dv5000....what a piece of junk

DO NOT BUY THE HP DV5000 SERIES...WHAT A PIECE OF JUNK!!

I have had this laptop ONE month....it looks nice. Great hardware package; nice price.

Problem is: it's a poorly built piece of junk

Problem one: keyboard keys stick, particularly the shift key.

Problem two: the hard drive failed today. Bad drive. Now needs to go back.

RIDICULOUS!!

This is my last HP. This is one of their top of the line models...and it's a piece of JUNK. DO NOT BUY!!!!!!

 

No it's not one of their top of the line models, that'd be their business series. The DV5000 is a budget notebook.

There's always going to be a computer that messes up, isn't built right and flops.

Bashing an ENTIRE COMPANY because of one mistake and trying to spread the word that all of their stuff is trash is rather immature. If you have a bad experience, say so, however, do not say an entire company is completely worthless and to never buy anything from them again.

 

Every company has their problems, and even the best companies are liable to release a few bad machines once in awhile. It is true that you ordered a budget notebook, however that is no excuse for shoddy construction. What would be more productive than bashing HP in a forum would be to either call/email their support; explain what happened and what you would like to be done. It is entirely within the realm of possiblity that they will be just as disgusted as you and will want to make things right. At the very least you are within the warranty period and the keyboard and hard drive should be replaced free of charge.

 

the other things you said might be true.

but hard drive failure doesn't have anything to do with HP, they don't make it

 

HP's are complete pieces of junk.

I've owned two previous to this...you'd have thought I would have learned by now.

First one, about 10 years ago...the keyboard failed! Very common I discovered...and they're still having it!!!!

Second one, about 5 years ago...the power plug broke...a very common problem I discovered.

Since then I've been a Toshiba man...I deeply, deeply, deeply regret going back.

DON'T BUY HP...THEY'RE POORLY MADE PIECES OF JUNK!

 

I've heard alot of horror stories about toshiba too...(especially the ones that were released 2-3 years ago).

 

So because you've had a problem 10 years ago and 5 years ago, and a more recent one now, they all suck completely. That's rock solid logic there.

Please stop and think.

How is this constructive?

Posting in an HP forum about how HPs supposedly suck.

I understand you've had a bad experience, and I understand why you don't like HP now, what I don't understand is how you can ake 3 computers from, in technological time, basically decades apart and say the company that made theose few, out of several million, entirely sucks.

 

From my experience HP Support isn't all that great either. I think a lot of people confuse "nice on the phone" with "knowledgable" when it comes to what they consider "good support". Really friendly people, but absolutely clueless over at HP Support Call Center. But my main problem with HP Support is that their website is pretty much useless. There is absolutely no detail in terms of what is being delayed, what the current status of the repair is, etc.

The website STILL says estimated date of delivery of April 11th! What's even worse is that the 800 line reps don't know anything either! They check the status of a repair the same exact way I do--they look on the website--they don't have a clue over there, either. Very, very frustrating.

It got me so frustrated that I opened up my own support case with HP and I finally am working with someone who I can contact directly for updates on my repair. It took a pretty long rant and several phone calls to get to that point, though.

As for HP build in general, I too would be the wrong person to ask. It's been over a month since I placed the order, and over 2 weeks since I sent in my laptop for repair, and still I have nothing to show for it--my Case Manager can't even give me an estimate other than "sometime next week"!. And during all this time I barely powered up the notebook twice. It's horrible.

I'm sure their Compaq business line of notebooks is way better in terms of build quality. But as of now my faith in HP has been shaken badly. Bad laptop, bad support, bad overall, I'd grade HP a D- right now. The only thing saving them from a straight up F is how willing the people are over there to help after I literally blew a gasket in the case opener form.

 

Weird eh...Thats not the case for everyone. My HP experience has always been excellent. They even offered to repair my laptop after the warranty period expired...4 months after...

 

Quite rock solid logic. 3 different machines...10 year span....major problems with each. That's a sign of a mediocre company that cuts corners on quality. NEVER AGAIN. I would advise everyone to STAY AWAY.

That's how the market works...and that's why forums like this are valuable. They teach potential customers about a product. In a free market HP will either improve or go bankrupt. Frankly, I've given them one more chance than I should have. They're either using inferior parts or simply shipping stuff out the door without checking. Further their customer support is almost a waste of time. Just because India was a colony a century ago does not mean their English skills are up to par. Having spent 3 hours on the phone with people whom I could barely understand was ridiculous. Enough is enough.

 

There's also the possibility that you got unlucky, 3 times, yes it happens.

Most of the people on these boards that have gotten HPs that I've seen are very happy with them, I'm planning on buying one myself, simply because the V2000Z is the cheapest, nicest looking, moderately capable gaming notebook with 5+ Hr. battery life that I know of.

