Beware of Zepto!! Great Hardware, Horrible Service!!

Here's my story....

In December of 2006, my dad told my brother and I that he would buy us each a laptop for Christmas seeing as how we were going into the family business and needed one for work. Seeing as how I'm the computer savvy one, I told them both that I would try and find the best deal I could, and I promptly went about researching on this website and others for the best possible laptop I could get for the money he said he was willing to spend. We live in Germany, so our options were limited, but after comparing possible configurations, and deciding that neither of us wanted the glossy screen, we decided on the Zepto 6615WD. I saw that we could save money by purchasing basically a barebones from Zepto, and getting the RAM, HDD, OD, and WLAN card elsewhere, so I put in the order for two 6615's with the Core 2 Duo T7200. I then ordered 2 Hitachi 100GB S-ATA HTS721010G9SA00 7200 RPM Harddrives, 2 Corsair DDR2 1024MB PC667 SO DIMM's, 2 Intel Pro Wireless Lan 3945ABG cards, and 2 NEC Optiarc AD-7543A Slim drives. Everything came promptly and I put the machines together. I gave one to my brother and took one myself, and we both went our separate ways. He installed XP Home on his, I installed XP Pro and Vista Ultimate in a dual boot on mine.
Right from the beginning I wondered if it was normal that the fan seemed to be on all the time, and the notebook got really hot, but I just figured its a powerful notebook so its normal, and since I never had any crashes or BSOD's or anything I just ignored it. I went about my business for the better part of the year, but eventually the fact that I would sometimes almost get burned from the underside of the notebook finally led me to believe something was wrong. I got together with my brother and his notebook, and lo and behold his was running whisper quiet (fans not always on) and not very hot. So I downloaded Intel Core Temp and Speedfan, and CoreTemp gave me an idle temp of around 70 degrees celsius! When gaming and during heavy usage it sometimes went up to 99 degrees celsius!! This obviously was an issue, causing the fans to run constantly, sucking more power and been generally not good for business.
So I wrote an email to zepto, described the problem, and was told I have an obvious thermal problem and that I should send my notebook back, they would fix it and zoom it back to me. I was told I might be without my notebook for a week.
The thought of that was horrible, seeing as how I use my notebook religiously for work and play, and first I wanted to check if there was anything I could do myself to take care of this, short of opening it up and applying Arctic Silver or whatever. But after a month of searching, I finally bit the bullet and agreed to send the notebook in. And here's where my unbelievable service issues started.
First, I went to the Zepto RMA website, filled out the claim form, and waited. And waited. And waited. I figured at the very least I would get an email saying, "we've received your claim, send in your laptop with this number," or something, but nothing. So I shot off an email like "whats the holdup?" and I got an extremely rude answer saying basically "it should be self explanatory that you just send your notebook in." Ok. So I said, its not self explanatory, an email confirmation is pretty normal, but okay, I'll do it. Then I mentioned that since I bought the notebook basically barebones I would be sending it in that way, upon which I received an email basically yelling at me that I did not buy a barebones and if I dont send any other components than they cant be held responsible if they cant find the problem etc etc. I replied very simply that I'm sending what I purchased, nothing less and nothing more, and that the CPU temp is a CPU related issue and has nothing to do with my WLAN card or my HDD. Then I got another incredibly rude email saying "well, you're the customer so do whatever you want, this discussion is over." I did finally send it in and it was received on December 9. Today it is January 22, and only after threatening legal action did I finally get an email saying its on the way back to me, with a pdf test report saying they tested everything and no problems were found. Obviously I am going to get my notebook back, in the exact same way I sent it in, with almost 2 months completely wasted.

It is incomprehensible to me that a simple issue like this is being handled in this way, the Zepto Germany guy was a complete a-hole the entire time and even berated me for having the gall not to buy a complete system and also informed me that they don't sell anything but complete systems now because of issues "like this."

The only thing I take comfort in is that Germany has many legal protections for consumers, and that I at least have legal recourse against them, should the fans still run constantly and my notebook idle at 70 degrees. I just think it says a lot about a company who treats a customer who personally spent almost 3000 Euro this way. I even recommended Zepto to a friend of mine, he bought a full system for almost 2500 Euro by himself, so because of me this company got 5500 Euro and did nothing but waste 2 months of my time.
So be careful! If your notebook works fine, and you never have to get in touch with them in the future, fine. But SERVICE is not a word Zepto knows!

