Warranty rights

[dLutchman]

Hey all,

My laptop just failed this morning - I closed the lid as usual last night to make it hibernate, and this morning the fans and HDD start up but nothing else happens except for the CAPS LOCK and NUM LOCK LEDs flashing. The LED blinks tell me its a corrupted BIOS (2 blinks per cycle), I expect it'll be an easy fix for a support centre (reflash or replace a cheap EEPROM).

HP DV6-2110AX serial CNF0337LJB - checked on the warranty site, the warranty expired 27 November 2011. Obviously this leaves me severely hacked off, its under a month past the warranty end.

I'm going to take it back to the retailer tomorrow, as under New Zealand's Consumer Guarantees Act it must be fit for purpose (the Ministry of Consumer Affairs guideline at http://www.consumeraffairs.govt.nz/for-consumers/goods/warranties mentions this sort of case specifically - "If you have a computer and the warranty is for one year, that doesn’t mean that you expect a new computer to only last one year. ").

Pessimistic me expects a fight with the retailer, so I called HP Customer Support, who referred me on to the NZ repair agent, Visual Group Ltd. They advised me they're unable to do anything without a support claim number from the retailer or HP. I'm starting to suspect this is going to be difficult.

Have any advice for me?

Dev

[dLutchman]

Oh, and the usual info -

 1. Product Name and Number
  HP Pavilion DV6-2110AX

  Serial [Personal Information Removed]

  Product Number WG320PA#ABG

 2. Operating System installed (if applicable)
     Factory-installed Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit

 3. Error message (if any)
     Blank screen, CAPS LOCK and NUM LOCK LEDS flashing twice per cycle on a repeating cycle. No beeps,   buttons for  WiFi, volume, mute, power etc. all illuminated.

 4. Any changes made to your system before the issue occurred
    None.

And bonus 5th - tried a hard reset by pulling battery and AC adaptor, holding down power button for 15 seconds, reconnecting AC adaptor and powering on. No effect. Also tried holding down all four arrow keys for BIOS rebuild, no effect.

[Mumbodog]

Are you sure the warranty expiry date is accurate, the warranty date starts from the date of Purchase.

Unless you registered you purchase date with HP via FAX and email they don't know when you bought it and have an arbitrary expiration date set for it.

[dLutchman]

Yes, I pulled the exact date off my Internet Banking - 26 NOV 2011 - one day's difference.

[Mumbodog]

Unfortunately I don't have any advice to get it working, sorry about it failing shortly after warranty ran out. Sounds like a bad motherboard to me.

You could send a polite email the HP CEO Executive Team

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/email/ceo/index.html

[sonarcsan]

Sorry to butt in with my own issue here. This warranty rights caught my attention.  I purchased my Pavilion dv6 eight days ago (12.12.2011) but the 'warranty start date' indicated in the BIOS set-up and system info was 19.08.2011 which is 4 months earlier.  If the warranty start date should be the date of purchase, does this mean that the laptop I bought was not really brand new as marketed or was a returned item?  Please I really need to know so I can return the item back to the retailer asap.

[Mumbodog]

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sonarcsan wrote:

Sorry to butt in with my own issue here. This warranty rights caught my attention.  I purchased my Pavilion dv6 eight days ago (12.12.2011) but the 'warranty start date' indicated in the BIOS set-up and system info was 19.08.2011 which is 4 months earlier.  If the warranty start date should be the date of purchase, does this mean that the laptop I bought was not really brand new as marketed or was a returned item?  Please I really need to know so I can return the item back to the retailer asap.

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No, it is a manufacture date, HP has no way to set the purchase date unless you order from the HP website, you have to contact HP and register your purchase date, send a copy of the receipt via FAX, etc, so contact HP to properly register it.

USA (use the chat feature)
http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/contact_us.html

Everywhere else
http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/wwcontact_us.html