OWNERS OF HP laptops are up in arms because the dodgy Nvidia graphics chips inside their machines are failing all over the shop.
IDG hack Agam Shah, went trawling through the HP message boards and found a whole heap of users complaining about the way they'd been treated.
Some of the machines affected were not on HP's official list of machines that had their warranty period extended. So when they gave up the ghost - as a certain Charlie Demerjian said they would - users we left holding useless lumps of ex-technology.
The laptop owners are getting the distinct feeling that, once their affected laptops pass 15 months old, they keel over and die. One, calling himself Surveyor writes: "Many people with HP dv9000 series have had the same problem. Bad graohics [sic] card after about 10-18 months of use. This calls for a new motherboard. ($350+) Keep in mind that HP will tell you that if it is no longer under warranty its your baby. I guess the lucky ones are those who encountered these problems before the warranty died. Good Luck with this one."
Another, named Unfortunate, writes: "It seems that I am a brand new victim. My dv9500 cto's screen became a "colorful" LCD two days ago after working well for 1 and a half years. 1 year Warranty has expired... Dont know what to do next."
He's not alone.
Pressure is mounting on HP to add to its list of models that will be covered by the extended warranty period since the tactic of keeping cooling fans on full blast isn't helping much.
Neither HP or Nvidia would comment on IDG's story. Charlie Demerjian had plenty to say but we'll save that for later. µ
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I Smell a Class Action...
HP ...looses
Consumer ...looses
Lawyers...win big time...
I wonder how many of the people that bought one of these failing laptops laughed in the face of the salesman who offered them an extended warranty..
TOLD YOU F!@#!@# so!
I own a Computer Shop and HP refused to fix 3 of them...
No wonder I don't sell their crap anymore...
I'm note against nVidia, but I have the same problem in my Fujitsu-Siemens notebook. I have got pretty nice Pi1556, it's working well, but hot. One day, about 20 month of use, graphic card was demaged, screen was in strange colours, a windows was working only in safe mode - and not stable. I think it's work temperature problem.
I demand full fledged article from Charlie... ;)
In the UK, folks would have a legal right against the retailer who sold them the machine - up to six years depending on cost and normal expected lifespan of item. If it goes inside six months then the law says it was faulty at the point of sale and is the retailer's responsibility to sort out - the buyer does not have to prove anything!
Yeah, idiots. I mean people expecting a supposed "quality" product to last more than the standard warranty period, what were they thinking ?
The carmakers should start doing that as well. Here is your brand new GM vehicle. Comes with a one yea warrnty, but pay us 20%-30% more and we'll stretch it out to 3 years..Easy money
I've been helping a friend with one of the models which has had it's warrantee extended. After going through the website and identifying the applicable symptoms, HP sent her a box for her to return the unit for repairs. While at HP, they claimed to find something else that wasn't covered and "fixed" it and charged her $300 for this unauthorized repair. She went through the roof and told them that no one had told nor asked her permission for this repair. So they wiped the charge. HOWEVER, as I was helping her restore all her software, there were several issues that cropped up. The first one is that the unit does not shut down. To power off the unit, you need to hold the power button down for 6 seconds. Reboot doesn't work either probably from the same problem. The wireless internet problem {one of the nvidia chip fail symtoms} is still not reliable. Then it goes to screen saver mode it "black screens" and won't come back {another official nvidia chip fail symptom}. And finally, the "G", "H", "quote" and "backspace" keys no longer work. What I think happened is that service has been told to not honor the guarantee if at all possible. i.e. Find something to eliminate the cost of the covered repair. Further, I'm reasonably certain since I saw the symptoms both before and after she sent it in for service, I think the same motherboard is still in the unit. I think the service techs damaged the keyboard during multiple episodes off assembly and disassembly. We got a USB keyboard for her to use in the meantime and that makes the unit usable. She doesn't have the funds currently to replace the unit and she's irate with HP. I suspect she'll never buy anything HP again. For that matter, after watching her travails, I'll never buy anything HP again.
...I can't hear a ****ing thing :~) Oh dear - now the pooh has properly hit the fan - all of the 'NV-Fan-Bois' have shut up shop/mouth and headed back to the tunnels... ho ho ho...
I too received my unit with new problems after I sent it in to HP. When I sent it in it only had a dead motherboard. After I received it they I noticed that they had changed my immaculate LCD with one that had scratches in the internal optronics and my keyboard had twelve nonfunctional keys. I opened the unit and determined that they had changed the keyboard and had the indian support centre transfer me to the U.S. repair center. I explained my case and the head technician elevated it to a manager who waived all charges ($400) and sent me the unit in 100% working condition.
Don't let them get away with it and get them to transfer you to the repair depot people.
Despite only having a nVidia 7200, this machine failed in the month after its warranty went with a total graphics card failure. No funny colours, no safe mode, just a BIOS beep declaring the graphics card dead. I am beginning to think maybe we've reached the threshold of how much power we can cram in a laptop case with current designs.
Charlie has been chasing this great white whale for two years, finally caught him..
I wouldn't trust Nvidia NOT to SCREW UP again in the Future. Neither does Intel. (besides...)
