Laptop advice? broken laptop out of warrenty, but its taking the p**s

rIcK

rIcK

rIcK

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My girlfriend bought herself a laptop before she came to university in 2006, she barely used it ( once a week ) and it lived on her desk.
Then around half way through last year the screen started flickering on and off, she just thought it was an odd problem which would go away and never let me know. Then more recently, the screen went into 4 multiple copies of itself, within the same screen with dodgy colours and flickering still turning itself on and off randomly.
I believe that there is a dodgy connection between the graphics card and the screen or the screen has gone faulty.

Plugging it into an external monitor makes the computer work fine, the issue happens on bootup ( before any driver related issue could be a problem ) All the settings have remained the same, the unit has barely even moved.

Either way this started to occur within the warrenty, now the laptop is barely used and it has broken. A product like this should have lasted a minimum of 3 years.... especially with it barely being used....

So ive been quoted at £140 for the screen getting fixed from a local (ish) company for a total screen replacement.... When contacting HP they keep throwing me onto the out of warrenty repair people, the only people i can seem to talk to is indian people who i cant get my point accross too.

Im looking for advice... the warrenty ran out around august last year.... do i take this higher up, or do i just accept that its broken out of warrenty and pay up for it to be repaired?
If i should take it higher, who should i contact, etc etc? Any advice is appreciated....
 
Since it's out of warranty you could always have a look at the connections yourself? Would be worth a shot before taking it to any local repair folks. (Should there be no other option)
 
It should last longer than a year you're right. You've always got the option of small claims court against the retailer (not the manufacturer) for the cost of repairs. I think I read something like products have to last a reasonable amount of time, and most people would think it was unreasonable for a laptop to break after 12 months.
 
rIcK said:
If i should take it higher, who should i contact, etc etc? Any advice is appreciated....
Click to expand...

The Sale Of Goods Act states that a product should 'last' as long as expected by the reasonable person. If this was a decent laptop, as a reasonable person I'd expect at least 2-3 years life from it.

My advice would be to read the Sale Of Goods Act, definately contact Consumer Direct, and then go back to the people you bought it from (armed with a printed copy of the SOGA and any advice from Consumer Direct) and politely but firmly put your case to them. I'm sure they'll change their minds. Do not go to the manufacturer unless you bought it directly from them. Do not take any rubbish excuses and 'company policies' from the original place of purchase mean nothing.
 
sounds more like the cable from the lcd to the mainboard than the lcd itself, i work with laptops and they are very delicate wires inside a harness and you get the odd one that breaks, its very rare, your just unfortunate that things do break and it is an inconvenience, but a cable will be much cheaper to try 1st before splashing out on an lcd
 
beermonster said:
sounds more like the cable from the lcd to the mainboard than the lcd itself, i work with laptops and they are very delicate wires inside a harness and you get the odd one that breaks, its very rare, your just unfortunate that things do break and it is an inconvenience, but a cable will be much cheaper to try 1st before splashing out on an lcd
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Whats the best course of action for getting this fixed, since most places ive been too ( without looking directly inside.... ) seem to think its the screen, though ive seen wires break in the spine of a laptop a few times before.....

Anyone know a reliable laptop repair place?
 
ayy my sisters laptop's screen does this quite a bit, it will be fine but if the screen moves abit it will flicker on and off so u have to move it again to make it stop
 
the flickering is caused by the inverter cable that powers the backlight, its sometimes part of the main data cable but usually seperate, corrupt images can either be faulty graphics chip, either seperate or intergrated on the mainboard, faulty lcd (data cable) or faulty lcd panel, its not easy to work out what the cause is can any one item can give any number of fault symptons, either broken images , lines, flickers, fade outs , bit of nightmare unless you have the parts to swap test its just guess work
 
replacement screen and/or cable of the auction place and fit yourself?

unfortunately HP tech support sucks, even at business level.
 
neil_g said:
unfortunately HP tech support sucks, even at business level.
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HP Tech support exists? I must contact this mythical being (oh, wait, you talking about the scripted call-centres in India?)

If you make enough of a nuisance of yourself (getting passed to managers and things) HP have a tendency to give in.
 
refresh said:
HP Tech support exists? I must contact this mythical being (oh, wait, you talking about the scripted call-centres in India?)

If you make enough of a nuisance of yourself (getting passed to managers and things) HP have a tendency to give in.
Click to expand...

its great, even HP admit its rubbish.

we were at the bristol tech center a few years back as we were getting a demo on some kit and the sales guys were openly slagging off the tech support since to moved to india.

had an engineer out last week who was also slagging off the call centres.

have you tried to use their website recently? its seen pages load quicker on dial-up, loads of errors etc etc.

they really need to sort it out..
 
their emails are great too..

From: (removed)@hp.com
Sent: 17 April 2008 10:06
To: Neil
Subject: FW: <CASE:(removed)>

Hello

I’m disturbing you regarding case # (removed)

Have you tested those settings which I gave you?

(removed)
Technical Support Specialist
Click to expand...

yes you are disturbing me actually.. lol
 
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