My Clevo M570RU / NEXOC has died, and Nexoc BLAMES ME!

Well, I have some pretty bad news. The notebook reseller called me back today to say I "abused" my laptop, said that it's "filthy" inside and alleged I spilled drinks into it, which I never did.

Now, I certainly would have noticed if I would have spilled a drink on the keyboard!! There are some smudge marks on the keyboard plate under the keys themselves, but not even enough to make the keyboard sticky (which I would have noticed aswell). All in all I treated this rig the EXACT SAME WAY I treated the other 10 laptops I previously owned in the last 15 years, none of which died, by the way.

Also, as for it being "filthy" inside, I never owned a computer that doesn't suck up some degree of dust from the outside air, and that gets stuck around the fans and such. Every now and again I turned it upside down and cleaned the air vents of any accumulated dust, but this is the first time some manufacturer uses it as an excuse to say "ITS NOT UNDER WARRANTY, YOU ABUSED IT!"

Because, if I would have opened the laptop to clean the inside, I would have voided the warranty also... it's such bull****.

The system also didn't die when it was HOT (eg. when I was playing), it died when it was COLD right after I turned on the power.

The bottom line is NEXOC seems to make systems that are not built for being run hard 12-14 hours a day, and when they fail they blame their customers.

If they ask me some stupid amount to repair it, I will rather tell them to **** off and tell them to send me the machine back, and build myself a desktop gaming rig myself from parts (with a tower case that I can open, clean, and replace components in when they fail myself), so I don't have to deal with any bull**** like this in the future.

Here is a picture from the inside.. OMG it's dusty! You abused it!

How about "when I spend 1700 euro on a system, I expect it not to fail, and when it fails, not to get any quibble" ?

Imagine the KILLER DESKTOP GAMING RIG I could have built with that money.



Bye bye Laptop Gaming, it's obviously not for the hardcore crowd.

 

How would opening up the case for cleaning void your warranty? Does the warranty itself say as much?

 

This laptop is like any other laptop in this forum, they don't manufacture their laptops. The barebone is made by Clevo.
The dust is not in any way your concern when it comes to warranty, that is if you aren't allowed to open up the case.
You should report them.
Shyster1, if they have a sticker that will get cut off when you open up the case they could refuse to honor the warranty. Sometimes it happens.

 

aren't warranties fun!

 

is that a picture they sent you?
in what way on this earth is that abused?
how is the dust even an issue in that pic?

take em to court

I have seen machines and notebooks work perfectly well with a heck of a lot more dust in them than that!

 

What a bunch of BS,man.
Don`t let this one go, push them around. Dust is normal,and I don`t think there`s any line in the warranty formular that states you have to clean it for dust.Man, I would be all over their arses for this one.You paid for the thing,it died,they have to fix it. PERIOD.
PUSH IT!

 

ehh...i´ve before phoned NEXOC and they said open case will not lost warranty .....And every month i´ll open mein 2 or 3 times...

 

@BOFH:

> is that a picture they sent you?

Yup, they sent me a bunch more, I will post them for you to see.

> in what way on this earth is that abused?

You tell me. They said it's "filthy". I noticed some dust collecting on the air intakes on the underside from time to time, and I'd scrub them off with an old toothbrush and call it a day.

> how is the dust even an issue in that pic?
> take em to court
> I have seen machines and notebooks work perfectly well with a heck
> of a lot more dust in them than that!

Yes, me too. As a matter of fact, I'm posting this from my old Sony VAIO which I ran under far more harsh conditions for about four times as long as the NEXOC/Clevo, and still runs like a dream.

It's not like I'm some kind of noob, I've had laptops since the days they were 286's with black and white displays and I never had one die on me like that. EVER.

@eleron911: you are right. I will phone them back and read them the riot act on Monday. They only phoned today when I wasn't here, and talked to my old man. They told him the machine is "crucially" damaged, that it's "dirty" inside, that I spilled a drink into it (which I haven't), and that they won't honor the warranty. If I would have been on the phone I would have called BS right then and there.

They also said in any case a 30 Euro "cleaning fee" will apply. I mean WTF!!! A 30 euro charge to clean dust out of my notebook? What?

@kaltmond:

Why do you open your machine 2 or 3 times a month.. to clean it?

