Update on my experience with HP Customer Service

Well, as expected, nothing was done about my USB speed issues.

The memory card reader/PCMCIA controller wasn't replaced.

The keyboard was replaced. It's now in working order with no more issues. I can finally type and not miss letters or have my shift key stick!

The DVD drive was upgraded! The original drive had problems opening, which required me to apply a sometimes significant amount of pressure to the button to get it to open. It also had a knack for scratching discs and issues burning DVD-Rs. I have yet to burn a DVD-R with this new drive, but it does read data DVDs much faster than the old drive. I only have to tap the button for the drive to open now, theres no problem with disc scratching. And it can write to DVD-RAM discs too!

However, the battery is hosed and they didn't replace it. I'm waiting to hear back from my "corporate case manager" on that issue. Battery life while sitting at that system BIOS with screen brightness set to max is down to 45 minutes from the 47 minutes it could last 2 weeks ago, and 1 hour and 2 minutes it was originally able to last.

DVD playback of the movie Troy in HP Quickplay has dropped significantly. When I first tried it way back in March, the battery was able to power it for 2 hours and 15 minutes and some seconds. Two weeks ago it was just over 1 hour and 47 minutes. Lastnight it was down to 1 hour and 23 minutes and 18 seconds. Today it lasted a full 1 hour and 16 minutes and 7 seconds.

HP's "Battery Check" software will no longer run either. Not with the preinstalled configuration HP imaged my drive with, nor my own fresh clean install of Windows (with the required .net software installed, 1.x and 2.0).

So this battery is heading towards battery heaven pretty quick.

 

Another update. Got off the phone with my corporate case manager about half an hour ago. New battery is on the way!

Now time to do a completely fresh install of Windows.

 

Wow. I've never seen you so happy about HP

 

HP probably read through his threads here.

But seriously, it's nice to hear that all might end well for this particular problem!

 

Thats unlikely to be fixed since it is pretty much ATi's faulty SB implementation. I dont know how they even decided to put the chipset out to the market in the first place. So, unless HP exchange the laptop with a different model or you buy a new one the problem is going to remain.

 

haha! Don't get me wrong, I'm still not a satisfied customer. It took several months and multiple issues for them to finally even look at my system and they didn't even take care of all of the issues.

Hopefully! My battery should be here Monday at the latest. Now if only there was a way to fix the USB speed.

Yeah, and I know HP isn't going to exchange this any time soon. The only way I could get Fry's to honor their warranty is if I complain about the problem 4 times and they actually see there is a problem. As long as I get the battery, this system will hold me over until I buy my Mac next year after Leopard gets released.