Laptop and PC World...

TerrorFirmer

Hi,

I bought a laptop from PC world exactly one month ago. Its a Sony Vaio model. Its now gone completely botched, with random crashes, blue screens and lock-ups, mostly during games. A full system restore did not solve problem.

I have to return it tomorrow, but having had it only one month, can I return it and ask for replacement? Or do I have to suffer by having to wait x amount of weeks for it to be shipped off to Sony for repair? After shelling out over a grand a few weeks ago I don't want to be left without a laptop...

thanks

Ruu_Old

Have you got the receipt and service agreement thing? I would say you might have to be without a laptop.

TerrorFirmer

Yeah, I do....I've got the worst luck with stuff, I could almost foresee this coming....was just beginning a Dawn of War lan tournament today and was forced out of it after ten minutes with a blue screen. Thought of having my laptop gone for any length of time is almost distressing, I bought it pretty much for playing games with my friends over the summer...:(

jackofalltrades

From what I remember if you bring it back under a month you have a chance of it being replaced where as after a month its goin back to Sony, which takes ages.

What did they say when you went back to them?

Lemlin

Used to work for them:

If its within 28 days, they'll change it.
If not, they'll try send it away which takes six weeks. You can request a replacement though.

Seeing as you only just got it though, they may replace it. Depends on the manager you get.

Savman

HavoK wrote:

Hi,

I bought a laptop from PC world exactly one month ago. Its a Sony Vaio model. Its now gone completely botched, with random crashes, blue screens and lock-ups, mostly during games. A full system restore did not solve problem.

Exact same happened me. €1000 Toshiba + €300 f***** Coverplan. Laptop crashed after couple of weeks and died after coupla months altogether.

I haven't set foot back inside Currys/Dixons/PC World. They must have a secret room in the back of the store where the PCs are built by handicapped monkeys in blindfolds. :mad::mad:

Terrible terrible company, good luck stealing yer money back from them

whippet

****NEWS FLASH****

Currys/Dixons/PC World group have now been unveiled as one of the worlds largest maker of notebooks. Previously the market analysts had been hoodwinked in to believing that Toshibia made their own PCs and the retail giants simply resold the product they bought from the likes of Toshibia and HP.

One boardster has finally uncovered that the Dixons group have advanced manufactering facilities located behind the counters of there 1000's of stores all over the UK and Ireland.

So how is it the retailer's fault if they are supplied with a dud notebook. Do you expect them to open every new machine before selling, installing DOOM and playing it for a few hours to make sure it works?

Sponge Bob

remove the hard drive if you want to save your data

TempestSabre

Computers break. Get over it. Buy a full same day on site support package if you can't fix your own PC and its that critical for you. Or by a cheap spare PC.

Sponge Bob wrote:

remove the hard drive if you want to save your data

Should be backed up on external media anyway.

Savman

whippet wrote:

****NEWS FLASH****

<snip pointless sarcastic rant>

So how is it the retailer's fault if they are supplied with a dud notebook. Do you expect them to open every new machine before selling, installing DOOM and playing it for a few hours to make sure it works?

It is always the retailers fault. It's the ratio of dud notebooks that they seem to sell, maybe they're just unlucky...poor guys. :rolleyes:

TempestSabre wrote:

Computers break. Get over it.

Thanks. I am over it. Maybe its just coincidence so many people have had such trouble with this crowd, I'm sure they sell a lot of good, perfectly working systems. But they also sell a lot of crap.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

TempestSabre wrote:

Computers break. Get over it.

seriously, what is it about posting on an anonymous discussion board that makes people think they can be rude?

Havok doesn't need to "get over it". He was just asking for advice on what his rights are. Surprise, surprise, he chose to ask for this advice on a 'consumer issues' forum.

TempestSabre wrote:

Buy a full same day on site support package if you can't fix your own PC and its that critical for you.

