HP CUSTOMER SUPPORT BLOWS

[whoatherechunk]

that's all i gotta say.

[McHaven]

Yup.

[whoatherechunk]

bought a docking station....and the docking stations works perfectly fine. the wireless receiver to the wireless mouse and keyboard is defective and instead of them sending me a new one and sending them the one i have....i get tossed around from india to the usa to australia or heck who knows where to simply get a return authorization. this is why i love apple.

[playinpearls]

the key to this sentence is "CUSTOMER SUPPORT"

which we know that barely any company has anymore...

[BartmanPDX]

+1 to that. I had a problem with my printer that only required me to hit three buttons in a sequence to fix. At the time my printer wouldn't work and displayed the message "Call HP customer support."

They wanted $35 to tell me over the phone what that button sequence was (since it wasn't in the manual). Fortunately I found the info online and didn't have to pay them the $35.

**** HP. I'll never buy anything else from them after that.

[whoatherechunk]

yea hp blows. i always thought their products were actually neat but yea **** this hahaha

[8_finger]

All HP products have expiration date, sometimes in "warranty" period sometimes week after it expires.
In '08 they released dv series of laptops, most of them had faulty Nvidia graphics processor which overheated the MBO to the point that the chip was loosing contact with rest of the MBO resulting in failure and totally nonfunctional laptop.
I got burned for $1300 because it happened right after warranty expired, after doing some research I found out that there were hundreds of people with same issues. Talking to customer "support" resulted in them wanting to charge a $400 fee for repair for most of us that were asking for it, some of people actually paid for the repair and got the MBO replaced usually with an used one with same problems that developed same problems week of two after the "repair". Nvidia admitted the problems with the graphics processor and most of other manufacturers were offering free repairs (Apple comes to mind - they sold laptops with same chips and they repaired them even out of warranty). HP just ignored everyone.

Needles to say that was last HP product that I had spent my money on.

[fdeck]

When I got my HP computer, I couldn't get my LAN to work with it, so I contacted HP using their online chat support. The guy concluded that HP doesn't support any networking issues... that I should contact my "system administrator."

Meanwhile, I was also going back and forth with my brother via e-mail. He solved my problem before HP did.

Nowadays I get all of my support by simply typing my dumb questions directly into Google.

[Milky]

Originally Posted by fdeck

When I got my HP computer, I couldn't get my LAN to work with it, so I contacted HP using their online chat support. The guy concluded that HP doesn't support any networking issues... that I should contact my "system administrator."

Meanwhile, I was also going back and forth with my brother via e-mail. He solved my problem before HP did.

Nowadays I get all of my support by simply typing my dumb questions directly into Google.

We have had two HP laptops. The hinges broke on mine which renders it useless as a laptop (but works ok on a desk when you can lean the screen against a wall. My wife's HP had a bizarre problem where the computer would freeze unless we put pressure on the right wrist pad where it would unlock and work perfectly. Of course Best Buy just kept saying it was a virus and they needed to install "their" software to fix it (it was before we got married, I had not yet become the family tech guy yet). Of course after a bunch of trips they finally admitted it wasn't a virus and surprise! it was out of warranty. After googling it apparently it was a problem with the ball grid array (??? no idea) that HP won't acknowledge.

Never again. My next laptops will be Macs.

[fdeck]

Originally Posted by Milky

We have had two HP laptops. The hinges broke on mine which renders it useless as a laptop (but works ok on a desk when you can lean the screen against a wall. My wife's HP had a bizarre problem where the computer would freeze unless we put pressure on the right wrist pad where it would unlock and work perfectly. Of course Best Buy just kept saying it was a virus and they needed to install "their" software to fix it (it was before we got married, I had not yet become the family tech guy yet). Of course after a bunch of trips they finally admitted it wasn't a virus and surprise! it was out of warranty. After googling it apparently it was a problem with the ball grid array (??? no idea) that HP won't acknowledge.

Never again. My next laptops will be Macs.

Ball grid array is a way of making contact between an integrated circuit and a printed circuit board. The IC is made with tiny little balls of solder for its connections, which then melt to make a connection with the circuit board when heated. It's great when it works.

If this isn't done perfectly right, then the connection could be loose, and flexing the circuit board could make / break contact. That's probably what you were experiencing.

I don't know when your laptops were made, but there was a time when the entire electronics industry was going through reliability problems due to the introduction of new processes such as lead-free solder and water based cleaning.

[McHaven]

Originally Posted by 8_finger

All HP products have expiration date, sometimes in "warranty" period sometimes week after it expires.
In '08 they released dv series of laptops, most of them had faulty Nvidia graphics processor which overheated the MBO to the point that the chip was loosing contact with rest of the MBO resulting in failure and totally nonfunctional laptop.
I got burned for $1300 because it happened right after warranty expired, after doing some research I found out that there were hundreds of people with same issues. Talking to customer "support" resulted in them wanting to charge a $400 fee for repair for most of us that were asking for it, some of people actually paid for the repair and got the MBO replaced usually with an used one with same problems that developed same problems week of two after the "repair". Nvidia admitted the problems with the graphics processor and most of other manufacturers were offering free repairs (Apple comes to mind - they sold laptops with same chips and they repaired them even out of warranty). HP just ignored everyone.

Needles to say that was last HP product that I had spent my money on.

Exactly what happened to my old HP DV6000. Its been a paperweight for like 2 years now. Bought a laptop with twice the power and a dedicated graphics chip for 200 dollars more than HP wanted for repair.

[8_finger]

Originally Posted by McHaven

Exactly what happened to my old HP DV6000. Its been a paperweight for like 2 years now. Bought a laptop with twice the power and a dedicated graphics chip for 200 dollars more than HP wanted for repair.

Mine was dv6500 series, that was the last time I spend more than $500 on a laptop, what was funny they did out of warranty repair for AMD based laptops from those series, but only because AMD didn't want their name associated with bad products and they paid for replacements.
I parted out mine - it funded my frankenbass project so I got some return on a bad investment.