OK, let me throw the pictures on Imageshack for all to see.

 

they are ripoffs obviously.

that's what Ive learnt.

If you want good service and warranty stuff that's Generalized and you know exactly what you are getting. go DELL. atleast there is 1000's upon 1000's of people to identify with as peers and get info from.

with small boutique companies. they can get away with murder.

 

Opinions? I see nothing but dust, none of the liquid NEXOC alleges I poured in the machine.

 

how'd you get brown colour dust?

 

brown color dust?

 

do you smoke ciggerettes? or are you in a smoke enviro?

i know that Nicotine stains from smoking and that sorta dust voids all warranties.

 

Yeah I smoke like mad. It never fried a computer though. This would be the first one.

 

Smoking kills

 

Did you plant trees inside the laptop?
Well,still,the dust is not a reason for them not to honor the warranty.
Blow smoke in their faces

 

I see no evidence of liquid damage, but then I don't have an eye for that kind of thing. I would suggest, however, that you open your notebook up at least once every 3 months (more frequently if you notice dust building up more) to clean out the fans and heatsinks...that much dust is enough to kill a system that depends on cool-running to survive.

There are some odd colour patterns on the the underside of the keyboard, but it looks shiny like body oils, not corroded like sticky syrup or water. Very few (if any) smaller resellers will void your warranty for opening the notebook, but I would also suggest asking them exactly how much maintenance you are allowed to do.

I would also suggest not smoking around your computers, because the tar from cigarettes just causes more dust buildup, and that could even be the source of the "liquid damage" they are reporting (cigarette tar residue is a mildly liquid-like muck, after all), and cigarette residue will certainly leave the insides of a notebook looking filthy (I've seen more than one notebook killed by cigarette muck). I've never seen cigarette residue be enough to deny warranty coverage, but I guess they may be considering it "abuse" of the hardware.

 

sorry but forbidding the user to smoke near his laptop wont hold any water.
I have opened up machines for upgrades that include laptops that worked fine with worse dust than that
heck my old acer built up more dust than that, and I used that for gaming (yes I know x1400 not the best but it played HL2!!!)

so I dont agree with their, not wanting to fix the machine.
one thing missing is any proof of what killed the machine, dust didnt kill this one!

like our OP said, it failed while cold , so it didnt overheat from blocked vents!!!

 

my friend bought a 6k projector from Infocus. for his nightclub. this was a few years ago. when smoking was allowed. in bars and clubs here in Canada.

well color wheel broke in it after 2 months.

he sent it in for repair and they saw inside the nicotine stains/smoke stains.

they denied him warranty.

 

it would have to state it in the t's and c's!
I think nexoc are pulling a fast one, especially trying to charge a cleaning fee when they wont even repair it!

 

Just wanted to add: I had a word with Justin from XoticPC (because he seems like a fairly clued up guy working for a similar Clevo reseller) and he also said "I've seen much worse dust than that on these units, and dust doesn't void the warranty".

This is beginnig to remind me of the PS3 dust controversy -- Sony tried to pull a similar stunt with their consoles, before the wave of outrage on the internet eventually forced them to back down.

If Nexoc doesn't agree to fix it for free in the end, I'll make sure to spead the word on the net (eg. "Nexoc sells pricey systems that break after 3 months, and then won't fix them") and find some other place to do it. I'll give Justin a shout, he can throw in a 8800 while he's got the lid off and at least the money would be going to decent people ^^

Will update after I have a word with Nexoc on Monday.

 

Another one. Clevo & Friends are killing me.

Since when customers are forced to opend their laptop to clean them inside? Furthermore, a laptop as expensive as these ones?

Today I went to a store to check some LCD TVs (40-46" FULL HD). Look at what they told me:

1) Warrantee for 2 year on the Telly, extensible to more one two or three years starting from 57 Euros.

2) The warrantee includes fixing any problem the LCD might have during the period - man labour, parts, transport. It even included the fact if for some reason the protective glass was broken.

3) If I notice any problem, the technitian would come to my house to check it out for free during that period, If he eventually found something still working but not already in a good condition he would replace it.