That's Not The Way I'm Meant To Be Played!
There's an old saying in Tennessee
I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — [...] -
that says:
fool me once,
shame on — [...] -
shame on you — [...] -
Fool me — [...] -
We don't get fooled again — [...] -
Don't get fooled again — [...] -
No, no!
— [...] -
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
HP and their support service 'TechGuys' are very unhelpful. HP does not admit the manufacuring defect , only they offer extended one year warranty on some nvidia laptops. TechGuys, part of DSG/PCWORLD/CURRYS are very rude and refuse to honour the warranty on one or other pretext. I wish someone would start class action case against HP & Techguys . Me and couple of other HP affected customers will gladly join. I wish I was in the US as it is much easier there to bring big companies to acknowledge shoddy goods and seek repair and compensation.
I filed a complaint with the BBB, here in the USA. I have a dv9500, with the 8600 series card. WAY TOO HOT! 'Died. 'Not on the list. They FINALLY agreed to fix. Only took four days!
It's been 3 weeks now. We'll see how long she lasts, this time. 'Was 23 days out of warranty, before.
Good luck, everyone.
Tom
Not only did they not fix the problem when I sent in my dv9657, they told me all of my weird video problems and keyboard problems were caused by a faulty hard drive, which they said they'd fix $238 since they said it was not under warranty. The Best Buy people told me that it was under warranty when I took it in, but then I got a call about 3 weeks later saying that it was not under warranty and that they were charging me for looking at the machine. When it arrived back at the store they waived the charges since it was still under warranty.
Not only did they have my laptop for a month, when I got it back I noticed the GPU was underclocked by 100mhz. And the same problems still show up. Thankfully the machine is still mostly usable.
To start off, I'll quote from the post marked "OOPS"
Start Quote: "OOPS
I wonder how many of the people that bought one of these failing laptops laughed in the face of the salesman who offered them an extended warranty.." End Quote.
To be honest, I'd still refuse to buy an extended warranty. Yes, in this SPECIFIC case it would have been helpful. And I admit I can only speak from personal experience, but the two or three times I've ever bought an extended warrenty it has never paid for itself at all. Either nothing wrong happened, or what did happen was such a minor expense that it wasn't worth paying for such.
Sure, it's a gamble to not buy an extended warranty, but it's just as much of a gamble to buy one. That and even if I was one of the HP customers stuck with the same as a bricked laptop due to this faulty GPU chip, overall I still would have saved money by only buying 2 or 3 extended warrantys over my total lifetime. I know I'll personally never buy one again.
Or to put it another way, each time a salesman tries to sell me an extended warranty, I ask him or her "So, you're saying your product is so faulty that you don't think it will last one day past the expiry of the standard warranty?". Some do have an answer to that, but many don't. :)
i think nvidia have had their day
ati have been stronger ever since amd got involved. even though amd's cpu department have lagged behind intel (possibly as a consequence?)
nvidia needs to do something special to stay in the game. the 8800gtx was a good move which consumers responded to, why didnt they continue with the same ethos? subsequent top end nvidia cards have been a wet fart...
My Asus laptop equiped with an Nvidia 7700, went pop outside of its two year warrenty. Asus came and took it away, replaced the mainboard with the faulty chip soldered on, and brought it back a week later as good as new. none of the above at any cost to me. really happy. even if it goes pop after another two years, i'll be looking to replace it with an Asus.
From what i can figure out, as the problem is with Nvidia parts, Nvidia actually have a stash of money set aside for their OEM's to replace dud parts. so i expect/hope Asus charged Nvidia for my laptop to be fixed.
Dell it seems were doing the same, and i can't see why HP arn't doing the same aswell?
I've got a HP machine (not a laptop but a Pavillion Slimline Desktop) which failed (has an NVidia chipset) and I was expecting to just have to replace the machine and salvage what I could out of it however I was pleasantly surprised to find that HP have actually extended the warranty on it by another year so after speaking to HP they said they will collect the machine and repair it!
See here for more details: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01514044&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&os=2093&printable=no&product=3424793
So no doubt HP will hopefully do the right thing and repair these faulty machines even if they are out of warranty.
Rob
My dv9309ea died 2 months ago (17 months old), artefacts followed by complete failure - it went in before that for repair to a broken hinge (another common problem I am told which was repaired free of charge). So far I have received no word back from HP's local repair partner and I couldn't be bothered to phone again. The 7600 GO in it isn't worth being repaired for the sake that it'll probably happen again anyway. The funny thing is I had a 7600GS in one of my desktops die as well. Yet people wonder why I won't go near nvidia again... or HP for that matter.
I must thank nvidia though - I'm still loving my ATI HD4850.
Over time reading numerous posts about HP computers I think they should stick to making printers. They do a nice job with them.
From what I hear HP and DEll support both suck.
I agree with the one post about his ASUS laptop. I have heard nothing but good things about ASUS support.
I find it an amazing coincidence that this article came out on the day I received a phone call from an HP case manager refusing to fix a laptop I bought in August 2007.
