Defective Battery turned to Defective Motherboard after troubleshooting with customer service

[Carens2]

I know posting this might be too late, and I would like to ask if I could do something about my problem.

So last April 2024, I submitted my laptop (expired warranty) to an official HP servicing office due to a battery error during startup. The office diagnosed that the battery requires replacement, since my warranty for the unit already expired, I paid for the battery replacement. I asked the customer service agent if the unit was still functional even without the battery to which he responded yes, the unit was still functional even without the battery. As such I asked if it was possible to temporarily pull out the unit without the battery (due to work-related stuff) since the replacement part would take 2 weeks to arrive to which the agent again said, yes.

Weeks passed, I received an email that the battery replacement had already arrived so I resubmitted my unit the next day, FUNCTIONAL, to the office. 3 days after submitting it, I was told they had encountered another problem and that the motherboard was damaged and needed replacement. The cost of replacing the motherboard was equal to buying a new unit with the same model as mine. I protested since it was quite unfair for me to pay the cost of repair when I submitted the unit with no damage to the motherboard.

However, I was just told that this is quite common for units whose warranty already expired and that they could do nothing about it. I bought my laptop 5 years ago (HP - Envy Ryzen 7) so I was quite angry about it but didn't force the issue since I didn't know what the correct course of action to take. 

I pulled out my now-damaged unit last May 2024. I am writing this because I was told upon pulling out of the unit that they would be emailing me a "report" of what happened to my unit. I received the email this month, July 5, 2024, but upon checking it there was no mention of the damaged motherboard, only the battery replacement was mentioned.

I forgot to mention that I was only compensated for the battery replacement and the diagnostic fee aside from that my unit is bricked. So my question is, is the office liable, or is there nothing that can be done? Can I do something about my damaged laptop aside from motherboard replacement?

[erico · Accepted solution]

Five years is a good service life for any laptop.

You broke the "chain of custody", so to speak, when you took your laptop "temporarily", and that probably was a big mistake.

Regardless, repairs on an out of warranty laptop are generally the responsibility of the owner of the laptop.

I am a layman just like yourself and in my opinion, you have no recourse other that having it repaired to the component level by an external laptop shop or replacing the motherboard.

Perhaps you should remove the hard drive to put in a usb enclosure and source a replacement.

At five years of ownership, you really should replace it.

Electronic devices do not last forever.