First time i've been to this site in a long time, but this time i'm in need of some advice or suggestions. Long post, but thanks to anyone who can sit through it all and offer some advice. 
I've had a HP Pavilion laptop for the past few years. Originally the first one was bought in January 2005, by November of the same year the thing was dead. I was told it was a motherboard issue over the phone and after several hours to HP tech support in india, I was told i'd need to have the mobo replaced. Fine I thought.. something is at least being done about it. Laptop was sent off, was told 3 weeks ETA for my fixed laptop. 6 weeks later I received a laptop, but it wasn't mine. They had decided to scrap my laptop and send me a new one without letting me know. I was told my hard drive had been sent to Germany for disposal and there was no way I was getting it back. Seeing as though I had lots of uni work on there, I was pretty hacked off as you can imagine.
New laptop lasted from January 06 to around summer/autumn 07. Same problem again, this time I was told it was the video adapter. This time I explicitly told them not to touch my HDD and eventually had my laptop back after a couple of months.
April 08, and here we are again. 1 long beep, 2 short beeps and an apparently broken video adapter.
What i'd like to know is, without having to phone the sub-continent again, is this 'replaced' video adapter covered by a seperate warranty now that the original 1-year warranty of the laptop has expired?
Would it be simpler to source a replacement video adapter, or do I assume that fitting a new gfx card to a laptop is not as straight forward as it seems?
If I should have to ring my HP support friends, is there any ammunition I can use to get laptop fixed yet again?
You may be thinking that i've had my moneys worth out of HP, but quite frankly i'm apalled. This laptop is marketed and was sold as a desktop replacement. I even went to the expense of getting an Akasa laptop cooler which has obviously not aided it at all. The laptop sits on a desk in a well ventilated room and is used for around 4-5 hours a day on average. I have only recently started using this particular machine for gaming, so it's hardly like i've thrashed the cooler on the gfx card or anything like that.
Any help/advice/sympathy is greatly appreciated.
I've had a HP Pavilion laptop for the past few years. Originally the first one was bought in January 2005, by November of the same year the thing was dead. I was told it was a motherboard issue over the phone and after several hours to HP tech support in india, I was told i'd need to have the mobo replaced. Fine I thought.. something is at least being done about it. Laptop was sent off, was told 3 weeks ETA for my fixed laptop. 6 weeks later I received a laptop, but it wasn't mine. They had decided to scrap my laptop and send me a new one without letting me know. I was told my hard drive had been sent to Germany for disposal and there was no way I was getting it back. Seeing as though I had lots of uni work on there, I was pretty hacked off as you can imagine.
New laptop lasted from January 06 to around summer/autumn 07. Same problem again, this time I was told it was the video adapter. This time I explicitly told them not to touch my HDD and eventually had my laptop back after a couple of months.
April 08, and here we are again. 1 long beep, 2 short beeps and an apparently broken video adapter.
What i'd like to know is, without having to phone the sub-continent again, is this 'replaced' video adapter covered by a seperate warranty now that the original 1-year warranty of the laptop has expired?
Would it be simpler to source a replacement video adapter, or do I assume that fitting a new gfx card to a laptop is not as straight forward as it seems?
If I should have to ring my HP support friends, is there any ammunition I can use to get laptop fixed yet again?
You may be thinking that i've had my moneys worth out of HP, but quite frankly i'm apalled. This laptop is marketed and was sold as a desktop replacement. I even went to the expense of getting an Akasa laptop cooler which has obviously not aided it at all. The laptop sits on a desk in a well ventilated room and is used for around 4-5 hours a day on average. I have only recently started using this particular machine for gaming, so it's hardly like i've thrashed the cooler on the gfx card or anything like that.
Any help/advice/sympathy is greatly appreciated.