HP Pavilion Model #: m9600t Vista 64-bit [ Edited ]

[Hanspuppa]

Hello woxofog, Glad to hear you have gotten some respone from HP on your system. The deadline date that seems to be confusing everyone was for those owners that paid someone to repair their system. This was for a reimbursement deadline only.

The start of the HP motherboard replacement for the systems in the Settlement will start on Dec. 9, 2011.

If you manage to get your motherboard replaced, I am fairly sure your system will operate as it should.

I have not heard of any of the motherboard replacment systems with any issues as yet. HP has already started to replace some of these motherboards.

The drives you list are the C: partition , the D: Factory partition, the CD\DVD drives and the memory flash card slots in your card reader.

The memory dump you mention is a result of the faulty motherboard. Every time you get a memory dump, a little bit of data is lost, and after a few memory dumps, the system may not even boot.

I experienced memory dumps several times each day, and about every 3-4 days, I would have to perform a Factory Restore in order to even try and use the system. This occurred on each replacement motherboard, but that was before HP was really aware of the issue, or had so many motherboards, they just needed to see if some of them worked.

Dell has it's on issues as well. I had a Dell XPS system that I had to send back 3 times and Dell replaced it with a new system each time, and not just a replacement motherboard. They finally shipped me a system that woud work properly.

The wife uses this Dell system now as well as her HP 17 inch Laptop. She has learned so much about computers now that she even advises me, when I have difficulties. Not many men can say, or will admit, they have a Geek Wife... ... I know who the real boss is....

[woxofog]

Hello Hanspuppa,

As always your reply is encouraging and helps to lower my stress level with HP.  Case manager Justin has so far not responded to my recent email (including this morning's BSOD report), but maybe he is just overwhelmed with new complaints from m9600t owners who have also "seen the light" following our forum posts. : 

Perhaps my native (naive?) optimism will pay off in the end with HP and they will make things right. I can, however, do without the suspense of waiting, waiting, waiting to talk/deal with a "real life" HP decision maker.

Re Dell and similar problems with them, if memory serves they had failures with very slowly swelling capacitors, a faulty Chinese product that after a year or so caused severe system problems-sort of a delayed time bomb effect. No doubt Dell also has had other quality issues, not unlike HP.  

So what's a customer to do? Well, one thing I do is keep renewing a yearly (online) subscription to Consumer Reports. 

Congratulations on marrying such an intelligent and helpful wife!  My current lady friend (I lost my wife some years ago from a stroke) describes herself as a "luddite" when it comes to computers, the result of bad karma and a stressful need to keep updating her (Big Iron) computer skills working for Chevron. 

I keep clicking the Kudos button for your replies, (hope it's working ok), and am only waiting for some sort of positive reply from HP's Justin to click the Solution button.

[Hanspuppa]

Hello woxofog, Sorry to hear of your loss with respect to your wife. I have had 3 strokes in the past 4 years, so I have a slight understanding of what you may have gone through. I only lost my memory and had no other physical issues. The wife seems to have gotten a vaction due to the memory loss. The memory has returned somewhat, but my problem is, I have all these people that come to me wanting their computers repaired, and the vast majority of them are Windows XP.

I haven't owned a Windows XP system in 6-7 years, and now I can't remember anything about the Windows XP operating system, much less Vista and Windows 7. I've been working on an old Dell, shipped in 2004, with a 40 GB hard drive, 256 MBs memory, and the Lady that owns this system has two teen age daughters that love to download music. No need to  go on with this story, as it should be self explanatory now. It took me 13 hours to restore this system, much of this time was downloading the Windows Updates, into a snail computer.

I'm very familiar with the motherboard capacitor issue, but the issue I had with the Dell systems was the Raid controller chip.

With a Raid0 array, the array would degrade in a few days, much like the HP defective motherboards, and I had to keep reinstalling the operating system every few days. I never could get Dell to admit there was an issue.

I finally gave up on the Raid0 array and just used the system with a single operating system hard drive and used the other hard drive as a backup. Not had one issue since, or I should say the wife has not. She inherited the Dell when I went with the HP Elite.

I appreciate all the Kudos the nice members kindly give to me, but I really am not here to get Kudo points, but to try and help others as best I can. I have been there and I know how difficult it can be to get the support that you need. I soon found out that I knew more about my issues than the support people did, so I stopped calling support and started repairing my systems myself.