 

1. Do I understand that your brother's Zepto runs cool and has had no problems?

2. I agree that the temperatures you mention are too hot and point to either some component generating too much heat or a problem with the cooling system.

3. You might find that the notebook, upon return, runs cooler. Perhaps Zepto fixed it without finding the cause.

4. I agree two months is 7 weeks too long. Even the most elusive of problems should be fixable in a few days by swapping parts.

John

 

That is not always true, actually...

 

I have the same problem as the OP with fans on constantly and laptop getting very hot, its a 6625WD, its way too loud to use in a library or at night. Other people with same model say its quite.

I havent had good experiences with the zepto customer support on the phone but no way as bad as yours, so I am not sure if I should send in my laptop back to them.

 

I believe this case was handled only in Germany, correct me if I am wrong. Most countries have the notebooks sent back to our HQ in Denmark now and this is now the cases for German and Finnish customers as well which is a recently change

 

There are several cases in finland where the laptop has been sent in (to Digicom, as it was earlyer) and got the laptop back with no problem solved, and it had taken several weeks.

Your case was a bit special too as it was ordered as barebone, and CPUs are very sensitive electronics, wich easily breaks (I read somewhere that the distance between the transistors are 5 atoms so kinda small )

I can understand that your angry, but computers will allways be computers and service will allways be service by humans, and humans differ from eachother.

 

Yes, my brother notebook runs much cooler, the fans only turn on occasionally, and just to be sure that it wasn't something with my components, I swapped mine into his lappie and his into mine. His ran quiet and cool with my stuff, and mine still ran loud and hot with his. So it IS a CPU issue.

Care to elaborate? CoreTemp reads the temperature directly, here's a quote from the CoreTemp website:

The temperature readings are very accurate as the data is collected from a Digital Thermal Sensor (or DTS) which is located in each individual processing core, near the hottest part. This sensor is digital, which means it doesn't rely on an external circuit located on the motherboard to report temperature, its value is stored in a special register in the processor so any software can access and read it. This eliminates any inaccuracy that can be caused by external motherboard circuits and sensors and then different types of programs trying to read those sensors.

Explain to me then please how my completely functioning HDD and/or WLAN card and/or RAM have anything to do with that?

What exactly are you trying to tell me here? That I should just accept that most of their computers run fine and that I just had bad luck? And service is service, and either a human knows what that means or they don't. They could have handled this completely differently, "okay sir, send your computer in, we believe you when you say it runs hot, so we will swap out the processor or Mobo and send it back. We have had issues with this before and hope that you don't have any more problems. If you do, get in touch with us..."
A company that stands behind its products knows that 99% will function properly, and they will accept the cost for fixing the 1% that don't and do everything to keep the customer happy. I will now tell everyone I know about this, as well as post it in forums and if my doing so keeps only one person from buying from Zepto than they will lose more money there than it would have cost to just fix my computer and keep me happy. But instead its all denial and BS, "we couldn't find anything wrong, it has to be something you did, one of your components, blah blah" Sure, I purposely did something to make my laptop run louder than a car engine and actually burn me, just so I could send it away for two months forcing me to sit on the side of my bed hurting my back all so I could be forced to use my slower and less responsive desktop computer. Riiight.

I have worked customer service for a couple different companies, and know firsthand that the way a company deals with customers really reflects on what is important to that company. I am PM'ing with ZeptoUK, and I will wait until I get my laptop back to see if it is actually fixed, but I'm not holding my breath...

 

I do of course feel your anger about this. It's really a shame that some of our customers experience this kind of problems.

I just want to assure everyone that we are doing everything we can to try to solve these issues for our international customers by starting to take all machines in to Zepto HQ in Denmark instead of using local servicecenters.
The reason why we started using service partners locally at the first place was because of shorter shipping times and for the customers to be able to contact the servicecenter in there own language.
We have now seen that it's very hard to get this to run smoothly and that why we have decided to take most machines directly in the Zepto HQ instead if the customer wants to do so.

You have to remember that Zepto is still a young company on the international market and unfortunate it takes some time to adapt to the quick growth.

