HP laptop and HP Service Center sucks
January 25, 2008
A basic marketing tenet on Customer Satisfaction is that a delighted customer tells his or her experiences to 3 or 4 other customers, but a dissatisfied customer shares it to 12 others.
Now, thanks to the power of blogging I can share my recent unsatisfactory experience with HP’s laptop and their Service Center in the Philippines not just to 12 people but to thousands of readers and visitors worldwide.
Over a year ago, I bought an HP Compaq nc2400 laptop in South Korea for US$1,400. During that time, the unit was one of the smallest, lightest, and thinnest notebooks available in the market.
The laptop performed superbly during the first few months (no surprise there), but starting on the 8th month, its processing became slower (e.g., opening an MS Office file took1 minute) and the battery life dropped considerably to half. Those did not bother me much then because I thought these were the trade-offs for having a small, lightweight notebook.
But in November 2007, the left-click function of the TouchPad started acting weird. Clicking the TouchPad’s left-click button also opened the right-click functions and this could not be rectified by simply adjusting the TouchPad settings.
How bad can that get? Well, for one, I could not shut down the laptop using a mouse because left-clicking on Start > Shut Down always gave me right-click options. The only way to shut down the notebook then was through the keyboard (how many of you know how do that?).
In addition, I found it difficult to open a file or program because double-clicking its icon always gave me right-click options. Just imagine how annoying it would be whenever you left-click on something and what you get are right-click options.
On top of that, I noticed that the laptop’s battery was not fully charging anymore. Although it’s been charged for several hours, the unit charges up to 60-70% only.
So on December 5, I decided to take the unit to HP’s Service Center in Buendia, Makati. The technical support guy tinkered with the TouchPad properties first but gave up after 10 minutes. He also noted the battery problem and recommended that I leave the unit so they can conduct inspection. I agreed.
Fifteen days later, on December 20, I received a call saying they could not solve the problem yet because they were still waiting for a few laptop components that they requested abroad. The guy who called also briefly mentioned that the battery may be up for replacement and they can prepare a price quotation should I wish to buy a new one.
If I wanted to, I could also temporarily pull the unit out because they would not be able to work on the laptop because they were having a 1-and-a-half-week Christmas vacation and would be back only on January 3. I decided not to pull it out.
Finally, a long month and three weeks later, on January 22, I received another call informing me that the laptop is ready for pick-up. I dropped by their office the next day and decided to test the unit while still in the Service Center to see if the problems were indeed solved. The left-click button did work well, but that’s the only thing to be happy about.
As for the battery, apparently it had already died — as in totally defective and worthless. They explained that when they called on December 20 saying the battery may already be up for replacement, they meant that the battery was already useless during that time.
Wait a minute, I left the laptop with them on December 5 with the battery still charging 60-70% and they’re telling me that within 15 days — while the unit was in their possession — the battery became totally defective? How convenient.
If only the battery was covered by their 1-year warranty then it would have been replaced, I was told. Still, don’t I deserve to get the battery, at the least, in the same status when I gave it to them? Do they expect me to simply accept their excuse that the battery became dead, useless, and worthless within 15 days while it was in their possession?
Oh, and they did give me the price quotation for a new laptop battery. Costs P8,700+ (US$212.00). Nice.
Wait, there’s more. When I finally got to test the laptop, a “User Environment” error appeared while the PC was loading. I then discovered that the original user profile would not load and when asked why this was the case, the tech guy replied that the original profile got corrupted. Uh ok, can you solve this? I asked.
An hour of tinkering later, the tech guy said they could not bring the original profile back and the only way to solve this is to reformat the laptop. They recommended me to back up my files and reformat the PC. Very nice.
A dead battery. Corrupted user profile. Tech support that took almost two months to solve. How Pathetic.
Thank you very much, HP, because of this experience I am not going to buy any of your products anymore.
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August 25th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Hell, I just bought my laptop last July of 2008 and suddenly a problem arises. Now after reading all these issues can’t think of any solution to my problem.
Here is my problem, I was trying to use my HP Pavilion dv2500 S-Video female to transfer display to my TV. I use my S-Video cable that is included in my desktop video card when I bought it. While trying the S-Video using just the battery of my laptop. I didn’t encounter any problem just that there was no display in my TV. In short, the S-Video didn’t work or I might forgot to press any key to make the S-Video transfer display into our TV. So I decided to plug my laptop’s power adapter into a power surge when suddenly the S-Video cable short and burn. So my friend quickly pull off the cable and me pull off the plug.
Now to test if my laptop got broken, I decided to switch it on and found out there was no display, just power is on and lights of players are on as well. But no blinking of lights, etc.
So I decided to search the internet for possible information and solutions. After that, I took off the battery for quite sometime and plug the power adapter to check if my power adapter was broken. Everything remains the same so i decided to insert the battery back and test it again. Again, everything remains the same so i decided to search more and watch youtube for proper direction on how to check my laptop’s memory. So after following these instructions, I found out that if my memory was not inserted properly or broken, my laptop will beep a few times. So I’m sure its not the memory cause I was able to fix the beep after placing my memory back and as directed in the video I found. I also learned that my laptops 1 year limited warranty will not be affected if I try to check my RAM.
So again, problem remains the same and now I was planning to bring it to the nearest HP Center which is in buendia, makati.
Does anyone here can give me the best advice of what to do, and how can i assure that my case will be handled carefully? Not sure if its possible to send it back to US for them to repair it.
Will HP Center not add more problems to my unit? I’m also a CS graduate so I know a few things in hardware.
Is there also a cheap repair center that is good in repairing laptops and is also reliable, and is known for they’re quality of work?
Thanks for any help that you can share!
August 25th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
hi everyone, i just bought my compaq c769tu last july 2008 (1 month ago) and the screen already has dead pixels on it. last night there was only 3 then this morning, it has become 7. do you recommend that i go to hp service center for this? i just called their customer support hotline and the indian guy gave me the number and address of the service center in buendia. are they also open on holidays and weekends? thanks!
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:51 pm
hi scoot_boink! actually you just bring the unit to them. they already have the info in their database i think. anyway, i still can’t believe i would need to pay PHP50,000 to repair my dv2145tx. i’d rather buy a new laptop!!!!
June 8th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
after reading the replies here, i’m thinking twice now, if i should still go to the HP service center, i have a HP Pavilion tx1000us, the tablet pc, my brother from the US bought me the unit, and my problem is the wi-fi wont work already, so i have a usb wi-fi to connect to my unit just to access wi-fi hotspots, it sucks knowing that my unit was only bought last april, i know its still covered by the warranty, but i was thinking of the hassles it would still bring to me… and for those guys who brought their unit to HP center, what do i have to bring? cause my receipt was in my brother in the US.