It's a dv2535ea with an intel processor so not covered by the "HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement". Funny how its only AMD processor machines which are covered. I did hear a rumour that AMD machines are covered because AMD agreed to help out with the cost of fixing these. Or maybe the AMD motherboards are just much cheaper to fix/replace.
Anyway I have a complaint number so I will be talking to Trading Standards about HP selling products which are "not fit for purpose" or of "Merchantable quality"
I recommend everyone else affected does the same.
Why all the hate for HP? Wheres the righteous indignation for nvidia who caused the issue? Sure HP is not handling the repairs well but intrinsically they are not the cause of the issue, nvidia is.
Just doesn't make sense to me when laptops from many vendors are failing in just the same way as these HP's.
I second that demand for a fully fledged Charlie article designed to strip paint.
Or ... post pictures of Sylvia in a bikini.
Either way the hits for the site will go up ... heh heh.
Don't even think about getting into a bikini Charlie ... /vomits ...
My 9700 is starting to give me issues ~a year and a half after purchase. I was a loyal customer of HP, until I called support, had the tech go seriously rude on me and put me in terminal hold. The machine is still working, and the extended warranty sold by BB would have cost about the same as the stated cost for a new MB.
No more HPs for me or my customers and friends though, not even printers.
Apple customers are even more angry than HP customers:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1767221&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1882489
My dv9702ea laptop has the defective nvidia chipset. Had three returns already within the warranty period for hard disk failure but it looks like it might go kaput now that they warranty has just expired.
Where are the windows7 lappies? i dont want to be forced to buy a vista laptop
This has actually been a long running issue that is only recently gaining more visibility. I purchased an HP NX9500 laptop back in 2004 with an Nvidia 5700 Go chipset. The graphics chips started showing this exact same problem just outside the 1 year warranty exactly the same as the current ones are and HP refused to acknowledge there was a problem. We class action sued them and settled for free repairs. Subsequently HP replaced any of the motherboards repaired under the settlement with a new board equipped with ATI graphics instead. Said laptop has worked perfectly ever since :)
We are desperately sorry for the situation that has occured and take full responsibility for the issues that our customers have faced.
Nothing is more important to us than making sure that our customers are 100% satisfied.
As a result, we will be reviewing the whole situation, alongside our partners, and making sure that customers who have suffered because our design and manufacturing issues get fully compensated.
The issues were caused by genuine mistakes and we intend to fix them with genuine customer service.
(wake up - wake up - you're dreaming boys !)
I have a 6600 series with amd and nvidia comination and i get all the errors the ones on the recall are having...I have no luck with hp whatsoever and this is my THIRD replacement i got from them....i'm not lieing! It works half the time the other have i get bad drive bluescreen and have to restart. My Windows score droped from 3.3 to 2.9 because of graphics. I will never in my remainding years buy another HP laptop. Its a B I T C H to deal with their service people and when i sends my laptop away they keep it for 2 months. STAY AWAY FROM HP!
F'ING Jerks, I had the same NV graphics as many of the extended warranty covered models, and the screen went dim just before 2 years out. They could not give me any reason why my model was excluded from the free repairs NV compensated HP for. I think it may be because the base model didn't have NV grfx included, and I added as an upgrade.
Yes, I payed a premium to get shafted.
I let some poor sap in New Delhi know Just what I thought about NV & HP, but of course it was my own wasted time. He acted as if I was the first person with these issues.
I recently figured out that monitor output still works, so at least I've started getting some more use out of the $1400 notebook again, all be it tethered to my 19 inch LCD monitor.
Please send me any News on a class action against these Rotten, SOB pillow biters. They owe me.
DON'T BUY HP.
I think that all computers should be considered a "5yr" warranty, otherwise it's not fit for purpose, who would buy a computer with the express purpose of changing it every year or 3. A minimum of 5 years life should be expected, how many households can afford to spend on computing more than that.....I would think that anything less would be unreasonable beyond being broken by the user. Anyway, have a Benq S41 with Intel/Nvidia 8600m GS, gets a bit warm specially when trying to play Supreme Commander, but have yet to have the graphics die on me, just the DVD Drive since my 16mth son is very curious and likes to push buttons....
While HP current issue with nVidia based graphics is something htat the company should deal with, extended warranties on all computers is not necessarilly a good thing. Warranties add to the cost and computer systems do have low economic lifespans. Sure some people keep their systems for quite a few years, but most and should not bear the global extended cost due to the requirements of few.
The actual model of extended warranties is quite fitting.
Again, the above applies to normal products, not the sale of knowingly defective ones.
I have a HP DV9035nr with a nvidia 7600 go. It died just after 24 months. All the symptoms being that of a defective gpu tearing in the picture then it on startup it has a blank screen. I Verified this with a local computer shop. HP doesn’t even recognize Intel based nvidia laptops as having the defect (even though the graphics are the same). They won’t even look at the laptop for less than $300. These laptops should have been recalled not releasing bios to have the fan on all the time which probably just made my laptop die later. If anyone has any info on getting my laptop fixed by nvidia or hp, or filing a lawsuit please let me know.