It is however quite remarkable that you have manage to by the machines as "barebones" as we do not normally sell this, just because it's very hard to support (not saying this is what has coursed your error).

If you still have problems after you receives the laptop back, do not hesitate to contact our international support directly, instead of going trough the German service partner, and we will of course do our best to fix your problem.
If however is necessary to send the machine in to Zepto HQ, I strongly recommend sending it complete with RAM, HDD and so on, just in case.

 

Ugh, these stories make me nervous about taking my own 6625wd in this
Friday for service (keyboard replaced & docking issues)... it's a work
machine, can't live without it for more than a couple of days!

Sorry you guys had those bad experiences.

 

I wouldn't be so worried if you are taking the computer to Zepto in Denmark. They should have all the parts to quickly do some swapping and get the computer better than new. Also they recently relocated the service facility to be bigger and better.

Most of the horror stories relate to Zepto distributors who probably have to diagnose what is wrong and then get the part. And if the diagnosis is wrong the process can go on and and on .....

Going back to the OP's problem, I wonder if anyone tried to swap the cooling system. If that heat pipe isn't working properly then the CPU gets hot, the fan runs fast, but the heat isn't disposed of.

John

 

Or the screw that squeezes the heatpipe and the cpu together isnt tightened enough..

 

I'm sending in my machine for repair today, hope it won't take too long to locate the problem, fix it, and send it back.
I can't turn on my machine. My fan sort of died, it never turned on, and suddently the computer just shut it self off, and it never worked since then

Since it's my main computer, I can't live without it for too long, I'm doing all kinds of work on it

 

It seems to be that the fan/cooling is the biggest issue zepto has over all the models, both physically and with BIOS

 

I have to say (apart from the dead pixel) my laptop is 100% amazing. Zepto have the best customer service I have seen in a company for a long time. I ordered my laptop on a Wednesday and it was here in the UK Monday morning, even after it said "21 Days +" on the website. Excellent service too, they are always on time with responding to emails etc, and answer any questions quickly.

 

I keep hearing this same thing about "we dont normally sell that", all I did was click "no HDD" "no RAM" etc etc on the configuration screen, and presto, my notebook. Its not really a barebones either, but just devoid of components, just so no one misunderstands me (Barebones really means no processor either).

I most certainly will. I am never going to deal with the German reps (Imegro or something) again. If I worked high up for Zepto, I would look into getting a new German reseller, one who is more knowledgeable and way less rude.

And sorry, but I still don't understand what the difference is between Zepto deciding what 3 party components to install or me making the same decision? How does that have any effect on the actual Mobo/CPU build quality or cooling issues? These are all things that can be installed/replaced simply by opening up a little compartment on the bottom of the laptop, so please, somebody knowledgeable explain to me exactly WHY it is so important to send these components?? Even if I did get them from Zepto, its just one more thing that could break during shipping/repair, so I would think that if its obviously a cooling/fan issue you guys would actually recommend taking all these components out, for safety's sake. And in my case, I will never send the HDD, although its password protected there is very sensitive client information (CC#'s etc) which in a worst case scenario could get me sued (if this info got out). Next time I will put the RAM in but hey, I ran MEMtest for like 8 hours and didn't have a single error!

I was very happy with my system too, thats why the title says "Great hardware...", on top of this, my Pre-sale service was also pretty good, they answered all my emails, calls etc promptly. But that is Pre-sale, we'll see if the same holds true if you have any hardware issues later

I truly hope that this gets resolved satisfactorily and I can chock this up to standard service issues in Germany. It is called "Service Desert Germany" because for so long their economy has been a seller's market (High Demand, Low Supply) so there wasn't a need to focus on customer satisfaction, because for every customer complaining there was always another customer waiting patiently behind him who wouldn't complain, but things have changed here (and all across Europe) but Germany is still holding on tightly to its old ways...

Once again thanks to all the Zepto guys who are taking time to personally help me when the German reps didn't!

 

Well as this is a negative thing I am going to spin it :

ZeptoUK has been nothing but helpful and honest, how customer service should be!

Definetly purchase from Zepto again...