 

If you had two previous bad experiences, why buy a third HP?

That's certainly not "rock solid logic".

 

I was scared by all the complaints I've heard of Toshiba's machines, especially their recent M55 series, in their build quality but mine gives me no problems, its build considerably build better than my last HP DV4000, wonderful machine!

Every company will have some bad lemons. I've heard nothing but raves from Fujitsu's notebooks but had a very bad experience with their Lifebook P5020D.

 

I've had an overall good experience w/ HP and would not hesitate to buy another had they had features I liked more than say the features of thinkpads. The keyboard on my laptop has been the best I've ever used on anything, desktop or other laptops. Toshiba has been the worst keyboards I've ever seen. Not so much the quality as the layout of them.
I've had excellent experience w/ HP customer support for the most part. Except for when my charger died 2 months after the warranty was up and they refused to replace it.
No HP's are not the sturdiest laptops I've ever used, but by no means the worst. That would be dell. (I've only owned numerous dells, 1 toshiba, and 2 HP's)
But I would by no means say that HP's are complete pieces of junk. Now dells...that's another story... (hey, sorry, I've owned 6 dell laptops in the past and every single **** one has had problems. Although I do admit that the newer ones have had only more minor problems.)

 

In my opinion,
Build quility:
Gateway< Dell=toshiba< HP/Compaq
Driver's support from their websites:
Toshiba < Gateway< Dell=HP

I work in the IT department at my school therefore I work with lots of laptops from students. These brands are the most common brands that I always work with. HP isn't the best brand but it's not the worst neither

 

Well said . One thing that HP definitely is better then Dell is the design part...They grey strips on dells and their whole "massive build" is just down right ugly.

 

I think HP is better than Dell, myself... In build quality that is, of course. Can't easily beat Dell's prices though.

 

But then with some advantages comes disadvantages

 

Yep, bland design, not the best construction... Etc...

 

Though Dell's to get better battery life then a HP...any ideas why?

 

TOTALLY agree with you on that.

 

Not always. Just HP's good batteries stick out... =\

 

Kudos!!!!!!!!!

 

Hi All,
I always wonder about folks that come into an area and start to diss the brand that that area is representative of. Kind of like walking into a Ford dealership and screaming F-O-R -D F-ound O-n R-oadside D-ead! Just not a very smart way to do things.

As for the DV 5000 series. I very much like my DV 5030 Z. This machine does everything I ask of it and then some. It has excellenet keyboard feel, the display is top notch and the thing is rock solid as far as stability goes. Now before someone comes back and says "You don't have a clue" I have been involved with computers from the days of GW Basic and CPM. I have owned many computers including a Timex Sinclair, Vic 20 Tandy 1000, Toshiba 7030, Syspar 386 dx, etc. etc.

The only marginal component in the 5030z is the graphcs subsystem. But contrary to popular belief the ATI Xpress 200 with 128 meg of dedicated memory consitantly scores 1525 on 3D Mark 2003. Super PI to 2,000,000 places runs 1 minute 40 to 1 minute 53 seconds depending on what I have going.

Bluesteel if you had a problem and wanted information to try and resolve the issue I am sure that the folks on this board would offer every solution that they knew of, but to come in here and diss everybody elses machines is just plain childish. I really hope that you find a machine that is more to your liking but do yourself a favor, if you buy a Dell or an IBM and find that you are unhappy with them also, demonstrate some restraint and maturity and skip the temper tantrum and rants. It doesnt't help you with credibility at all.

Peace

 

Nice post preachp, might wanna seperate it a bit though, big walls of text are a bit harder on the eyes.

 

Well, I've had my DV5030us for a month now. I'll say the same thing I said about it a couple of weeks ago. The hardware is fantastic. Mine is very well built. It's not "bendy", it's very sturdy, the keyboards nice (though a bit small for my tastes). The screen is fantastic. Besides the Apple LCDs, it's the first LCD I actually enjoy using. It's nice and fast, even with a 4200RPM HDD. It plays back 1080p WMVHD clips without a hitch. Even gaming is good on it. The Xpress 200M is a very underrated chip. UT2k4, San Andreas, and even Serious Sam 2 all run great. Using the "sharpen" effect in WinDVD makes DVDs rival HD content. The digital audio output is nice too, though not bit-perfect for music. I even get over 2 hours and 40 minutes of battery life when just browsing the web and chatting, on the 6 cell battery.

Even Windows Media Center is nice. I love being able to control the DirecTV box with the PC and schedule recordings and all of that.

