Thoughts on HP Pavilions

Hey everyone,

I'm considering buying a HP Pavilion dv2700t, and was hoping to get some honest feedback on these notebooks. Are they reliable and durable? I'm hoping to get at least 3 years use out of it. How upgradeable are they?

Also, I've heard mostly horror stories about HP support and customer service. Any experiences that prove otherwise?

Thanks!

 

Yeah, the HP support/customer service is pretty bad. I don't really need that, so it wasn't a big factor in my purchase. If you're looking for excellent customer service, you should go elsewhere. I hear IBM Thinkpads have great durability; not so sure about their customer service. Thinkpads sure are expensive though

 

I bought my dv6000t in Aug 2006 and its still going strong. I've had no problems with it. I bought it wanting 4 years out of it and after the 1.5 yrs I've had it, I'm convinced it will make it.

as for upgrading it, I would say its just as upgradeable as 98% of the laptops out today.You can upgrade the HDD and RAM easily and possibly the processor (but that its more involved) and that's all you can hope for with laptops.

With the customer service, the little interaction I have had with them has been good, called once for a refund (took advantage of the price guarantee), and another time with concerns over a (possibly) faulty battery. You are going to hear horror stories with every company especially on a site like this.

 

Dell's have very good customer service.

 

I just bought my dv6772nr(specs in sig) from officemax for 849...only thing is i wish was that hp had put a better vid card in it....other than that life's great =D

 

Dells (consumer) customer service is HORRIBLE. I like my dv6775us so far. If you have any desire to use windows XP, the dv2700 series will not work properly with XP.

 

Actually, HP does sell a model with XP preinstalled: The Compaq Presario V6700 series. Very similar to the current C700t series, but with the glossy imprint finish, more bells and whistles (though not as many as the pavilion dv6700 series) and, of course, Windows XP.

About the horror stories regarding HP's tech support: You're always going to hear the people complain about Tech support, but you'll rarely ever hear people praise tech support, regardless of the company. The only way to really gauge how good HP's tech support is is to read a survey that compares the tech support of different manufacturers.

I've personally have never had to deal with HP tech support, because we have a help desk on campus.

 

Yeah, but that's the business line, different from the Pavilions, and probably quite a bit more expensive.

 

no it home- home office , not buisness class here it is
http://www.shopping.hp.com/series/c...mpid=in_r329_personalization/browse1/home_SDP

 

ya they have one consumer xp notebook in the states

 

I agree. Its excellent. Too bad their hardware is crap. Their speakers are crap compared to the altec lansing that HP uses and HP's screens are much nicer as well. Yes I know Dell offers higher res screens.. too bad they look like crap.

I don't think HP's customer service is all that bad. But I agree Dells is better. There dialect is generally more understandable on their outsourced service centers. But after trying two times in getting a good one from dell.. I am personally convinced that HP's build quality is better. And I also feel better components are used. especially in screens and speakers!!

I also feel that Dells come with less bloatware then HP's. HP's are fairly loaded with the spy/bloatware. But that you can fix. Bad hardware will always be bad.

 

Whatever you do, stay away from the AMD/Broadcom based machines. Those machines have inherent design issues (even the very new ones) which will result in wireless failures sooner or later and then a motherboard replacement will be required. They are failing in the hundreds if not thousands and HP can't get enough parts to fix the failing machines!

To add insult to injury HP service is not up to scratch if you glance at the angry customers on the HP.com support forums.

 

True that, the AMD machines (dv**00z) and maybe the Intel based dv6000t (not sure about that) have wireless failures after 7-9 months from what I've heard. Check out the third bullet point at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Pavilion_(computer)#Criticisms for more info. None of the newer Intel models (dv*500t or dv*700t) have any problems though.

 

Srunni,

The wireless/motherboard failures are ONLY happening on the AMD/Boardcom based machines. Intel machines are fine. The consensus on the HP Forum appears to be a heat management design defect which allows heat to build up and cause progressive thermal damage throughout the motherboard.

The scarry bit is it seems to be a question of when it will fail and not if. People have reported that notebooks which are less than two months old have failed and required motherboard replacement on HP forums (have a browse through).

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1136440
(Note this thread has over 600 posts and take a long time to load !!)

and here:
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1179013

 

As a first time HP buyer myself, I have to say that I'm pretty happy with it. Their customer service definitely is lacking though, but I've had Dell and they're about the same in terms of customer service. Every place outsources now, so you're going to be dealing with crap regardless. I think Dell has slightly better customer service though. Like, slightly. As far as systems go, it's pretty hot. This is the prettiest computer I've ever owned.

 

Thanks everyone. Guess I'm not so much worried about HPs tech support rather if I'd ever HAVE to use it, being some sort of hardware failure that I'd have to call them for a repair or replacement.

Besides that though, I appreciate everyone's response, and I think I'm a little more comfortable pulling the trigger on one once I find the right deal.

Thanks again.

 

Hey - I have an AMD/Broadcom combo .... my laptop doesn't run hot and the wireless has been amazing at receiving a signal (better than my PS3 and Wii). Does the issue you are all describing affect dv2700 series?

 

Jong81,

The heat management issue affect ALL AMD/Broadcom machine. However, HP must have realised the design defect as it released a critical BIOS update to all its AMD based machines in mid December-07 to make the fan runs constantly.