 

So I got my notebook back today, and although it is running *slightly* cooler (between 50 - 60 Celsius as opposed to 60 -70) the incredibly annoying humming sound coming out of the upper right speaker is still present. I always just assumed this was a fan issue, but now I'm thinking it may be something else. Has anyone taken apart their machine or does one of the Zepto guys have some info as to what could be making this noise? When I put my ear directly on the speaker hole I think I actually hear the fans as a separate sound, more of a quiet wooshing, while this humming is more of an electrical kind of humming that you would hear from a light with a dimmer switch or something. As I said, it is loudest out of the top right speaker hole, and its really noticeable! Anyone...

 

Good news that the temperature is a bit lower.

Does any audio play OK through the speakers? An open circuit can cause a hum.

Do you get the same humming noise in external speakers / earphones plugged into the headphone socket?

Have you got the Realtek Audio Manager installed. It has many options which might change something. It links closely with the hardware: For example it can detect something being connected / disconnected from the headphone socket.

John

 

Sorry that I made it seem like this was an audio related issue. Let me clarify...there is an incessant hum/electrical sound coming from the entire notebook, when I put my ear right against the notebook, the sound seems loudest around the top right area of the notebook above the keyboard. Audio plays perfectly, I have the latest drivers, the sound is still there when audio is being played, this is more of an ambient noise kind of thing, and has nothing to do with the speakers themselves. Any other ideas?

 

I wonder where the inverter is located? It sounds like something which is not properly fixed down.

John

 

Do you guys know the average rep. time? 1-2-3+ weeks?

 

The machine should be repaired within 15 work days. But it all depends on the problem. Keyboard, ODD, HDD and RAM cases are normally done within 3-7 workdays. MB changes and other complicated stuff are normally done within 7 to 10 work days. If parts need to be ordered before the repair you should expect 15 workdays.

 

I only want to add, I bought my Zepto 6224 (14") last year, it's been a dream, no overheating no issues, all my dealings with ZeptoUK were fast and direct.

I preordered prior to the release of the 6224 and it was on top speac, including the 2.4Ghz dual core CPU, which Zepto hand build as a limited run for me and a small group of other 2.4GHZ orders. You'd think this would over heat, but it runs like a dream with win Vista 32bit all pre installed & specced & tested by them in Denmark.

The point I'm trying to make is, Zepto DE, Zepto Uk, Zepto DK are all separate and the part I dealt with was nothing but excellent.

I hope everyone experiences the service standard I've had with Zepto UK, with all future problems.

viii

 

So...I'm still trying to get to the bottom of this strange humming. I have now determined that the humming seems to be related to the screen. When I apply light pressure to the back side of it (not directly to the screen, but the top of the laptop itself basically), certain spots seem to affect how loud it hums. Ditto for when I move the screen to different angles. And when I apply medium pressure to the inside corners of the screen, near those two little plastic nubs, I can make the sound kinda go in and out depending on how much pressure I apply. This would also explain why the hum also goes away for that split second before windows loads, because at that point the screen refreshes and goes off for a second. So any one with more knowledge know what this strange screen hum is? I assume I will have to send my notebook back to Zepto, but it would still be nice to know what is causing this.

P.S. On another note...anyone with a 6615 wanna tell me what their CPU temp readings are? Right now CoreTemp is giving me a reading of 52 Celsius, with the notebook sitting on a table, and me only having Firefox open (CPU usage is jumping between 0 and 20 percent).

 

52 is normal for a NB CPU, Im having 52-55C in my 6625

 

dyce, it sounds like it might be a defective Inverter controller print circuit board. This can start "humming" as you say when somethings wrong with it.

 

I agree, It sounds very likely that it is the inverter that causes the sound. If it is the inverter, it's shouldn't take that much time to get it changed as it's a quite easy part to get to.

 

So does the inverter only connect to the screen? When the screen is off, but everything is else is on, then the humming stops. But as soon as the screen goes on, boom, loud annoying humming sound.

 

Its the part wich converts your bits to colors on the screen, so if the screen is off = no colors = no usage on it.

 

I'm no expert, but I am an electronics technician.

The screen back light on a laptop in most modern laptops is driven with a unit called an inverter, some newer forms of laptop are now installing LED back light technology.