[woxofog]

NOTE--ATTEMPT TO POST THIS AT 11-28-4:49 PM SEEMS TO HAVE FAILED. THIS IS 2ND TRY AT 9:07 PM

Hello Hanspuppa,

As always your reply is encouraging and helps to lower my stress level with HP.  Case manager Justin has so far not responded to my recent email (including this morning's BSOD report), but maybe he is just overwhelmed with new complaints from m9600t owners who have also "seen the light" following our forum posts. : 

Perhaps my native (naive?) optimism will pay off in the end with HP and they will make things right. I can, however, do without the suspense of waiting, waiting, waiting to talk/deal with a "real life" HP decision maker.

Re Dell and similar problems with them, if memory serves they had failures with very slowly swelling capacitors, a faulty Chinese product that after a year or so caused severe system problems-sort of a delayed time bomb effect. No doubt Dell also has had other quality issues, not unlike HP.  

So what's a customer to do? Well, one thing I do is keep renewing a yearly (online) subscription to Consumer Reports. 

Congratulations on marrying such an intelligent and helpful wife!  My current lady friend (I lost my wife some years ago from a stroke) describes herself as a "luddite" when it comes to computers, the result of bad karma and a stressful need to keep updating her (Big Iron) computer skills working for Chevron. 

I keep clicking the Kudos button for your replies, (hope it's working ok), and am only waiting for some sort of positive reply from HP's Justin to click the Solution button.

[woxofog]

Hello Hanspuppa,

Thanks for your kind words re my wife's stroke. Yes, her post-stroke recovery was minimal at best--full left side paralysis.

She slowly declined over a three year period until her Dec 1996 death, one week after being hospitalized for a collapsed  lung. Taking care of her at home was a difficult/full time/round-the-clock /exhausting job, which ultimately led to severe health problems for me.

Your volunteer work on the older Dell for the lady with the music loving daughters resonates with me. In the summer, the electronics engineer friend (mentioned earlier) and I do volunteer work at a senior center where I vacation and he lives year around. We keep the centers's local network of 6 Dells (XP, donated by Varian), along with two printers running smoothly. This involves everything from Wireless network/hardware trouble-shooting to making sure Microsoft downloads are current and also that Microsoft Security Essentials is current. One can indeed spend lots of time just making sure that all MS updates are current.

We both like volunteering and helping out, especially with walk-ins who are distraught and in serious need of getting support. (The Center's network is free to the public, only minimal charges for printing). Success is its own reward, especially with seniors who often are in most need and are truly grateful. I believe you must feel the same about your participation and successes on this HP forum.

P. S. No reply today to my email to HP case manager, also no second HP attempt to call me. I am still hopeful . .

Stay tuned. . .

[woxofog · Accepted solution]

Hello Hanspuppa,

Well HP's Justin called me (again) this Tuesday morning and after some sparring around re HP's duty to inform m9600t owners of the class action suit, I agreed to his offer of a replacement system board, to be installed at my place this coming Friday afternoon. He is Fed Ex-ing the board and will send an HP agent-techie to install.

So thanks to your help and advice, just maybe two years of really lousy m9600t performance will come to an end.

According to Justin, my three year "warranty" really was a three year warranty--no quotes now, meaning it truly was a warranty in the sense that what I purchased DID cover hardware issues for three years. Justin did not explain, until I asked him, whether or not the three year warranty also covered the new board. His answer was Yes it did. He did not remember, until I asked, when that warranty expires--the answer is in April, 2012.

According to Justin the link you provided to file an "in-warranty" claim was only for owners falling under the class action settlement (one year warranties only), and that was why I was never informed, because I had a truly 3-year hardware warranty. I think he is/was dead wrong on the link, that it led in fact to the correct site to file a warranty claim, regardless of any class action issue, but I elected not to dispute further with him, in order to get to the bottom line (I still did not know HP's intentions). Recall that it was while trying to file a warranty claim at the link you provided that the dialog informed me, INCORRECTLY, I was "out-of warranty".

So justice, of a sort, is done and I can maybe again to believe some HP's sales claims. Interestingly enough Consumer Reports now rates HP high performance desktops at the highest levels, even ahead of Dell. A quite different situation than in 2009 when CR's commentary motivated me to buy the three year warranty.     