Having the fan runs constantly may prevent future system failures but who knows. Personally I dislike the fan noise and the shorter battery life. With the old BIOS the fan will only come on intermittently.

In summary, get the latest BIOS but note the usual caveat of a failed BIOS update will render your machine an expensive door stopper.

 

OK, I wasn't sure. I've seen that page before, and I think some people said they had a dv6000t or dv6500t, that's why I said that.

 

if you notice, most of the AMD/Broadcom failures have happened to the lappy's that have been purchased 7months to 1 year ago......me and jong81 still have quite some time to go....and apparently HP is extending warranty up to 24 months and offering free repairs + free shipping.

 

None of the bios upgrades for my model mention anything about the fan - they just mention issues with the latin American and Brazilian keyboard. Take a look:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...&cc=us&dlc=en&product=3646860&os=2093&lang=en

My fan comes on pretty often and this is the coolest-running laptop I've ever had. Could they have fixed the issue in more recent versions?

 

This issue as of now seems to be limited to the older dv2/6/9 series and others which share the same hardware. The dv25/65/95 series shouldn't have this problem but we will have to wait and see if they have redesigned any of the internals for better cooling of the whole system.

 

Thanks miner - you rock my world. Your system is preconfigured too? I noticed with a lot of these companies (Dell, HP), you can only get AMD processors with pre-configured systems in stores like Best Buy or on Amazon. What's with that?

I.E. You can't configure a system with an AMD processor on their websites.

 

HP used to offer all of the AMD based systems along side the Intel based ones. Its only in the last year or so that they stopped offering them except for the dv65/7(00z) and the dv95/7(00z). But yeah, mine is pre-configured. I actually bought a custom built system but returned it as it was defective and got this one cheaper in a store instead.

 

Miner,

I am afraid your statement is incorrect. If you go through the 600+ thread (that I posted) and a significant number of other threads on the HP forums, you will see that very new Dv2000 series and F-series bought on Nov/Dec-07 have suffered the same motherboard failures.

HP is in denial that the newer machines are fixed. They are not according to the evidence posted by the consumers.

As of one week ago, someone in the HP forum posted a note saying HP is developing a new version of the motherboard which will fix all issues.

http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1201536

 

I recently got a dv9560us and I'm delighted with it, havn't had it too long but so far so good. Had a problem playing HD-DVDs on it but after a few driver updates got it sorted. Found their customer care to be quite good on the issue too, even rang me back a couple of days after it was sorted to make sure the whole thing was still going good.

Had a Dell before that which failed on me and had to go through 2 months of hell and headaches trying to get it sorted out, dunno if their service has gotten better in the last 6 months but it sure as hell wasn't up to the task when I needed it.

 

Same thing happened to me with three dell laptops (1520's) and one desktop (XPS 420), wouldn't even give me compensation after spending £60+ on phone calls to their tech support trying to fix their defective systems that they sent me.

I finally decided that it was worth spending an extra £100 on a system that generally at least doesn't have grainy screens.

Oh and my mum just recieved a dell m1330 with an LED screen that flickers when on battery power...

 

Well, this may be just because the issue appears 7 months to 1 year after the laptop is purchased. We will just have to wait to see what happens. Depending on what happens, I may end up selling this laptop and getting a Thinkpad...their build quality is unrivaled (but so is their cost ).

 

OKAY - TAKE A LOOK AT THIS:

DV9205US BIOS update F.3D

PURPOSE: Critical

Fixes

***Updates the fan control algorithm of the system to reduce the likelihood of future system issues.
***Fixes issue where the touchpad scroll function does not work on some notebooks.
***Fixes issue where the battery fails.

NOW, LOOK at the critical BIOS update F.13 for the DV2740SE:

PURPOSE: Critical

Fixes

***Resolves issue where incorrect characters are output when pressing keys on a Latin American keyboard.


Why wouldn't my BIOS version - the only one listed "CRITICAL" not change the fan speed if HP was so concerned about the AMD/Broadcom DV2000 series failing?

HERE is the isse being acknowledged by HP as being ANY AND ALL dv6000 and dv9000 series - not specifically AMD/Broadcom and as far as I can see only limited to North America.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...e=c01087277&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&dlc=en&lang=en

 

Well, that clears everything up. It seems that the problem stopped for the dv9*00 (Intel or AMD) starting with the dv9500 and for the dv6*00 starting with the dv6500.

 

I have a dv2000z, AMD Turion 64 single core. The wireless card quit in october. Tried to get them to fix it, but no dough. Just gave up for a while, since i could buy an external card. Then other stuff kept quiting. I complained to the CEO that I had never received my repair. They got me a case manager, and he got me a repair box. They had it for a month. got it back, and three days later, the whole thing quit. no boot, nothing but blue lights. Called the case manger, got another box, got it back yesterday, and it quit after three hours, same thing. I called today, and the guy said that since i had had so much trouble, how about a new laptop? I was like um....YEAH!!!! So, since that lappy is discontinued, I get a Core 2 Duo 2.1 gHZ, 2GB of ram, 120 GB HD, 8400 nvidia graphics card, and vista business. I didn't even have to get *****y!!! I was shocked!! I am still gonna be skeptical til i get it, but wow HP!!!

 

I've had my 6000z for over a year now and my only complaint is a dead battery. :sigh: It was a 6-cell anyway.