A lot of people have found issues with the actual quality of these "same day support" packages. Personally, i had a woeful experience with the PC World support package, and have been successfully boycotting them for about five years now!

EDIT: On re-reading this thread, it is possible you were asking Savman to "get over it" and not Havok. Maybe Savman should get over it, although whenever i hear PC World after all this time after my last dealing with them my blood still boils a little, so i can emphatise (sic?) with him.

TempestSabre

If someone deals with a problem to your satisfaction, and fast you tend to overlook it. If they make it hassle then thats a problem. its the latter that the issue really.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Havok:

Might be worth asking a question about this in one of the computer forums.

Could be that the software you have installed is not fully suitable for the games you are running.

E.g. Presume it is Windows XP Home edition you are running. This is a notoriously weak operating system. Upgrading to Windows XP Pro would undoubtedly help then.

Also, don't know the specifics, but maybe you haven't set the system right to divert sufficient RAM memory to the primary task you are running (i.e. gaming), and allowing the laptop to divert memory away from background tasks. This could be causing the 'blue screens of death'.

Also, is your graphics card okay, or could you install a better one?

Obviously, the crowd in PC World shouldn't have sold you a laptop unfit for what you wanted it for, but maybe you didn't make clear what you would be running on the laptop.

TempestSabre

Roundtower2 wrote:

seriously, what is it about posting on an anonymous discussion board that makes people think they can be rude?

Havok doesn't need to "get over it". He was just asking for advice on what his rights are. Surprise, surprise, he chose to ask for this advice on a 'consumer issues' forum....

EDIT: On re-reading this thread, it is possible you were asking Savman to "get over it" and not Havok. Maybe Savman should get over it, although whenever i hear PC World after all this time after my last dealing with them my blood still boils a little, so i can emphatise (sic?) with him.

Context is everything. It was just a general c'est la vie kinda comment. People take these things so personally. PC World is a consumer shop first and an IT service provider last. All machines can break. Its the nature of a mechanical device.

Roundtower2 wrote:

A lot of people have found issues with the actual quality of these "same day support" packages. Personally, i had a woeful experience with the PC World support package, and have been successfully boycotting them for about five years now!...

Either they honor the contract, or they are in breach of it. Thats a good issue for this forum. How do you get companies to honor their support contracts. often they don't.

Roundtower2 wrote:

...E.g. Presume it is Windows XP Home edition you are running. This is a notoriously weak operating system. Upgrading to Windows XP Pro would undoubtedly help then.....

In fairness theres nothing wrong with XP Home. Theres very little difference between Home and Professional. Some networking functionality and multiple CPU's AFAIK. For gaming no difference at all.

Roundtower2 wrote:

Obviously, the crowd in PC World shouldn't have sold you a laptop unfit for what you wanted it for, but maybe you didn't make clear what you would be running on the laptop.

If a game will run at all, then the computer is fit to run it. Crashes and lockups mean theres a problem. Not that its the wrong computer. If a game runs slowly that a different issue.

Is this issue not cross posted on other forums? Someone else was on about a Vaio and gaming. I can't be bothered checking who it was.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

TempestSabre wrote:

Context is everything. It was just a general c'est la vie kinda comment. People take these things so personally. PC World is a consumer shop first and an IT service provider last. All machines can break. Its the nature of a mechanical device.

sorry for taking you out of context then! (my bad!)

DamoKen

Havok, afaik if it's a manufacturer fault the onus is still on the company you bought from to provide a replacement or refund. Been a while since I had dealings with PC World (never again!!!!) but I did a fair bit of research on consumers rights at the time and am almost sure that responsibility lay with the retailer and not you when it came to manufacturer faults.

PC World do have a 28 day money back policy as I learnt to my cost, I was fobbed off a number of times with the usual "you probably downloaded a virus, software incompatibilities" etc etc before they actually looked at it and discovered it was a hardware fault. However as it now lay outside the 28 days they refused a refund even though I had the phone records to prove it had been a problem from day 1.