It would be funny if I asked him if I needed to open the LCD to brush it once in awhile

I read here a "short" list of recommendations about how to maintain Clevo ("If you threat it well it will do you well"). I always thought that threating a computer well would be just - Don't hammer it and don't spill liquids over it b(basically what it says in the manual). I work in IT and I had very little problems with this rule.

Anyway I follow the list since who wrote it have a lot of experience with Clevo's. But I honestly don't like it since I've never heard anything similar regarding laptop's of other manufacturers.

Indeed, my last two laptops basically none of them failed once and the last one is working for 5 years now even after falling and breaking the LCD (it was inside the rug sack). Both were Toshibas.

Trance
PS: C'mon, probably apart for the video cards (NVIDIA) and CPU's (INTEL), even IPhones have more hitech inside of them then these Clevo's.

 

@DFTrance:
It doesn't hurt to use a can of compressed air on the ventilation grille of a television, either, but you also don't have a system fan inside your TV, so dust tends to settle more than it clogs. It can still contribute to heat-related issues, but not nearly as much as it can on a notebook. Most warranters will cover damage caused by dust-related overheating, but would you rather have to ship your notebook off for an RMA or do simple maintenance and keep it working to begin with? Opening up the bottom of the notebook and spraying it out with compressed air is a quick and easy solution.

Some anecdotes about notebook maintenance:
I owned a Dell Inspiron 5100 (prone to overheating on the best of days). I cleaned rather large dustwads out of the fan and heatsink every 3 months (I don't smoke, and I keep my living area clean). While the notebook ran hot, it never overheated and shut down on me, and it is still a workable backup notebook 4-1/2 years later.

By contrast, a former employer owned a Compaq Presario. She was a chain smoker (literally never saw her without a cigarette), and she never did anything to maintain her notebook. Her notebook ran hotter than normal, and it died about 1 week out of warranty. She handed it off to me to see if I could get it working. I pulled enough gunk out of the fans and heatsink to keep a large cat warm all winter long, and left enough stuck to the motherboard to clearly show the cause of death. HP wanted to charge her $500 for the repair. She bought another cheap computer, instead. 10 minutes of maintenance every 3 months could have saved her $500.


No, not every notebook will die if it isn't cleaned, but cleaning will certainly extend the life of any system.

 

actually eleison, many plasma tv's have fans in them, I know because my cousin wanted me to source fans for his pioneer a couple of years back.

@DFTrance, of course your Toshibas survived they are Userproof, the sales reps at my last company loved them, unlike the sony's, nec's and dells

and my wife has had a tosh for 6 years now, (needs a second replacement fan atm,but I think its time she got a new machine) + shes a smoker!!! and it dont get gunked up that bad!

 

Why not try filing a claim against their warranty instead? As quite a few posters have pointed out, claiming that the dust in your computer voided the warranty seems illogical and unreasonable - if they're not willing to honor their warranty voluntarily, then make a claim and have it honored involuntarily.

 

Are you living in the same country were the store is located? In Finland thretening with making a complain at the customer prtection office always makes the things to be solved fast. For some reason the customer protectin office favors most of the tiems the customer.

 

Discuss the liquid damage with the company first. Explain to them that you're having a hard time seeing any evidence of liquid or corrosion on the photographs that they sent you.

While they probably wouldn't be able to defend denying warranty coverage based on dust, liquid damage is a pretty clear warranty voider, so get them to send you more detailed images of the areas that they say have been damaged by liquid, explaining that you never spilled liquid on it, nor did anyone who was near the system, to your knowledge. Ask them to actually circle the evidence of liquid damage in the pictures they send. There's nothing wrong with asking them to be as detailed as possible.

 

That is a very good point. Also, so is the point from the poster from Finland; as far as I can tell, Nexoc is a European company, which means that they're probably subject to higher consumer protection rules than exist in the US (of course, I don't know where you live, but my context is the protections offered in the US).

 

I beleive the OP mentioned earlier he is in Germany?

which of course also has strenuous customer protection laws

I would certainly take this further, it seems that they are trying to get out of repairing a faulty machine (maybe because the motherboard is faulty and thats pretty much a new chassis.)

more evidence nexoc please

 

wow this def sucks... if you have the 8800 and get nowhere lmk what your doing with the gpu... but i wish you luck ive had my experiences also ... good luck

 

Riight. Spent a lot of time talking with Nexoc this morning and got some more pictures and it seems that there are some stains on the UNDERSIDE of the keyboard.