In laptops with inverters, the screen is back lite with florescent tubes (very fragile). The job of the inverter is to provide power to the back light tubes so they strike up and glow there brilliant white light. The LCD panel stands infront of this back light and varies the degree of pass through each pixels allows to make the required brightness for each RED, GREEN & BLUE pixel.

The tubes & inverter is normally mounted into the laptops screen/ lid. The inverter takes DC power from the laptop and converts this to about 400-900 volt high frequency AC which will in turn drive the tubes.


The inverter is normally cast into resin/ or an epoxy hard gel, this sets the inverter components and muffles a by product of the inverter which is a high frequency noise.

In laptops where you can hear a high pitched noise, the normal fault is normally the epoxy or hard resin that has cracked and you now hear this vibrating crack as sound.

When you grab the laptops lid and apply pressure, what you are doing is closing this gap slightly or the resonance chamber that the inverter crack is using to amplify this sound, therefore muting the sound.


I hope you understand. You should return the laptop as this job is for an expert.












Images are for clarity only, and are not Zepto


best regards

john
viii

 

I sent the machine with PostDK Friday, so hopefully it should be @ Zepto by Tuesday. The machine won't turn on at all, so don't know if they have to change MB etc. But I'm happy to see that you say within 15 days, that sounds reasonable!

 

Great explanation! I probably couldn't said it better myself.

 

n0elia, if it was sent friday we should have it monday. It sounds like a defective motherboard in your machine, so you should expect to 10 work days from us receiving it.

 

Thank you all for the informative posts. Based on what you all are saying, I am now firmly convinced that it is indeed the inverter that is causing this loud hum. So obviously this is something that only Zepto can fix. So I guess I will be sending it back in...

I'm glad we got to the bottom of this, but I am still extremely disappointed in Zepto's service. Just to remind you all, my notebook was in Zepto's hands from December 9 until Jan 23, and I received it back with a piece of paper saying no problems found, all tests ok. I specifically wrote in my RMA report that my machine was making a loud, annoying hum, accompanied by IMHO temps that were too high, and I was just guessing that it was something to do with the MoBo/fans, so I mentioned that. Unless it is louder than an airport inside their service facilities, any technician with half a brain should have heard this hum and since they are the experts, they should have been able to locate and fix/replace whatever was causing it. Just because a customer *suspects* it has something to do with a certain part, doesn't mean that when tests show the customer to be wrong, that he just made the whole thing up, and the notebook gets shipped back with a note basically saying, "haha you were wrong, our tests came up fine."

Since I want to bypass the German middlemen and send this directly back to Zepto DK, can someone give me a telephone number to arrange that? And seeing as I didn't have my notebook for 2 months, I think even arranging pick-up service for me (although I didn't order this option) would be the least you guys could do to make up for your previous blunder. I'm still waiting for a response from Peter Frank regarding 6615WD normal operating temps, (for some reason he wanted to know my serial number, order number, and RMA number in order to be able to give me this info, which strikes me as strange, but whatever) however I was with my brother yesterday, and I installed the Intel Thermal Analysis Tool on his computer and his 6615WD was running around 45 - 55 Celsius and not 55 - 65 Celsius like mine. So I still think something else is not exactly right, but I can live with hotter temps as long as this incessant humming is taken care of!

 

dyce, i think he just wanted to check up on the machine before getting back to you, nothing more than that. Basically Peter will be able to get your machine directly to Zepto in DK as he's based there with the International/Swedish support. The International cases are normally picked up with UPS, so shouldn't be a problem getting your machine picked up.

 

Okay, I'm gonna email Peter and hopefully take care of everything else through him. Thank you all for your help.

 

Dec 9 - Jan 23, that's a long time

 

Hi,

i got my notebook with 2 defective components. So i sent them back for repairing it. After 2 weeks i got my notebook on a friday afternoon back.
what a pitty for me... the notebook hasn't work anymore (don't boot and the display stayed black)

now, i want you to know what than happend after:

i called next monday morning the german support from zepto. first i talked to very friendly woman. after reporting what was happend i got linked to the admin from the german zepto-forum. he read my thread closely before but i told him again what was happend with my notebook.
of course i did that very angry but i tried to stay friendly with him. He explained me that he didn't see any for delivering prepared notebook and also normally not when a notebook was sent back for repair.

so he have beg me to make a little writing documentation with a few pictures of the condition of my notebook and than to send him this as an unchangeable pdf. i did it at evening after my work.
the next day he called the pick-up-service and another day later in the morning the pick-up-service arrived me and took the notebook with him.

the zepto-admin from the german support got my laptop and had than a little conference again with me. less than 4 hours and my notebook was repaired and on its way back to me. it arrived me the day after with changed components and totally workable!