Only after a threat of legal action to which they replied they had a litigation team for just such a case was a compromise reached. I then selected a pc worth 500 more than the one I'd originally bought as compensation for the 5 weeks of sh*te they'd put me through and promptly put it up in Buy&Sell for the same amount I'd bought the original at, then used the proceeds to build my own .

If you're still within the 28 days I'd advise you to bring it back post haste to try and avoid this.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

has anyone ever had good experience of PC World customer service (especially in getting satisfaction from their computer support packages)?

Sponge Bob

Dixon Group extended warranties are notorious for being complete and utter ****e , thats Dixons PcWorld and Currys .

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/offline-shopping-misc/dixons/1003570/


http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/consumer/warranties.shtml

Ruu_Old

I had a few bad experiences but their service technicians who come out to your house are very fairly good imo. I lived in north meath at the time and they would have no problems coming out from Blanch for like a next day service. I had a lot of problems with that particular problem. I think there is just a severe lack of communication between the floor people and the technicians, its a problem that needs to be looked at and is fairly common.

Lemlin

Roundtower2 wrote:

has anyone ever had good experience of PC World customer service (especially in getting satisfaction from their computer support packages)?

I worked for them part-time for a few years and TBH I wouldn't blame the staff. They never get an ounce of training and alot of them are just there while they look for another job.

A few do try their best (and I was one of the few) but eventually any sort of interest they have is beaten out of them with a stick by the poor management.

All to often I've seen people arrive in and just scream until they get what they wanted. I've no problem with genuine, aggrieved people doing this but alot of the people didn't have genuine complaints eg. people with Ipods or software not working because they basically couldn't use them right.

When the technicians, service staff etc. would test it and saw it functioned perfectly, the customer would often refuse to take that for an answer and start the screaming. Then the manager would just overrule his/her staff and give the customer a replacement item, which they'd probably be back with again the next day because they still couldn't use that properly. With things like that happening, it doesn't take long for staff to become disheartened.

Their prices are unbelievable though. Just walk in and look at some of their memory card prices and you'll see what I mean.

Moonbeam

I too had hell with them in Blanch over a laptop and extended warranty.

They send laptop away and I called when the agreed term for get it back or replace gurantee it was up ,30 days I think but not 100% sure about that,apparently there was confusion and mixup so I had to wait longer even though it was stated on the contract I shouldn't have to.
The shop staff were useless,unhelpfuil and rude the managers were worse really arrogant and ignorant except for one poor sales assistant who really did try his best.
In the end I did get my vouchers from them but the thoughts of buying anyhting else from them really were not appealing in the least.

TerrorFirmer

Just to update this thread:

I had to go back to PC World countless times with this. The problem was that the laptop was bluescreening after anything between ten minutes and one hour of gaming, regardless of the title. The card in question was an Nvidia 6400 Turbocache - not an amazing card but capable of running even the latest games and I only bought it for playing older titles anyway. The problem seemed to be with the Turbocache feature, where the laptop was crashing on overlap from the dedicated memory and system memory - I googled "Sony Vaio 6400 Problems", and thankfully, found a load of people with an indentical problem in that particular Vaio model (VGN-F315M).

So - To PC World - their response - I can't accept these handful of printouts as its possible you just wrote them yourself and brought them in. Also, we tried playing a few games and it didn't crash so we can't take it back. Basically, without actually saying it, he was saying "We think you're lying and since we can't see the physical fault, we aren't doing anything."

I said this wasn't acceptable and they said nothing they could do. So, in anger, I brought it home, played it for 30 minutes, it blue-screened, and I took several screenshots. Brought them back, they looked at pictures, took it back, but when I called back to collect it, same story - we couldn't find any fault, so we can't do anything. At this stage I was getting pretty frustrated but I remained nice. I pulled up the event log which showed the system hangs and suggested they look at those. They told me to come back tomorrow when a technician was in. So I did, and straight away, he looks at system log and finds there is a problem and says it straight away.

