Do Not Buy HP Notebooks

[DaChief-4]

I want to vent my disgust with HP notebook product line.

I want to state that I am not the generic user, I have been working in the personal computer industry since 1986.  And, in the mid-90's... I was arepair center supervisor for AST Computer Notebooks at their National Repair Depot in Fort Worth TX. So, I have a very good understanding of notebook computers!

I want to point out I do not have any particular vendetta against HP as a company.  I currently work for a company that exclusively uses HP Servers and very happy with that decision.

Here are my complaints:

I currently own two HP Notebooks, both are just over 3 years old.  Both have had to have the Main Logic boards replaced!

-           This issue is a known issue by HP and NVidia.  HP sold these notebooks back in 2006 and 2007.  My notebook is a DV9260NR and the other is a less expensive DV AMD model.

-          HP has decided to not do anything about this issue.  Along with NVidia have created significant hurtles to prevent them experiencing any costs by their companies selling defective products!

-          The settlement solution is outrageous,  even though it is known that most of the notebooks that use the chip set in question is sure to fail… if it has not by the period specified in the law suit… you are just out of luck!

It is my educated observation…

-          The heat removal system for this notebook is lacking.

-          This is one of the worst cases of a company turning its back on its customers I have observed!

Based on this conduct by HP…

-          I will never purchase another HP product or recommend one to anyone I would like to remain friends with!

-          I will never purchase network equipment from HP.

-          In the future look at other vendors for my server needs.

[pillpusher]

Same problem

No one wants to take responsibility

Bought Dv2800t for 1000+ in 2008

No One emailed or informed me of settlement.

Called and talked numerous times with HP techs

FRrom 2004 to now I bought 4 HP laptops and 1 Desktop.

2 of them bought 2008 and late 2009 of which one dead and other power jack issues

HP wants 400 each to fix!!!!

Is this how you treat HP customer?

[brasstown1]

I am a retired IT person with over 40 years of experience and I purchased a HP laptop for my wife 3 years ago. Last year the DVD drive disappered and I suspected a driver problem but there was no urgency to fix it so I let it slide. This Feb. the sound crapped out. Suspect it was a driver so I went through the drill but it did not work.

I restored the PC back to my earliest restore point and booted it and lo & behold the sound worked. I did not turn off automatic update and because it was restored to a older version a update came down and was installed and requested a restart. It restarted and as I watched it the speaker icon in the task bar which was in its normal mode suddenly had a big fat red X displayed on it and everything reverted to it's prior state.

At this point I said to heck with it and bought her a new Lenovo which has been totally trouble free.

The HP sits in the living room and is kind of an orphan machine only used as a spare.

I had contacted HP support and they were useless... I also won't buy any more HP gear.... Low Quality and poor support along with buggy software.

I think device wise the hardware probably is ok but somewhere in the interface between their firmware and software there is a major problem. Over the past three years they have sent down many software fixes apart from the normal MS fixes.  I suspect that they have a crew just making fixes and shipping them out b4 doing any major testing. In other words amature hackers.....

My Laptop PC is a Winbook which is 6 years old runninig XP and has been bulletproof. If a small company from Tiawan can build a high quality PC with decent firmware why can't a multi-billion dollar company get their act together and correct this issue and make their customers happy?

So to sum it all up --- go buy something else................

[Maumamau]

Great comment and advise.  My wife and I bought an HP dv7 good for a month now out of the 3 USB ports only one is working and I am not that good with computers but I have done all I know to get the 2 other ports to work.  When I need printing I connect an old printer HP6210xi All-in-One to one USB port and a wireless mouse to the other, but now in order to print I have to umplug the receiver an connect my printer.  Thanks for your comment.

[DaChief-4]

All,

Since my last post, I have done some research and found a possible solution.  I spoke to one of the technicians at a company that will repair your HP notebook at a reasonable price.... the company and it appears that they have a good understanding of what is casuing the solution.  

Technically, the issue is related the solder that is used to connect the Ball Grid Array (BGA) chip.  When they removed Lead from solder some years back,  various issues arose... we just happend to get caught up in them.  My understanding is that not only HP, but Dell and various other manufactures got caught up in this issue.  So, the information I found has somewhat redeemed HP's technology, but not thier business practices... Anyway, here is a cut from Pace, explaining the issue...

From PACE's website... (PACE is a manufacture of soldering equipment)

Lead-free solders do not behave or look like their lead containing counterparts. As our industry changes over to lead-free solders, individual PCB assemblers will need to address several issues relating to hand soldering and rework. These issues include: 

• Higher melting temperatures which mistakenly lead to operators increasing equipment operating temperatures. Higher operating temperatures do not make the process quicker, they actually slow it down.
• Poor wetting and spreading properties – Additional time is required when working with lead free solders, they do not spread or wet like lead containing solders do. Operators must slow down.
• Difficult to work with - Bridging and insufficient solder defects are common, even for experienced operators, leading to operator frustration.
• Dull grainy finish – makes inspection difficult.

