Friends in portugal and warranty?

Techen · 11 Nov 2018 at 23:43

Hi guys, My friend in portugal told me about warranty stickers on prebuilt systems. He talks about how over there its illegal to open the case and do anything.

This got me thinking, How do you even service this computer? Like what about dust intake or... you need to upgrade storage. I haven't bought any prebuilt systems in forever but hell sony allow you to upgrade storage without voiding warranty...

Is this standard anywhere else? Seems abit... illegal to me.

Jamin280672 · 12 Nov 2018 at 03:43

Techen said:
Hi guys, My friend in portugal told me about warranty stickers on prebuilt systems. He talks about how over there its illegal to open the case and do anything.

This got me thinking, How do you even service this computer? Like what about dust intake or... you need to upgrade storage. I haven't bought any prebuilt systems in forever but hell sony allow you to upgrade storage without voiding warranty...

Is this standard anywhere else? Seems abit... illegal to me.

If you have a read of the small print in the terms and conditions, although that sticker is on there, sometimes it states that upgrades are allowed, hard drive and RAM.

I had a friend who brought a machine from PC world, he brought some cheap ram off ebay to upgrade it, 2 weeks later it died, so he took it back they refused the warranty on it because it had been opened up, so I had a read of the terms and conditions for the very reasons you state above, and hey preso, there in the small print it stated upgrades were allowed, so I took the machine back to PC world myself to explain this is a nice friendly manner...…...comes to something when you know their job better than them, turns out the cheap ram had killed the motherboard.

Techen · 12 Nov 2018 at 17:41

Jamin280672 said:
If you have a read of the small print in the terms and conditions, although that sticker is on there, sometimes it states that upgrades are allowed, hard drive and RAM.

I had a friend who brought a machine from PC world, he brought some cheap ram off ebay to upgrade it, 2 weeks later it died, so he took it back they refused the warranty on it because it had been opened up, so I had a read of the terms and conditions for the very reasons you state above, and hey preso, there in the small print it stated upgrades were allowed, so I took the machine back to PC world myself to explain this is a nice friendly manner...…...comes to something when you know their job better than them, turns out the cheap ram had killed the motherboard.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, Sounds like a case of reading the small print in detail more.

Jamin280672 · 12 Nov 2018 at 18:15

Techen said:
Thanks for taking the time to reply, Sounds like a case of reading the small print in detail more.

Well when he came to me to tell me they had refused the warranty because he'd upgraded it, that's what triggered me to have a look, as far as I was concerned, if you've purchased a PC for lets say £1000 then you should at least be entitled to upgrade certain parts without voiding your warranty, pretty sure an OCuk staff member may be able to help clarify this with their pre-built systems.

Techen · 12 Nov 2018 at 18:17

Jamin280672 said:
Well when he came to me to tell me they had refused the warranty because he'd upgraded it, that's what triggered me to have a look, as far as I was concerned, if you've purchased a PC for lets say £1000 then you should at least be entitled to upgrade certain parts without voiding your warranty, pretty sure an OCuk staff member may be able to help clarify this with their pre-built systems.

100% agree, Sony allow PS4 hard drive upgrades so shelling out for a premade PC should be no different.

Mujja · 12 Nov 2018 at 18:29

The PS4 HDD is under a user removable access panel. To get to the internals of the PS4 you have to remove warranty stickers. It's not the same as a PC upgrade.

I'm not sure how the RAM was linked to the board failure and if it was PC World would have been right to refuse to fix it under warranty. No different to adding an upgrade to your car killing the engine.

Jamin280672 · 12 Nov 2018 at 20:17

Mujja said:
The PS4 HDD is under a user removable access panel. To get to the internals of the PS4 you have to remove warranty stickers. It's not the same as a PC upgrade.

I'm not sure how the RAM was linked to the board failure and if it was PC World would have been right to refuse to fix it under warranty. No different to adding an upgrade to your car killing the engine.

Doesn't matter if they refused to fix it initially, when I took it back in for the 2nd time round for my mate and pointed out in the terms and conditions that upgrades were allowed and the only way to upgrade it was to remove the panel, therefore breaking the warranty sticker, they had no choice and fixed it, they say the motherboard had died and replaced it.

Rainmaker · 12 Nov 2018 at 20:30

Jamin280672 said:
Doesn't matter if they refused to fix it initially, when I took it back in for the 2nd time round for my mate and pointed out in the terms and conditions that upgrades were allowed and the only way to upgrade it was to remove the panel, therefore breaking the warranty sticker, they had no choice and fixed it, they say the motherboard had died and replaced it.

Well, not really. If, as you say, the third party RAM is what fried the motherboard (how?!) then the retailer would have been well within their rights to tell your mate to foxtrot oscar. No warranty in the world covers you for breaking your own product, with or without the help of third party products. This is one thing the Yanks have right. Their Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act makes it illegal for manufacturers or retailers to put 'warranty stickers' on things or prevent consumers opening and tinkering with things.