HP Laptop with fubared screen - Advice?

trekkypj

I bought a new HP Pavilion dv5000 series (dv5157eu to be exact) laptop last June. Four or five days ago it started developing a very nasty and frankly irritating problem with the screen. Vertical lines on the screen appeared, first only a few but now over a dozen.

It's definately a hardware problem, firstly because screenshots don't show the artefacts and secondly because the lines are on the screen from boot, basically any time power is fed to the screen.

I think perhaps it may be that the laptop cooked the screen as it runs hot, and that may be causing the problem.

Problem is, the laptop only comes with a year guarantee and it's 15 months old. I'm confident that I could claim 'unfit for use' if I had to, but I'd like to think HP would repair it since it appears to be a fault not damage from misuse (am very careful with it as it cost me €1200 new).

You guys got any suggestions on how I should proceed? And has anyone else got a similar problem at any stage?

AlmightyCushion

A laptop that only lasts 15 months is frankly a disgrace and is in no way fit for the purpose intended. Unless you caused the fault then they should fix it.

trekkypj

Well, I bought it through a reseller - and I think they'd take it in, but I don't want them to take it, only to claim I owe them €400 or whatever to fix a user caused fault (which it clearly isn't). Is it better to approach the manufacturer directly, I wonder.

Cryos

Hi Trekkypj,

Its unusual for a screen to go like that only after 15 months, few options for you.

You could register a carepack which would give you 3 years extra Service for your product, which is nice to have when it comes time to sell the laptop. Carepack Code for your laptop is U4819E e.g http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/3_Year_Pavilion_Notebook_Warranty_U4819E/version.asp

Unfortunatly at the moment HP Do not have an Online Registration system for Purchasing carepacks in ireland, it has to be purchased through a 3rd party which will in turn send you to a HP website link to register your details and SN etc..

You may be able to find a cheaper carepack with 1 year extended Collect and return which would probably be around €75 and give you almost the same service for 1 year instead of 3.

As i said, very unusual for a screen to go in this day and age; I do work for HP Managed services and we have deployed over 3000 Laptop units to Our Corporate customers here in ireland and ive yet to see a screen come back... And thats 3 years of deploying units.

If you suspect that the product may of been old when you baught it feel free to pm me and ill lookup the manufacturing date; No personal details are accessable and its only the Product Description that we get back.

TommyGun

Can you send a photo, I have seen this problem many times. It is one of two causes. The first is a dodgey inverter cable, this is the easyest and cheapest to fix. This can look like the screen is burning up,going white and back to normal, it normaly gradualy gets worse. If the lines are always in the same place it is not a cable problem.

If the lines are always in the same place on the lcd this is most likly caused by the the sides of the LCD getting pinched. This is not repairable and the lcd would need to be changed. This can be due to handling or a bad design of the lcd. It is unlikly that they would swap it out for free unless you be forsefull. The thinner the lid on the LCD the more likly to see this problem. The Dell x200, x300 had big problems with lines on the lcd.