Because lead-free solders oxidize quickly, more aggressive and longer lasting fluxes are required to keep surfaces clean and free from oxidation. 

This is cut from: http://www.pacedirect.com/leadfree.php

I am going to send my notebook to the company mentioned my first paragraph... you can make your own decissions... but, here is the link to thier ebay portal.

http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-DV9260nr-Laptop-Motherboard-Repair-90-day-Warranty-/280651252228?pt=Motherboa...

So... my only question is why HP did not just own up to this being the issue and offer a repair as an issue...

[tlokzz]

I am also displeased with HP atm. I bought a new dv7-4283cl less then 2 weeks ago and got the "System cooling fan is not working properly" during BIOS boot and I don''t want to pay anything to replace it in this defective laptop nor do I want to void my warranty. I called HP so that I could send it out and I told them I don't want to lose any of my HDD data and the guy gave me the run around how they can't gaurantee anything so I told him I will just remove it before sending and now there throwing a fit saying I can't do that because they need it with it so they can check to make sure it works after. Now I am not your average computer user either as I build computers and my occupation is a computer engineer/ web coder.

[hp-neveragain]

I have purchased HP computer, laptops, printers for over 30 years.  Bought an HDX 16x 1 1/2 years ago and it of course being just out of warranty, the keyboard and display went totally wacky--keyboard stopped working except under certain conditions, and the display was garbled.

Contacted HP support (now that's an oxymoron if ever there was) , they agreed to repair it and we negotiated that I would pay a set amount for the repair, which I was willing to do.  Great so far.  Then after shipping the laptop I get a call from HP support (you know, the oxymorons) claiming that they cannot repair the laptop as they no longer stock the parts.  What???? On a laptop model less than 1 1/2 years old????  Evidently!  

Then to top it off they said they will return the laptop to me and will send two hinges and for me to bring it to a local computer repair shop and pay them to install the hinges.  What????  I questioned them asking why would they send me hinges to get installed if they do not have the parts to repair the computer, won't or can't tell me what's wrong with it, etc. So what the heck are hinges going to do??? They said that's all they could do.  No other explanations, no other options.  Mind you, these are the HP Escalation people in Canada--not the totally useless tech support in India.  HOWEVER, THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS IN THE ACCENT!  They are COMPLETELY USELESS AND WELL TRAINED IN HP'S DENIAL STRATEGIES.  At my  request, I was even contacted by an Executive Case Manager--Shannon.  Yes, it is a male.  He simply repeated the same HP company line, denials and HP's official go "F" yourself attitude.

This entire scenario stinks of a cover-up, of a poorly designed and/or build model, from which  HP has simply walked away--stonewalling, taking no responsibility, issuing denials and meaningless non-solutions.

NEVER., NEVER, NEVER, BUY AN HP LAPTOP!!!!   They are pieces of crap.  This is my third and last.  And this fiasco ends my over 30 years of consuming HP products.  THey can all go "F" themselves.   YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.  PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!

[skisharkey]

I own 3 HP laptops and will never buy HP product again. My journey started in 2008 when I bought 2 identical laptops dv6700. First one had the NVIDIA issue from day one, the other overheating, but somehow surviving the ordeals, the second laptop still works. Here is what happened:

My case was closed due to time passing after NVIDIA class action settlement. My laptop was not repaired, I wasn’t offered a discount for a new product neither I received any replacement. I can’t say I have not been notified via e-mail, because HP e-mail might have gone to the spam folder, I can say for sure that I have NOT been notified in any other way (US mail, phone call, or HP advisor SW pre-installed).

For your information here are details of how HP company deals with customers. I believe I had a legitimate reason from a day one and to this day never received satisfying solution to my problem with my HP laptop. I realize HP company built my laptop using other party HW product and thus might not be fully responsible for the performance of my laptop, but the fact that I have never been offered a satisfying solution by HP company AFTER they have been awarded settlement from NVIDIA is troubling me.  

After purchasing my laptop and using it almost daily I have been experiencing problems with my video display that I have been trying to resolve with technical support, with Best Buy, and  later with Customer Service after my laptop was out of warranty.

Technical support Professionals were obviously not informed about my problem since the NVIDIA defect admission came out later that year, so we checked the drivers and Windows updates, antivirus definitions, and HP updates every time I called.  We didn’t know if we solved the problem since we couldn’t immediately reproduce it during my calls to HP. The flickering of display and freezing and heating of the bottom of the laptop persisted however; in winter time the problem seemed less severe, so I kept up with updates and rebooting to resolve my unresponsive HP laptop. Later that year technical support  told me I have conflicting antivirus SW on my laptop and we took care of it by removing it, but the problem only repeated itself next day. I went to Best Buy where I bought the laptop and we couldn’t reproduce the problem. They updated the BIOS and NVIDIA drivers and look at MSCONFIG and disabled some programs from loading to memory to keep the system CPU running cooler. Only the problem occurred next day. I didn’t have time to deal with this any more, it was easier to reboot than to argue with the technical support or customer service. In summer 2009 I moved to NM and the problem became so severe that I contacted technical support again, but the laptop was out of warranty. I put ice trays under the laptop and that seemed to help with the display freezing, but didn’t make the problem go away. After hours of frustration I decided to reload Windows Vista and restore the original defaults. The problem didn’t go away so I decided to buy a new HP laptop (now I have 3) and give this one to my daughter who learned to live with it. Last week my daughter called me from Colorado where she is currently visiting that the laptop doesn’t respond to rebooting and flickers more often. I did some Internet research and discovered the class action suit against NVIDIA.  After reading other customer problems I realized that my problem with my HP (dv6000 series)  NVIDIA was widely reported by other users and recognized by other companies like Dell, Apple and HP; even NVIDIA (CEO himself) admitted the issue.