The only downside to it is that it still runs Windows. If I could throw Mac OS X on here, or find a distro of Linux that works with ALL of the hardware, TV Tuner and DirecTV box included, and doesn't require some crazy command line nonsense to get my wireless working, I'd be even happier.

I wonder if Bluesteel is not just someone trying to come over here and cause trouble. The hard drive failing is not HP's fault at all. They don't build the hard drive. They buy them from a different company. Hard drive's fail. It doesn't matter who you buy them from. Even the most well built HDs can die fast. I have a 120GB WD HDD that failed not even a year after I purchased it. It happens. I'm just wondering if the HD failure was a result of a poorly built HD, or if somebody set the system down a little too rough while the HD was being written to....

 

I love my DV8000z.

I'm not sure of how this person used or treated his notebook but occassionaly some of the blame lies with the owner for the problems they have.

Not saying that is the case here but it's always possible.

These things aren't meant to be indestructible. Haha.

 

I have had 2 HP desktops and my brother has a hp laptop that he bought a year ago.

Both my desktops work. Actually.. they are GREAT! My Old NT/95 only has like a 3 gig hard drive, but I use it to play Age of Empires all the time on my local area network with my friends.

My brothers laptop is still great. I am not sure on the model number. We called them up once because of a software problem, but we got it all sorted out in about 30 minutes. They WERE nice, but they also knew what they were talking about, or they just got lucky after we spent 2 hours trying to fix it they did it in 30 minutes. I don't know.

 

Many other companies have extended batteries for their notebooks that stick out as well, like Sony and Gateway for example.

 

I loove my dv5000z as well. No problems whatsoever. I had never bought anything from HP but now I wouldn't mind recommended them.

 

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HP ROCKS

 

Exactly.

I am extremely happy with my dv5000z. I couldn't ask for more (well, sort of). But it is really a great and stylish notebook.

 

Bluesteel is someone trying to warn consumers to stay away from poorly built laptop computers with mediocre customer support! Buyer beware!

 

A: HP doesn't make the machines. They specify the looks and what brand (HP or Compaq) the machine will be.
B: Almost all HP/Compaq machines (as well as Dell, IBM, and Sony) go to outsourcing firms for repair. If the machine doesn't go out the first day it comes in, it goes on backlog til the either a technician repairs it before the next days new arrivals actually arrive, or sometime during the week before the new arrivals arrive.. or the weekend, depending upon how much actual backlog there is.
C: As far as HP/Compaq's business line is concerned. Most of them are made by a seperate company than the consumer lines. 2 models are made by the same company that makes the dv5000 line. As far as the dv5000 is concerned. There are very few issues with the system board (unlike the commercial line and most consumer line notebooks). All laptops will have problems. It's what parts are involved that make the difference. BTW: I own the dv5000 and haven't had any issues with it as of yet. The two most common issues with the series are the memory and the hard drive, which I already plan on replacing ASAP.

 

Seems to be an awful alot of poor souls, who love their dv5000's... guess their ignorant.

Sure is mighty fine of you to spend so much of your time, trying to educate them!

 

I just returned my brand new (customized online) dv8000t to Costco for a full refund. I opened the box and right away found a small flaw/divit in the plastic floor of the battery compartment. No big deal, I said. Then I flip it open and find that my keyboard was VERY POORLY assembled. Several of the keys on one side wouldn't even work. I didn't even get to fire the thing up and had issues with build quality. I guess I'm asking too much for an operating keyboard right out of the box. Just my experience, of course.

 

yea S**t happens sometimes, that's where return policies and warranties come in. I wouldn't quit on the dv8000t on one bad experience though. I would have tried at least one more time. But, that's just me. heh No company/laptop is perfect, I just try to avoid the ones that consistently have major issues.

 

I am a poor soul with the dv5000 and your right, thank you from me as well for educating me on this "consumer product" that I love. .....and Im sure I know why he got mediocre support.

 

Yes it is mighty fine of me....I wish others would have posted their experiences good and bad.

By the way, here's the number of total problems with this machine: keyboard defective, bad hard drive, bad dvd/cd

What a complete piece of junk....

 

You don't have to repeat YOUR problems. Because all the rest of us don't have them. Defective products come off the line all the time. Just because someone has 30 dead pixels on their laptop doesn't mean that all the rest of us have them. You do realize that his post was sarcastic, right? Because you were telling us all DV5000z's had these problems, and he was being sarcastic, saying we're poor souls with defective products. Many have posted their opinions and reviews. You see, the truth is, only YOUR DV5000z is defective. If so, just return it and stop complaining. All the other DV5000z are perfectly fine.