WOW !!! the complete process took less than a week!

the german support didn't send any notebook to the customer from zepto and normally didn't get any notebook to repair. but i am sure they always try that the notebooks get delieverd very fast and workable and although of an first angry complaint from me they stayed friendly. who ever got a problem with the support should think of these phrase: as you scream it into the wood so it will come back.
i tried to be as frienldy as possible and i had made the experience that i got my notebook damn fast in a top condition back again. really great! of course, that won't be possible for all customers (cause of various reasons) but i am sure that the german support are up to finished issues fast. i am very impressed...
Keep that work up!

 

I must say that I understand your anger and disappointment what you must be feeling towards Zepto. I myself had major difficulties with my 6625WD almost six months and the Finnish customer service might have been even worse than what you got (when I got hold of them ).

BUT when I entered this forum with my problems I found that the problem with the customer service is only with local retailers in some countries. In my great relief the UK and international support of Zepto is superb and I got all my problems fixed faster than I could ever have hoped for. So you mustn't blame Zepto so much and try to focus your anger more towards the local retailer. I know that Zepto is responsible of their retailers of course, but in example they have offered Finnish customers the chance to directly deal with their HQ concerning purchases and customer service 'cause the bad feedback they have been having. Hope this might improve your opinion of Zepto even a little 'cause I don't think that they deserve any less.

 

It is less than one year since Zepto took the UK sales and support back in house because of similar problems with UK support through a local company. The underlying problem is probably a matter of scale. A local agent may not have the full range of spare parts to provide quick diagnosis (often easiest by changing a suspect part) and repair. If only Zepto can find the right courier company who can provide reliable overnight delivery....

John

 

I wish that it was just that, but the that wouldn't explain the rude customer service and the fact that it's really hard to get in touch with them. The real problem is the attitude. It feel like to them Zepto is just another brand and to expect full customer support from them according to Zepto's laptops is too much on their behalf...

 

Hi there Im gonna tell ya whats happen with me...

Ive ordered a dell m1330 but it was taking ages to delivery (1month) then i saw this Zepto forum and i thought why not give a try... but after looking some reviews about heating and SPECIALLY lack of decent video output i was almost decided to drive back and keep with dell but i though about calling then and asking something and if everything was ok i would buy it... so calling then Monday 13:00 just like that, no one picked up!! the phone over the SALES DEPARTMENT was EMPTY AT MONDY 13:00 !!! WTH??? are they willing to sell or what??? anyway i've left a message with my name and my phone number and telling then im calling from london and interesting in buy a laptop so pls call me back... guess what... no one called me back since that time... its now more then a week and no return at all. I was just willing to buy one, really, and i would ask if was possible to change the video output for a DVI or HDMI but well i had no lucky calling the sales department... so as far as i know the best support you can have is with the sales department right? just because they want to sell and show that they are good with support so you imagine that the customer support should be about the same... i was so disappointed that i decided to go back for dell and give up from Zepto at least for now.
I just hope any ppl from zepto read this and figure out that they are loosing selling because they just dont return calls from customers!!!

anyway my dell m1330 is just GREAT i dont regreat at all!!! of course id like to have the geforce 8600... but well its life

 

Like someone correctly pointed out, we only get to hear of the negative comments and not the positive ones.
Anyway, I have ordered a 3415W & I pray it works well.
I did ring Zepto UK once and the phone was promptly answered. The Zepto guy was quite cheerful and answered my questions promptly. You'll never know

 

Well i can tell u the danish office is abit better than these stories...
the telephone support sucks. but via email i have gotten an okay service.
i had a problem with my graphics card.. it took me some time.. and alot of emailing back and forward. but it ended up with them giving me my money back even thoug they couldnt recreate the same problem.
so i would not have a problem bying a zepto at another time when Nvidia has resolved the problem