I can't explain how that would have happened but it does seem some splashes of coffee got on the keyboard, and due to the incredible "keyboard plate with hole" design went right through the bottom of it and onto the motherboard. >.< You can see some brown stains near the sticker if you look closely.

So, I guess I stand corrected, I'll eat the mobo repair and treat myself to a 8800M GTX while I'm at it.. I've also invested in an external keyboard and screen combo so in the future this won't happen again.

Goddamn >.<

 

Any chance that someone might have spilled the coffee while you were not around?

 

well it sound like someone in your household has some splaining to do!

 

Or Nexoc is messing with you.
I don't know the company, so I might be talking BS here ... but what is to stop them from taking pics from another MB with coffee spilled on it, and say it's yours? This is of course, assuming that you spreak the truth and have indeed not "tortured" your laptop yourself

Anyway: this is exactly the reason why I choose to insure my laptop against such events If they repair it under warranty: they pay, if they claim it was my coffee (I don't drink coffee, so let them try me ): the insurer pays either way: I'm safe.

 

That takes a lot of courage to admit; my hat's off to you. Perhaps a little more bargaining might get both of you a good compromise in the middle (e.g., with respect to warranty coverage for other parts of the system)?

 

@Kwakkel:

Professional ethics. Technically, there is nothing "stopping" any company from doing what you described, but it is in a computer vendor's best interest to be honest with their customers. There's also the fact that the photo clearly shows his serial number.

Furthermore, since it's a Clevo-based system, Nexoc should actually have some manner of warranty through Clevo to offset any repair costs, which makes it even less likely they would try to lie about the motherboard.


@itsthemechanic:

I'm definitely sorry to hear about the coffee splash, but at least you get to do a GPU upgrade because of it. You may want to check online for keyboard protectors once you get it back to make sure no new "accidents" happen to your system.

 

I know it's not really good practice or anything

But since TS can't explain how it happened, it could be a possibility I suppose.

While I have always been treated right by customer service/after sales/tech support/..., I've heared/read enough about people who haven't

 

I agree that there are plenty of companies out there who don't treat their customer right, but if they send pictures of a liquid-stain on a motherboard, you can trust that it's really your board, because they'll almost always try to take the picture at a wide enough angle to show one of the many serial number stickers.

 

Yeah well, the situation kind of sucks, but what am I to do!

You know, "sometimes you lose, sometimes the others win".

Learn your lesson, move along, nothing to see here.. paying for the repair is still much better than writing off the machine and building a new system from scratch.

I got an external screen and keyboard now, so that the next time some accident happens, I only have to replace my keyboard and not the mobo.

Thing is though, I honest to god *still* can't remember ever having spilled anything on the computer. Either I have ****ing Alzheimers or senility starts setting in at 30 these days.

 

It starts that late! I can't remember how long I've been senile!

 

I can always tell when a computer I work on has a smoker for an owner. That "brown" dust is not just dust--you cannot blow it off with an air can--it is greasy, smelly, disgusting crud that retains heat. I am not kidding when I say it retains heat--simply removing that crap can drop the temps by 20 celsius--yes, that is celsius.

Furthermore, it requires a great deal of effort to remove. Sometimes, it's so bad, I have to soak the heatsinks in acetone or some other solvent.

It's even worse in notebooks because no matter what notebook you have the airflow is never as good as a desktop--once the gunk gets on the inside, it's not coming out.

That is an awful lot of build up you have there for less that one year... your work area must lack good ventilation. In addition to the steps you are taking, consider a small fan to blow smoke away from the laptop--or maybe one of those ashtrays or cigarette filters that suck smoke in...

...just as an aside, dude, I would hate to see what your lungs look like....

 

putting some of these on the computer would also help i guess:

 

ROFL, you guys are fantastic

Yeah, I don't wanna know what my lungs look like either.

Maybe this is a sign.

"My lungs? Nah man.. I saw the inside of my computer, and I quit cold turkey."

 

let us know how things turn out itsthemechanic
it would be nice to know how nexoc negotiate etc...

 

(+10char)

 

Note: I just told Nexoc to order me a 8800M GTX while the mobo gets sorted, so something good will come of this in the end ^^