Question for you Best Buy Warranty Guru's... Should I have my dv6000 replaced?????

Alright... So my sister and I bought identical HP dv6000 Special Edition laptops in the middle of december, 2006 (so they are 1 year, 1 month old). Everything done to these things has been identical! They both have (I think) its called the "PSP" plan which is 3 years, and covers everything, with the added accidental damage protection (was like...300 bucks per laptop). I beleive this starts the day you buy it, so technically there are only 2 years left (I think thats what they said...)

Anyway... My laptop has been plagued since new... I am somewhat into computers, where as my sister is mostly just the email/photoshop type stuff. I do a little bit of custom stuff, some gaming and etc. I used to build desktops, but have never even opened up a laptop.

Originally I noticed how much slower overall my laptop was. These are rated at I beleive 2.00 gigs (or 1.89...AMD's) but mine felt like it ran at about 700mhz! I have never really been able to multi task as it always bogs, where as my sisters performs like a 2 ghz machine with a gig of ram should. I also get the blue screen of death quite often ("starting physical memory dump"). Finally it was taking EONS to boot...and the HD sounded like it had sand in it (very rough sounding). I took it to the geek squad at my local best buy and said FIX IT! He said they had about a 2 week backlog of work (this was only like 2 months after I got it). He said I have two options since he confirmed the HD Needed to be replaced. 1) I could bring it in the next couple of days (doing my own file transfer) and he can swap it out on spot, and I can format/load everything, OR he said it would be a 2 week wait. I opted for him to swap it out, and that SEEMED to take care of the problem...for now.

Speed up to the present and it still bogs quite often, and I get a blue screen of death once per every 5 or so hours of use. I also seem to have a line down my lcd screen where the pixels stick (stay a rainbow type color, one pixel wide all the way down the screen) and it only goes away if I push on the back of the LCD.

SOOO on to the real part of my thread... Has anyone actually gotten their laptop replaced with the warranty? I was speaking with a pretty cool best buy employee about it, and he said you can pretty much do ANYTHING to it (run it over...spill a pop on it...etc) and it will be replaced, ONLY if they dont know about it. He said one time a guy got pissed they wouldnt replace it and threw it on the ground and said its now totally broken- REPLACE IT! and they said they voided the warranty on the spot...lol

Anyway... Some have said you have to have it fixed 3 times for the same issue to get a new laptop. Are there any loopholes in getting them to either replace mine, or PREFERABLY credit me for the purchase price (which was like...1100 or so) so I can put that toward a nicer, better laptop?

Any info is much appreciated!
Thanks!
Mike

 

did you get accidental damage protection? if you did, you can accidently spill water all over your keyboard and they will replace it. look at your warranty material, 300 for a 3 year warranty sounds like the ADP plan.

 

ir the guy threw it down in front of best buy employee it is not an accident , that is willful destruction , not covered . now dropping it while getting into your car is an accident . the other guy was not to bright

 

Ya lol the best buy guy was laughing when he told me the story about the other guy...cuz they just instantly voided the warranty!

Yes im 99.9% sure we have the accidental damage protection on it, as they clearly stated if it "gets run over by a car" you bring in whats left (lol) and they will make it good (assuming if the damage is high enough they give you a new one).

Does anyone know, if this tragically happens (might not need to be forced the way this thing has been acting so far...) do they straight hand you a dv6000, or would I get a credit toward another laptop? I would like to have the credit so I can add a few hundred and getting something a little bit nicer (dont know if Ill go with HP after this or not... hasnt served me too well )

 

Ok check this out. I'm just going to tell you from what I have experienced. I used to work a Bestbuy. I bought a laptop for my girl around the same time you did. Since I was an employee I received the 300 dollar three year plan half off. So I paid 150. This did not include accidental damage insurance. I'm not sure but I don't even remember that being an option. The thing where you said about it being repaired three times. Well as far as I know that is a florida lemon law. It means that if you come to have something repaired for the 4th time under warranty it will get replaced. I'm not sure if this applies to other states. Be careful what you say to the GeekSquad people cause they do document your visits. Don't trust them when they say you have some coverage. Remember they work at Bestbuy for a reason and not cause they have B.S. in Comp. Science ( I worked there when I was in high school). If they are giving you the run around with returning it or anything like that call the customer service hotline. They were giving me the run around when I had to send the laptop in for repairs, so I called the number. Some Manager called the Store manager of that store and B-ed him out. Well I was treated like royalty the next time I went it.

 

If you completely break your laptop, Geek Squad still has to send it off to the repair center to get confirmation that a repair would cost more than a replacement. Then you either be given a laptop with similar specifications, or credit towards a new laptop of your choice. That decision is made by either the supervisor or manager.

 

why the fark would you even wanna deal with geeksquad? it's like hp's cs but in person. just back up your files like you should, and then accidentally spill water all over your keyboard. call CS. either option u mentioned is still better than what you're dealing with now.

 

Well im going to look further into my warranty... hopefully it does have the replacement option like they talked about. Its just ridiculous that if you have a problem, it takes 100 phone calls, hours of wasted time talking to people who dont know what your talking about, and then 4 weeks while you wait for someone to switch parts out on your laptop that never needed replaced in the first place!

Thanks for the replies thus far!