 2 years and no troubles yet on the 2 I have .

 

I can understand that you're feeling dissappointed but indeed, if you don't have time to send the lappy in you should have gotten a better service. It's not like you didn't know the guarantees you got was it? Spilling drinks and getting mad at HP for not doing more than they told you they we're going to do seems a bit off....though i would be frustrated at first too, why not just buy a keyboard off ebay and put it in yourself? Would've been the fastest way i think

 

"why not just buy a keyboard off ebay and put it in yourself?"

Because there aren't any available on eBay. Go back and read what I said about PARTS BEING HARD TO FIND.

Why won't HP sell me a keyboard ?

I ordered a keyboard from Asia this morning.

 

My point being HP was not at fault in this situation. They went way beyond what they were obligated to do under the terms of the warranty. I don't understand why you're mad at them. If you need this to work you should buy the appropriate warranty. In a perfect world things would last forever, but that's not how it goes.

 

a) the cost of the parts/fixing hasn't been the issue with my zd7280 or my Dragon. Its the time and energy. Do any of you work for a living ? I'm a busy man."
If that is the case why did you buy a comsumer grade laptop ? i would never do that , not if I needed my comp for work . Check out an elitebook or Dell business laptop , they are made to last in a work enviroment and are warrantied likewise . Usually with NDD onsite repairs . You are buying the wrong tool for the job .

 

That fact that it wasn't just his ZD7280 that had the problem makes it entirely Hp's fault. Hp didn't go beyond what they were obligated to do because he sent that laptop in five times. What's the difference if he paid hp to fix the problem or the fixed it because they knew they were wrong, does that mean they do any less of a job fixing his laptop.Whether he was under warranty or not they didn't fix the problem five times. I'm pretty sure that falls under the the lemon law or the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act, he was entitled to a new laptop. He really has no reason to be mad at Hp about the hdx problem but we're not talking about that.

 

Didn't get the accidental damage protection plan? I would recommend the Panasonic Toughbook for more robust computing. Might be kind of expensive but it can tough out liquid spills and what nots. Why use vinegar? Isn't that too acidic for metals? Since wine is already acidic wouldn't diluted baking soda better to neutralize it?

 

The first time it broke it was no longer under warranty. I don't know how that obligates HP to fix it.

 

Before this thread gets too heated (no pun intended)

Elmerfud, you spilled a drink on your laptop, I think a lot of us have been there. It's an accident, it happens, and you deal with it when it does.

If you rely heavily on any computer, laptop or desktop, you have to accept and understand that they can break for any number of reasons, and plan accordingly. Laptops are inherently more difficult to engineer good layouts for, but if you research various models you should be able to find plenty of tried and tested manufacturers and models that are very reliable.

If your data is valuable, you image your hard drive. If your laptop being broken will make your life a living hell, there are a few things you can do to minimise risk:

- Buy a sturdy model (eg toughbook).
- Don't go for models that emphasise small size/portability if you don't need to. They cost more for the performance you get, and there is a greater chance of the cooling systems being insufficient, given that every spare bit of space is used.
- Go for models that have been out in the market for a while so that you can research them and see whether users have had any problems with reliability, heat etc.
- If you think it's a worthwhile investment, get accidental coverage and/or an extended warranty. It's a bit of a wank IMO, but if you want extra security, it's an option.
Lastly, and this is to everyone, don't clean the insides of your computer unless you know what you're doing. Using vinegar, water, or (god forbid) any dissolved solution will cause damage and/or leave residues.

Use methylated spirits or surgical spirits (both are basically ethanol). They're polar liquids (and won't eat plastics), and they evaporate at room temperature leaving effectively zero residue.

If you spill something on your computer:

Remove the battery before doing anything, as a precaution. You may want to use compressed air to blow away as much crap as you can. Use cutips (cotton buds) and small (>10mm wide) paintbrushes to clean affected parts, keeping away from anything that hasn't been spilled on. Leave it until all the wetness has evaporated, then put everything back together.

I hope some of this has managed to help someone lol...

 

If other people had the same problem with that laptop it was obviously a defective model, a warranty has to change when the laptop wasn't made correctly in the first place.

 

Where does it say that?

 

You make a business, send some defective products out and when people come back to you with it, say to bad, see how long your in business. Hp knows that if they don't take these laptops back for free there going to get taken to court. When it comes down to it the case managers know every defect and when you finally get to a hp case manager they have no problem giving you repairs on your out of warranty laptop because they know its their fault. No matter what i say your going to argue no they don't or where does it say that so I'm done, just please don't get a job as a Hp quality case manager, because everybody with the defective Nvidia 8400 dv2500 will be screwed.

 

Specifically you're right. And by specific, it has to be a RECALL or acknowledged defect affecting > 10% in order to address out of warranty issues for free. Otherwise, unless you're savvy, convincing, and well... charming, you really don't stand all that great of a chance of getting out of warranty service for free.