Woo, great. Finally, after a few trips, it takes a competent guy 2 minutes to find a fault, was pretty angry they hadn't consulted an engineer at all the first few times I was in, but now it was diagnosed, so I said it'll be fine, just leave it.

Not so. Despite me telling the engineer it definately wasn't a driver issue, he insisted I had to take it back after they just reformated the entire OS.

So I bring it home, same problem, bring it back in. This time, they flash the BIOS, and I'm told to bring it home again! At this stage I'm really boogled. Why couldn't they have flashed the BIOS the very first time I was in!! This is about my sixth trip to the store and they're still fobbing me off on a 4 week old laptop!

Eventually a manager agreed to replace it due to all the pointless trips I had been making.

Result: They replaced the Vaio with a much better Core Duo laptop with a better video card and took back the Vaio. Originally they wanted to give me another Vaio of the same model, but surprise surprise, despite the manager still trying to tell me there was nothing really wrong with my Vaio, no store in Ireland had that same model in Stock. Product recall? Probably...this would explain why they suddenly were giving me a vastly superior core duo notebook when they had just been refusing to even give me a replacement.

Bottom Line: Even with a problem, and my decent computing knowledge, PC World were not prepared to offer any decent help on a 4 week old Sony Vaio laptop. The one engineer I spoke to - can't remember his name - was really helpful and the only competent person in the place when it came to diagnosing the problem and helping out - the rest were useless.

I can't being to imagine what the hell somebody who knew nothing about computers would have done in my situation!!!

I thought PC World were alright and alot of the stories were urban myths but good god, now I know better.

jaggeh

crashes are held in the system log which it takes roughly 10-15 seconds to access, if something like this happens then just whip open the system log and show them the pretty red circles with white x's in them and the pretty yellow triangles with black !'s in them.

TerrorFirmer

jaggeh wrote:

crashes are held in the system log which it takes roughly 10-15 seconds to access, if something like this happens then just whip open the system log and show them the pretty red circles with white x's in them and the pretty yellow triangles with black !'s in them.

Yeah I did that as outlined above, not that it made a huge difference to how they acted towards me and their acknowledgement of the fault...

hitbit

3 weeks ago I brought my TFT monitor, 4 weeks out of guarantee back to PCW Blanchardstown where the manager had no problem providing me with a brand new replacement saying he had no intention of losing a good customer nor the store's reputation over a TFT. I must say that I was impressed with this gentleman's attitude towards me and before leaving the store I had purchased a 320GB External HDrive and called my brother in law to alert him to a bargain pc which he duly purchased. So we all ended up happy. Go to PCW and discuss the issue, if they don't offer a replacement or refund they will most likely offer you a loan machine while your own is being repaired. They may be able to retrive your data for you though you should really consider an external backup for your important stuff.

Hitbit:)

Buceph

hitbit wrote:

3 weeks ago I brought my TFT monitor, 4 weeks out of guarantee back to PCW Blanchardstown where the manager had no problem providing me with a brand new replacement saying he had no intention of losing a good customer nor the store's reputation over a TFT. I must say that I was impressed with this gentleman's attitude towards me and before leaving the store I had purchased a 320GB External HDrive and called my brother in law to alert him to a bargain pc which he duly purchased. So we all ended up happy. Go to PCW and discuss the issue, if they don't offer a replacement or refund they will most likely offer you a loan machine while your own is being repaired. They may be able to retrive your data for you though you should really consider an external backup for your important stuff.

Hitbit:)

Sorry, not a chance after reading about that guys^^^ experience.

darragh o meara

No, No.


Dub13

TerrorFirmer

Heh, I'm going back to college so am quitting my full time job and looking for part time work...might throw a CV into PC World

Omeara, thats a heartwarming tale. I'll try remember it in 2 years and 10 months time