Sick of HP

So I'm not a tech freak when it comes to computers. But I have a reasonable amount of knowledge about this stuff - more than the average person.

I spent so much of my hard earned (high school) earnings into my dv9000t. I thought it was supposed to be one of the best notebooks, especially for it's price. I upgraded almost everything on it.

It would be a lie to say that all I have with this laptop is problems. I can connect to the internet just fine (with an ethernet cable) and do all the normal stuff (word processing, listening to music, watching movies, etc.) However, this computer still fails to satisfy me.

My quickplay just sucks. Whenever I booted my computer with the quickplay button, it would load up windows and then load up quickplay. I thought the whole purpose of it was to bypass windows and load using a linux based system. I understand this experience may be unique to vista users. It still doesn't make the situation better. I also could not update my quickplay (to 3.x). I noticed a friend had an updated version and try as did, I could not update through quickplay. So I went to HP's site and downloaded the update manually. After attempting to install it, I now am left with a useless button altogether. I can't install quickplay, and it now longer exists on my computer.

The overall build of the case pisses me off too. Often it makes this annoying rattling sound (the case vibrating against something inside) when I type. Not the biggest of deals, but it shouldn't be there.

My webcam stopped working. I can't update my virus definitions for zonealarm (I don't know if this is because of vista, or what...probably not hp's fault, but still yet another problem that I've had on this computer).

I know that some of my anger should be directed towards vista. I hate it right now. I know it's the future, but it's got so many problems right now. As vista is not the subject of this thread, I shall leave that particular topic out of this discussion.

My network card seems to be having problems too. I can't connect wirelessly to the internet. It's not a firewall or software problem. It must be something with the hardware. Which is HP's fault.

I can probably continue and complain about other stuff that I don't like about this laptop, but what this whole rant boils down to is this:
I paid a lot of money. I didn't get what I paid for. I probably would have been better off with a Dell or Toshiba, but it's too late for that. I can't get rid of this one, so I'm going to have to use it for the next four years. I plan on resetting everything to the basics with the hp partition on my hard drive. I'll have to transfer and retransfer everything I have on here right now, but I just can't stand the condition my computer is in right now. Hopefully that will fix some of my problems. I'm sure it won't fix them all.

Hopefully somebody reads this and doesn't make the same mistake I made.

 

My 9000 is an absolute dream and would by another? I just dont understand some of these problems you guys have?? what do you do reformat it as soon as you get it? Mine has been perfect

 

a lot of these complaints are software-related, which may or may not be HP's fault. Like the quickplay for example, why upgrade if the old version works perfectly? The buttons don't work? Did you install the software for quickplay buttons specifically? We don't know how knowledgeable a computer user you are, although you claim to be above average, but a lot of these complaints can be solved with little to no efforts.

 

imo...wipe and toss XP on...make sure all drivers are good, button / webcam software installed etc.

then see ! :O

 

Zonealarm.. I hate that program and it's a pain to delete even in XP! Another program is IOLO's System Mechanic.. it's a total rip-off and they don't answer their e-mails. Web cam on Vista is a little tricky, it's not the same as in XP which you can have it instantly on. Quickplay is weird. I find that it's an instant on button, even just brushing against the icons will activate it and will load Windows anyways.

 

yeah, vista sucks, just get the XP

 

Did you install the version of ZoneAlarm for Vista or the one for XP? They are different.

 

yeah, i got rid of my 6500t. I've had it for four days. Vista turned me off so much that I'm getting an effing macbook.

a. mac.

stupid vista.

 

I have a dv9000 and I havn't had a single problem with it. Right before I bought my current laptop I had the dv8000 for about 2-3 months (before returning it), that was a horrible laptop.

But then again I am using XP.

 

Wow, sounds like you are having some issues. A lot of people are satisfied with their systems, so maybe there's something we can do here to help you out.

I understand about the quickplay thing. I never used it on XP, and was surprised to see it boot into Vista first. That's just one of those things we'll have to deal with . However, if you keep your laptop in sleep or hibernate mode, Vista will boot up pretty quickly.

As for your wireless network, I also had a problem with that on my dv9000. If it just doesn't work at all, it's probably a hardware problem. You should call HP and they will probably have to replace it.

You are right, you spent a lot of money on this, and you deserve to have something that works the way it's supposed to. Don't "put up" with stuff like a bad wireless card, call HP and have it promptly fixed. That's part of what you paid for. The other stuff, which is mostly vista related, unfortunately we can't call microsoft to make them fix it!

If you're going to do a reinstall, I'd also suggest that doing a clean install, instead of a system restore, might give you a better result. Of course I'm promoting my own guide, but check it out (in my sig).