don't ever buy HP computers

Hi Gang. Got to rant about this. The day after thanksgiving we spent $700 on a HP laptop. 5 minutes in the mouse touch pad started to mallfunction. Call after call to fix it nothing worked so e-mailed them . They siad we'll send a box......got the box finaly last week! YUP over 2 months to get the box. WTF So i send it out they have it one day and i get it back today...STILL NOT WORKING

I have been a loyal HP user for years. NEVER AGAIN.

Tony Leary

The company I work for uses a LOT of HP laptops. From what I have seen, the operating system is FAR less reliable.

aircooled wrote: The company I work for uses a LOT of HP laptops. From what I have seen, the operating system is FAR less reliable.

That part isn't HP's fault.....

shame, I love their printers

We buy only HP/Compaq's at work and have very few problems with them (wouldn't buy them otherwise) - but these aren't Black Friday specials either.

I'd buy an HP over a Dell any day.

My last laptop was a Compaq, my current one is a Dell. The Compaq was the more reliable of the two. When I did have a problem with the Compaq, they fixed it and sent it back to me in about two days.

44Dwarf wrote: Hi Gang. Got to rant about this. The day after thanksgiving we spent $700 on a HP laptop. 5 minutes in the mouse touch pad started to mallfunction. Call after call to fix it nothing worked so e-mailed them . They siad we'll send a box......got the box finaly last week! YUP over 2 months to get the box. WTF So i send it out they have it one day and i get it back today...STILL NOT WORKING I have been a loyal HP user for years. NEVER AGAIN. Tony Leary

this is the problem with big megacompanies. They can't adapt their lugubrious system to any small scale change.

The classic tale is the experiment IBM once did. Someone at the company ordered an empty box. One month later, it showed up. Your experience is comparable to a company that took thirty days to ship itself an empty box.

I bet the guys at your local computer place could whip out a laptop with all your favorite bells and whistles for a good price.

i stopped using hp/compaq when i saw their tech manuals , the manual was more instructions on how to screw the customer (and blame known manufactures issues on them) than how to fix the computer, and yes, it was a "factory" tech manual... i wont even buy an hp printer after seeing that... granted it was at least five years ago, but those types of things stick with me awhile...

problem is there are no small computer guys around anymore CC and Comp usa ETC mega store under cut them so much they folded and now there going out too..

I bought an HP laptop 4 years ago. In the first month the screen died. I shipped it to them and they tried to ship it to a non-existant address in Illinois (I lived in Kansas).

After warranty was up the power jack worked intermittently. I spent a hundred bucks getting that fixed. I think the heat sink is loose because the fan runs much more than it used to. I'm going with something better next time around.

I'm using a 5+ year old Compaq/HP laptop and the only problem I've ever had is the screen occasionally goes dark, but you can still just barely make out whats on the screen. To fix it all I have to do is wiggle the screen. This only started in the last month. Oh yeah, about 8 months ago I started getting a warning on startup about the HD not working right, so I put in a new HD. The old one is still working fine as a temporary backup drive though. Thats not bad for a 4 year laptop that was not cooling properly (see below).

BAMF, have you tried blowing/sucking the dust out of the inside of your laptop? I was having the same problem and it turned out that a lot of dust had collected inside and was causing things to heat up. After blowing into the vents and seeing a bunch of dust come out, I went at it with a shop vac, and now its just like new.

Bob

Dude, it is a cheap-ass laptop! Sorry to be a butt-head but seriously, it is a cheap, cheap electronic device, what did you expect? Honestly, if you had actually bought a decent model in their line, then I could understand your frustration.

Secondly, why didn't you buy the upgraded warranty? That usually gets you a tech to come to your location and fix the machine onsite. For laptops this is critical since they are usually balanced on a razor's edge of reliability and cost reduction while trying to make it last no longer than the warranty in order to keep selling new machines.

After a couple of weeks, I would have just re-used the existing packaging and shipped it to them at my cost.

Last laptop was an Acer, great machine. The MB finally crapped out after 6 years. Went to get another one and the new ones were like spaghetti. No structure in them at all. I figure laptops are like cars, the stiffer the better. Looked at HP, Dell, Gateway, and a bunch of other manufactures. The all had the same problem. The entire computer would flex and twist, the keyboards felt like they were mounted in mud. They just felt cheap. Finally bought a Sony Vaio, because it was built much better than any of the others. Six months no problems, fingers crossed.