I will now click "Post" and then click "Accept Solution"--Hope it works!  End of saga . . . . . .

[Hanspuppa]

Hello woxofog, That is really great news. Somtimes one hand does not know what the other hand is doing.

This HP Motherboard Replacement Program is still in the early stages, so for others it may get better than your experience.

I'm especially glad to hear that HP is dispatching the Technician to your location, and you want have to box the Tower up and go to the local Fed-Ex station to ship it back, as I did 4 times.

If all goes well, as I expect it will, you should as of Friday, have a nice working system.

Before the Technician leaves, be sure you boot the system and log on to the Internet, and open a few programs.

I have read some post where this was not done and the replacement motherboard did not resolve the issues.

Good things do come to those that wait, and are patient, but patience can only stretch so far.

Congratulations...

[woxofog]

Hello Hanspuppa,

Well the good news is that the m9600t has a new system board and so far is performing without blue screens and freezes. Boot seems faster, pocket drive recognized on bootup, and shutdown snappier without usual freeze.

The bad news is that the card reader (assorted cards) still seems not to function. Insert a card and the read light comes on, but nothing good then happens except the light flashes. The inserted card is not recognized in My Computer. Have only tested this with one card, will try with different sizes and makes.

HP's installer spent about two hours Friday afternoon taking apart the machine, removing the old board, putting in the new, buttoning up (only had one screw left over!), and testing. He was a friendly young man, competent, working as an independent contractor for HP. He took the old board with him, to be Fed-Exed back to HP.

I ran Belarc before and after the replacement and learned some interesting things, reported next.

NB--Others may have noticed similar anomalies, so these may not be diagnostic, although Belarc's failure to recognize all RAM actually present should be a warning sign to any user with the old board. Of course one needs to know the actual number of RAM sticks HP inserted, information readily available on order documentation, and/or by opening the case and just looking. One also needs to have Belarc installed. its report generated, and actual RAM compared with Belarc findings.  Belarc is a free download.

OldB means Belarc report on old board, NewB means Belarc report on new board, Actual means "ground truth" discovered when case opened.

1) OldB--Only 4GB of RAM installed, DIMM slot 0 empty.

2) NewB- 6GB of RAM installed, DIMM slot 0 full.

3) Actual--6GB correct, Three 2 GB sticks were present when case first opened--no RAM ever added or subtracted before, during, or after replacing system board.

4) Both old and new  boards had exactly six slots for RAM, in three pairs of two, first slot in a pair black, second slot in a pair blue. When case first opened, the three 2GB sticks present only in the three black slots. This configuration maintained on new board.

5) OldB--System board reported as PEGATRON CORPORATION TRUCKEE 1.01 with American Megatrends BIOS 5.07 03/24/09

6) NewB--System board reported as PEGATRON CORPORATION TRUCKEE 1.03E with American Megatrends BIOS 5.29 09/17/2010

Well these findings have led me to conclude that the m9600t shortcomings with the old board were  consistent with other machines I have owned/repaired/sold that had a bad stick of RAM. The difference in the present case is that the stick in DIMM-0 was not bad, the old board was just failing to find it, for whatever reason--BIOS problem, design problem, manufacturing problem, etc.  My conclusion is of course speculation because it is in a sense "too simple and easy to discover". IF in fact it is true, HP should have picked it up right away. IF it is/was a BIOS problem, HP might have been able to solve things with a BIOS firmware fix.

"Oh joy, Oh rapture unforeseen, the clouded sky is now serene. . . "    Serene sky yes, but also very windy. 

[Hanspuppa]

Hello woxofog, The PEGATRON CORPORATION TRUCKEE 1.03E with American Megatrends BIOS 5.29 09/17/2010 seems to be the latest working motherboad and BIOS.

I have not read where any of these boards have caused any issues.

The issue with the original motherboards were more than just a BIOS issue. If it were, HP could have determined this and offered a BIOS Update to correct the issue.

Since the issue appeared to be random events, I believe the chipset on the motherboard could have been faulty.

I have no way of knowing this, but just a suspicion. At least many of these system owners are getting their systems repaired, and hopefully they want need any further repairs.