HP Pavillion rant

Tom Dunne

Seeing as lots of people are asking what to buy, I thought I would share some experiences on what not to buy.

I purchased a HP Pavillion zv5000 in August '04. It's big and clunky and really a desktop replacement and by God is it heavy. Having said that, it is laden with features, including a 6-in-1 card reader which I use quite a lot. It runs Quake 3 relatively well and HL2 runs like a dream.

After the fist couple of days of use, the power connector kept slipping out from the back of the laptop. That's more of a design fault than anything, but annoying nonetheless. The slightest re-adjustment on your lap and the damn thing falls out.

That is fine when you have a battery in, but this leads me to my next problem. The battery lasted around 6 months. This would have been after approx. 2-3 hours use a day. Stupidly, I didn't get on to HP in time and the warranty ran out, so I now have a dud battery. A replacement is 150 Pounds Sterling.

Just as the warranty ran out, the hard-drive starting making noises. It's a seagate unit, 30 Gigs. The noise could be described as dropping a snooker ball on a tiled floor (though not as loud, of course). I did a disk defrag and Windows then refused to boot. Luckily I am pretty anal about backing up, so I didn't lose anything. I have re-installed XP, but it's getting worse by the day with XP reporting corrupt files all over the place. I've been on to HP and they essentially said tough. Seagate said much the same.

In summary, I would say that I am thoroughly unimpressed with HP. Their customer support borders on patronising (I am an "esteemed customer") and their build quality is down there with Dell.

I would be interested to hear other people's opinions on them.

TempestSabre

Desktop replacements are left on the AC most of the time, that kills the battery. They nearly all do this. As for the HD well HP don't make that, so thats hardly their fault. You were just unlucky with that.

Tom Dunne

TempestSabre wrote:

As for the HD well HP don't make that, so thats hardly their fault. You were just unlucky with that.

You know, I try and keep telling myself that it was just one of those things. I have worked with computers long enough now to know that **** happens, you can be unlucky with devices such as hard drives that have moving parts.

But I still can't honestly bring myself to say anything good about HP laptops. One problem, ok, two, hmmm, three, forget it. I just don't think the build quality is there.

di11on

This leads me to the question...

I'm awaiting delivery of a DELL laptop and will be using it 99% of the time on mains... so what must I do to prolong the battery life?

Jammer

just dont put the battery in?

TempestSabre

Exactly take the battery out.

Its a bit of a scam that they don't put a cut off switch on laptops to stop them constantly charging.

I've a Sony (desktop replacement) and its really awkward to swap batteries. The next laptop I get I'll make sure you can whip out the battery really easily, or just always use it on batteries and get one that has a really long battery life.

Sir Oxman

I've had a zd7000 desktop replacement notebook since April last year and the only problem I've had with it was the LG DVDRW packed up (well almost, it works then doesn't work, then does etc)

The power connector problem you mention IS a HP design problem (see http://www.zd7000forums.com/ ) with mine as well, all told though it's happened maybe a half dozen times and only when I moved the unit suddenly and awkwardly, though of course this shouldn't happen at all.
I got a xc1000 media cable to have just in case the power connector goes...

My battery is okay after 20 months use although I don't have it in all the time in fact this thing is plugged in 24/7 and I only put battery in maybe once a week for a day or so when needed.

Heat is a big problem with these desktop replacement, just make sure you have the backend of it propped up an inch or so to let air circulate or it will fry...my CPU/GPU runs at ~40C idling and tops out at ~62C under relatively heavy use.
HDD runs at ~34C idling and maxs at ~48C.

Overall, I love my HP though I have never used HP support, from what I've heard they can be pretty bad, see http://www.zd7000forums.com/
I have no complaints about the build quality of my yoke...

Generally, all replacement laptop parts are hugely overpriced, I'd rather buy on ebay than pay full whack.

lomb

the battery thing affects all laptops, need to keep it out as others said.
as re the rest of it, after u spend that sort of money u need a 3 year warranty really. anything less is a false economy unless u can afford to lose 1500 euro of course.

Tom Dunne

TempestSabre wrote:

Exactly take the battery out.

Its a bit of a scam that they don't put a cut off switch on laptops to stop them constantly charging.

I wonder if IBM do? The reason I ask is that I had an IBM laptop with the job for the past 5 years (a trusty old 600e and then a T40) and I was continually switching from mains to battery running from meeting to desk. I still got three hours out of the T40 after two years (ok, it was a Centrino, my HP is a P4 3.2Ghz).

But yes, I now know to remove the battery when using the mains.