 

My experiences with my dv5000t are as follows: keyboard - different than my desktop, but good, a few quirks that seem to be software related that I hope will have a patch eventually but don't affect it in any major way; hard drive - fine; dvd/cd - fast and fine. Processor rocks, speakers are good, screen is gorgeous, Nvidia video card is nice, battery life kicks ass, and the weight isn't so bad. I've had mine about a month now, we'll see how it holds up.

 

I'm wondering just how honest you're being, or what YOU did to the system. Did you drop it or something? I can understand one faulty part on a new system, but that many? No way. The only way all of those things would happen at once is with user abuse, or shipping abuse. Being mishandled during shipping is completely beyond HP's control.

HD failure isn't HP's fault either. The HD isn't built by HP. More often than not, however, laptop HDs fail as a result of user abuse.

I've had my dv5030us for almost a month and a half and I have yet to have a single problem with it. Like I've said before, the only bad thing is that it runs Windows! The hardware is great. The HD is nice and fast, even for a 4200 RPM drive, and the DVD drive is nice and quick. It's a great piece of hardware.

The problems you had are definitely not HP's fault. Either you're being dishonest here, or you treated the system poorly, or it was mishandled during shipping to the store.

Minor manufacturing defects happen all the time. It's just the nature of things. But if you supposedly had so many problems with your system, then something else is wrong.

 

Never dropped; really only sat on my desk; only had it 3 weeks before all of this happened. this is not a minor defect...this is a complete piece of junk. Just woke up one morning, started the machine...and drama. Massive failures.

It has been rumored for years among techies that HP uses substandard parts in the hope that the parts wear out AFTER the warranty expires. Guess this time they were caught before I got ended up with an expensive paperweight. The keyboard problem is an OLD, OLD, OLD issue with HP.

Never, ever ever again. Buyer beware.

 

How come no one else is complaining about their keyboard? Please, don't spread rumors. Once again, defects happen here and there. It's a normal thing in the modern manufacturing line. You just got unlucky. Please, don't turn off potential buyers from a usually perfectly fine machine. That said, I kinda want the mods to close this thread. All we're doing is repeating the same thing, and making accusations...

 

Just search through the HP forums..you'll find lots of keyboard complaints...our network administrator even confirmed that AFTER the return period expired.

 

Well, I could complain about mine. Every now and then, my keyboard behaved as if the CTRL key is pressed, although it is not.

Except for that one issue, my DV5030US has been great! I also own 3 other HP notebook computers (ZX5000, DV1000, and DV8000) and this is the first one that there has ever been any hardware issues with.

In spite of the keyboard issues, the DV5030 is the notebook I use the most.

Although I wouldn't recommend it for those not mechanically or electrically inclined, I recently found the maintenance guide for my DV5030 and had a go at removing the keyboard to reseat it and it's connection to the system board. After doing that, I haven't had any more incidents with my CTRL key, (knock on plastic) but I am still keeping an eye on it.

I know having a computer with problems is very unsettling and a huge inconvenience, so I can understand bluesteel's anger. Calling it junk is a bit harsh though, and comes off more like sour grapes rather than enlightenment. Venting feels good but time and energy are better spent by getting the notebook repaired or replaced.

If the notebook was replaced 2 or 3 times and the same kinds of issues still occurred, there may be a stronger case for considering the model to be junk, but I would say the odds of that are slim, unless of course there is abuse involved.

cycloptic

 

A bad keyboard, a bad HD and a bad cd/dvd are NOT minor manufacturing defects...

I'm not being dishonest...you're either an HP employee or a sycophantic apologist

HP is a complete piece of junk...

 

Now now, no need for name calling... everyone just keep their hands in plain sight and back away from the table. Seriously, this is a good site and deserves to have a higher level of discourse.

 

I don't care to read the rest of the replies as they do not matter.
But you cannot judge a notebook manufactuer by one problem that isn't even theirs, and another that could be just you.

Hard drives...are not made by HP or Compaq. They are made by Seagate, Fujitsu, etc etc. If one dies, yes it was on their machine, but no its not HP's fault.
I have seen drives last years and I have seen them last only months. Hard drives being one of the only physically moving parts, leaves them vulnarable.
The other moving part being the shift key, well you got me there. I do not have a sticky shift key. I do not eat or do other things over the keyboard, and I have a HP notebook. I do not have this problem, but seems like while you are getting your computer fixed, you could also note that problem.
"Like OMG becky, this notebook is just like such a piece of junk, like OMG, it just stopped working, OH MY GOD, how HP is so ****ty because I had one bad experience with them"

 

They keyboard on my DV5130CA is wonderful. It took me around 5 mins to convert from my desktop keyboard. I don't have any problems with sticky keys.
Also I haven't had any problems with the DV5x outside of software, which was a pain in the ass but what can you expect from a system running M$ anything?
Treat your notebook well and it will treat you well.