I am writing this because HP (customer support or technical support) never suggested a defective NVIDIA card, not even in 2009 when I called last time. I have not received any notifications, phone calls or mail that my laptop might be the one affected by faulty chip. Instead I have been told that there are instances when SW interferes with other SW that was installed and removing it sometimes doesn’t help because of issues in the registry etc. I worked with all my ability on the issue. It cost me my time and a lot of grief believing that I must have made a mistake somewhere. I admit I have learned to appreciate how complex HW and software issues might be and in some instances we just have to wait for the Windows Update to come up with a patch to solve known issues. I patiently waited, worked on the issue and complained little. I believe now that unfortunately, my laptop has been out of warranty failed due to what I believe to be a defective NVIDIA graphics chip. I know this because I exhausted all options of SW removal, driver repair, new BIOS, OS Windows Vista re-installation, proper antivirus SW installation and lastly this video and article admitting the HW NVIDIA issue:

http://www.nvidiadefect.com/video-of-nvidia-chief-executive-admitting-nvidia-defect-t1845.html 

http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1215037160521.html

I realize that there was a settlement reached with NVIDIA and HP has been compensated and there was a window of opportunity when HP was supposedly replacing the affected laptops and I missed that window.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/30/nvidia-reaches-settlement-in-class-action-suit-affecting-apple/

My long journey with HP support ended today talking to Susan at HP headquarters who listened to my case patiently a repeated robotically that HP can’t do anything for me since I missed the time – window of opportunity after the settlement with NVIDIA - she didn't give me the time window.

Last week when I spoke to a HP customer service representative I was given the HP headquarters phone # and issued ticket #, he assured me that HP will definitely work with me and help me solve my problem to my highest satisfaction. Little he knows about company he works for. 

I believe that I have done my job and gave new customers a little insight into how HP customer service works; they did well on covering up the issue in 2009, and today most likely followed orders from above by not giving me any options. I realize that the CEO inherited an old problem and he is just making sure that despite HP company's bad luck HP somehow survives. It employs a lot of people, but doing bad business, covering up issues, don't offer help, treating customers like they don't know what they are talking about won't make HP last! I will end with words - same as I assured Susan today over the phone that I will never buy another HP product again and advise everybody I know to do the same. You have choices, use them wisely, touch the laptops on display, are they running hot? Don't buy HP!!!

[ciaroman23]

How on earth did you get any sort of compensation in 2012? I would love to know how if you could inform me or post a link... I tried to get the issue resolved on my HP Pavilion dv2700t customizable Notebook PC back in august of 08 and other accessories over $2k... Needless to say, it crapped out on me early 2010... its still sitting beside me as we speak with all original parts in tact taking up space...

Specs:

HP Pavilion dv2700t customizable Notebook PC

• • Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
• • Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo Processor T5850 (2.16GHz)
• • 14.1" diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
• • 4GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• • 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
• • 250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
• • Webcam + Fingerprint Reader
• • Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network w/Bluetooth
• • LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support
• • 40% OFF HP ExpressCard Digital/Analog TV Tuner
• • 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• • Microsoft(R) Office Basic 2007
• • Norton 360(TM) - 15 Months
• • Roxio Backup MyPC(TM)
• • Adobe Premiere Elements 4
• • HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

All I was told by HP was that this laptop was no longer under warranty and they couldn't help me at all unless I take it to a HP repair shop... I was extremely upset with this, and decided never to buy HP products again... its good to know I wasn't responsible for the faulty board/card, and that I wasn't the only one who got BURNED!!!! I ended up buying a cheap $280 Acer that has lasted over 2 yrs, doesn't overheat, and does what I need it to do...

That said, I was never informed of this lawsuit either... I had no idea there was one until now... so any info you could supply on how I or anyone else might be compensated would be great. I have scanned the links posted, but do not have the time to really read in depth on what to do...

Thanks

[skisharkey]

Hi.

This is my 4th HP laptop. Had 3 printers, HP cameras...I would say I used to be one of the most faithful customers until...The # 3 was the one that was having HUGE problems, The other 3 were overheating and I made them work by not opening too many videos. HP NEVER TOOK CARE OF THE PROBLEM, I GOT NOTHING, no compensation, no discount... and will buy NOTHING ever from them. I'd say this company knows it is going down and doesn't care about the customers! Take care SO