faulty DV9700t owner - am I out of options!?

Hi everyone,

I am the unfortunate owner of a dv9700t outfitted with a Nvidia GeForce 8600M (purchased in March of 2008.) My experience with this laptop has been nothing short of a nightmare! I have had the display completely fail on me 4 times so far (once while it was still under the standard 1 year warranty.) I was able to get HP to take the laptop in for a free repair twice since the standard warranty expired under their "Limited Warranty Service Enhancement" program HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement - HP Customer Care (United States - English) so in this regard I suppose I am luckier than most who have owned this model. Unfortunately the screen just failed again (1 month after the 90 day warranty for recently repaired notebooks expired, go figure! ) I contacted customer support yet again, thinking that if nothing else I could get the screen fixed again (albeit temporarily, no doubt) but it turns out the "Limited Warranty Service Enhancement" program is now expired as well and after getting my support case escalated to a case manager I was told that my ONLY option is to pay HP $400 (however they kindly offered me a 10% discount ) I stated that there was no way I was going to spend $400 to replace the screen on this laptop when it would undoubtedly fail again within 6 months. Needless to say I am absolutely irate!!! I spent $1300 on this machine, it seems totally unacceptable for it to be completely useless after just over 2 years of use (minus the time I invested fighting with customer service and waiting for repairs the 3 times it was repaired during this time period!)

Basically I would just like to know if I have ANY options left at all, or am I left with a $1300 paperweight? I've been doing some reading about possible class action lawsuits against HP regarding this notebook model, would it be worth my time to pursue something like this? If anyone else on here has looked into this option could you please provide some more info such as a link to a law firm working on such a case and how to go about joining? If nothing else I would like to contact someone higher up at HP than a customer service representative to express my extreme disappoint in their company. Is it possible to contact anyone at HP besides customer service? I would greatly appreciate any input on this matter!

Thanks!

Dan

 

Always the LCD screen fails, never motherboard/integrated nvidia 8600?

Because those more common issues are ALL nvidia chip related, ie. motherboard issues. They are the reason why nvidia had to pay millions in compensation to laptop makers.

If it happens that with the "screen/display" you actually mean "motherboard and it's GPU" it's quite often fixable at home, just do a google search for 'oven trick' and you'll find hundreds messages about fixing motherboards and GPU cards, even on this forum.

 

Interestingly enough the only thing that ever fails is the display, yet its been consistently failing within 6 months or so of being replaced which makes me think that there must be an underlying cause (after 4 failures this seems logical, doesn't it?) Every time I have had it repaired by HP the only thing they have replaced has been the display. It is strange that nothing else on my laptop has failed so far except for the screen since it seems that most users reporting problems with this notebook have other components go such as the WI FI as well. I will do some research on this "oven trick" you mentioned...it would be great if I could get this laptop running again as I am just about ready to go to college and would rather not invest in a completely new system right now!

Thanks!

Dan

 

Basically the oven trick is the same thing people do to fix the Xbox 360. You can also use a heat gun to reflow it( Google Translate ). You may also try to improve your gpu's heatsink using this method
http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...m1330-nvidia-geforce-8400m-gs-copper-mod.html

As a last word, keep in mind the only true fix for this GPU issue is replacing the motherboard, and considering how hot these nvidia chips can run. Even with the fixes problems can arise very easily so don't expect everything to be perfect

 

if it is only the LCD that goes out, that isn't a GPU issue, does the VGA output work on this unit? There is no reason why it should have gone through 4 LCD screens. I would suspect there is something going on power wise (inverter maybe?) that is causing your problem. This system (dv9700t) was never covered under the service enhancement issue even though it had the same faulty GPU as some that were, and this issue, while it is a PITA, is not the same and (if the VGA still works) has nothing to do with the Nvidia GPU.

 

Hi Bob,

I didn't think it was related to a Faulty GPU either since nothing else was failing but having 4 screens fail tells me there is something else going on here! In the past I had tried replacing the inverter with no success. It works perfectly fine with an external monitor. Any ideas?

Thanks

Dan

 

broken machine, outside of warranty.........

 

I hope this helps I fixed it with them HP DV9000 432945-001 MOTHERBOARD REPAIR SERVICE USA - eBay (item 270588033564 end time Nov-29-10 05:15:35 PST) , they have a 90 day warranty, look obviously the laptop has a design flag (thanks nvidia) so just put xp on it , some software to lower the use of the video card and try to avoid any kind of "video use" so avoid games, videos etc.. maybe try out Welcome to OnLive.com so that you can play games so the pc isn't doing any heavy lifting I'm in the same boat as you and like you my model isn't listed here The NVIDIA GPU Litigation - Affected Models so good luck

 

I agree the better way to go is the repair route. A new mobo means same problem. Besides reballing or other method the rebuilder should do something to remedy the underlying heat problem. IE, faster fan better conduct of chip heat etc. The copper chip or the penny is not a viable repair and as I understand is a temperary fix.
See my posting: HP DV2000 et al: May be A Solution To Overheating. I am looking for feedback on that partial fix.