My sister has had 2 of them, the first one is 2 years old, and shortly after the warranty expired the hinges failed so you cant close it anymore, and the mose pad thing barelfy works. The srdond one, the hingers srated to seperate after opening and closing it less than 5 time, so it was promptly returned. Buy a different brand.

Schmidlap wrote: BAMF, have you tried blowing/sucking the dust out of the inside of your laptop? I was having the same problem and it turned out that a lot of dust had collected inside and was causing things to heat up. After blowing into the vents and seeing a bunch of dust come out, I went at it with a shop vac, and now its just like new.

I did do that. It was a crazy mess in there. It helped some, but not enough. I think the bigger problem is that I'm using graphic design and 3D modeling software on it that was intended for far newer computers than what I have.

fiat22turbo wrote: Dude, it is a cheap-ass laptop! Sorry to be a butt-head but seriously, it is a cheap, cheap electronic device, what did you expect? Honestly, if you had actually bought a decent model in their line, then I could understand your frustration. Secondly, why didn't you buy the upgraded warranty?

im going to disagree here.. one of my pet peeves is the lack of responsibility manufactures take for their own products. i dont care if its $10 or $10,000, if i buy something brand new, and it fails immediately through no fault of my own, that is simply unacceptable. companies sell crap because they know we have come to accept poor quality as "the way it is.." they want to charge me more to protect me from the merchandise because i spent my hard earned money on it??? Then criticize me for not spending more on the "protection"??? get the berkeley out of town, and take your crap product with you... I hope no one takes that personally, its just a rant. the whole idea that i should spend more on a "warranty" because it is known that the product will fail, is simply ludicrous to me. I guess ethics have gone the way of the dinosaurs, those products should not even be on the shelf...

consumer goods overall, FAIL... some exceptions of course.. but on the whole, its really sad..

I honestly dont understand the whole idea of laptops. I mean, I get that its convient to have a computer of a size you can carry around with you, but you are paying from $500 to $1500+ for something that is only going to last a couple of years then be thrown away.

This is certainly true. I think people who buy laptops to do not realize that they are generally considered to have a pretty short life.

I believe most businesses consider the expected life of a laptop to be not much more than two years.

I still have my first IBM thinkpad out in the garage someplace, it had the "upgraded" 2gb hard drive and 64 megs of ram..it still works..it sits next to a few others (760, 600, also still working, in the same box Ive been using my latest IBM , an R31 thinkpad, for at least6 or 7 years, maybe more.. ive upgraded the ram and hd, but other than that, no failures except a wifi card that burnt out and was replaced under (the standard) warrentee in less than a week, via mail.. ive used it almost daily for all that time... oh, and the batterys suck, but mostly im plugged in anyhow, and i got my money out of them.. no complaints for me, its lasted lomger than most of my cars.. most have been given away to freinds and family , used for years, and came full circle back to me..still working.. try that with a hp ...

I travel for work, go to college online, and have tuner programs for computer-controlled cars. Laptops are essential for me. I bought my first one in 2003. I still use it nearly everyday. It's been through the Panama Canal, on a 4-month deployment, through airport security more times than I can count, dropped, and generally manhandled. I've upgraded it from 256MB of RAM to a full GB and updated software. It needs a new battery but other then that it still kicks butt and works great.

It's a Dell.

I have an old Toshiba satillite. A p3 1.1 gig machine that has been all over the country and except for a HD failure last year, has never let me down in the 5+ years I have owned.

and yes, like a previous poster said about how flexible new laptops hare.. it is built like a tank

If I saw you asking about buying HP stuff on here I would have warned you in advance

Seriously, HP computers range from "pure crap" to "average," their printers aren't youir best bet anymore, and they are a malevolent company on the forefront of DRM development and advances in crapware installation so I like to avoid them.

define malevolent company

I've had an HP laptop for 4 years now and has been a GREAT computer. It's still fast and I've never had any problems with it and that includes spilling an entire glass of water on it three years ago.

44Dwarf wrote: Hi Gang. Got to rant about this. The day after thanksgiving we spent $700 on a HP laptop. 5 minutes in the mouse touch pad started to mallfunction. Call after call to fix it nothing worked so e-mailed them . They siad we'll send a box......got the box finaly last week! YUP over 2 months to get the box. WTF So i send it out they have it one day and i get it back today...STILL NOT WORKING I have been a loyal HP user for years. NEVER AGAIN. Tony Leary

I've been using a Compaq v2000 for over 3 years without problem but I have a question. If your laptop screwed up in the first 5 minutes you already threw out the box and couldn't get it back out of the trash? Whenever I get anything like that, I keep the box for at least a couple weeks til I'm satisfied with the product.