FAULTY HP LAPTOPS

El Gato

Hi everyone.

I am posting regarding the motherboard issue with a number of faulty HP laptops sold in 2007/2008.

There is a terminal issue with a number of HP Pavilion notebooks that cause failure of the machine.

I am about to launch a campaign to get satisfaction from HP for people who have defective machines.

You can find out if your machine is affected by logging onto :

http://www.hplies.com
http://www.nvidiadefect.com

These will explain the symptoms, the problem causing the symptoms & allow you to register your laptop.

Please, please, please PM me if you or someone you know has a €1200/€1300 HP paperweight at home gathering dust as a result of HP trying to screw us, the consumer.:mad:

Rgds

James

Overheal

been there; done that. did an rma in 2008 since then the chipset has run smoothly as could be.

TouchingVirus

Didn't RMA it, because problems only appeared in October. Since April though it's been properly broken

Gonna pursue this through the SCC because PC World never responded to my registered letter

El Gato

Overheal wrote: »

been there; done that. did an rma in 2008 since then the chipset has run smoothly as could be.

So Overheal, can you explain to me how a Return Material Authorization sorted your issue as, you seem to be the only one out of 1000's of people with issues with the chipset/GPU combination that I have heard of.

Also nVidia have confirmed the issue & the inability to resolve the issue with the MOBO config HP dist'd.

Even new MOBO's cannot resolve the issue due to insufficient cooling of the affected machines...........I know this as a fact as A) I have had 2 TX's affected by this issue, one of which I replaced the MOBO myself & UNDERCLOCKED the cpu & still experienced the same issue & 1 immediate family mamber had same issue with a Dv & a friend who had same issue with a TX (in Mass USA).

Guess you just must be one of the lucky ones eh?

Overheal

Yep.

Don't know what to tell you champ. I bought the laptop in the US, got it sorted in the US. Was onto HP for 3 different 2 hour chat sessions making my case, linking to news articles and press releases, insisting they a) Replace the board and b) Ensure the new board worked properly. At the time it was known that an issue discovered in at least the XPS M1330 revealed the motherboards shipped with among other things some shoddy ass-grade thermal paste. I asked them to explore that as a possible fix in my own HP laptop. Whether they actually did or not is beside the point: the new board has been running without any of the symptoms of the old board which mainly consisted of artefacting (especially in Source Engine) and all but overheating to a point where the plastic case on the Pavillion dv6500 was all but untouchable, which several of the rubber feet falling off as the adhesive essentially melted.

So yes, I guess you could call that lucky. I call it being a relentless asshole until they did what they should have. The replacement board has been perfectly stable for 24 months now and runs about 30 Celsius cooler than the original under load, and my work-order for the replacement specified a New Board with a New Heatsink, according to some of my older posts from the time.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055354726

El Gato

Thanks for that Overheal.

Do you have a HP or a Dell?

This is even further ammunition for anyone who wants to get satisfaction for a defective product.

I was unaware that the problem was not confined to HP products, or at least that there was more than one (4) board partners affected by this chipset/gpu issue.

I note that your repair included a new board & heatsink, which in effect is a replacement! (bar the case), also did you check if the CPU had been underclocked to protect from running hot?

Anyways, either way, I feel that you have been very fortunate indeed.

I still wouldn't have fancied spending 6 hours on the phone (especially as there is no freephone number here in Ireland that I am aware of so €€€€€'s to fix an inherent problem!!!)

As the Enquirer said the financial fallout for nVidia would have been catastrophic, had they admitted the issue.

Like I have said before, anyone in Ireland affected by this issue please do not hesitate to contact me. I have had 5 people PM me since yeaterday expressing interest in persuing this - thanks guys.

Overheal

El Gato wrote: »

Thanks for that Overheal.

Do you have a HP or a Dell?

As I stated, I have an HP Pavillion dv6500

This is even further ammunition for anyone who wants to get satisfaction for a defective product.

I was unaware that the problem was not confined to HP products, or at least that there was more than one (4) board partners affected by this chipset/gpu issue.

It was all on the blogosphere at the time, I'm surprised the websites you're coming from aren't aware of it. But Dells, HPs, Macs, etc. were all showing symptoms of the problem with geforce 84/88 and 9 series cards. eventually the problems were being reported in all 8/9 series cards and when last I read into the issue people suspected the GTX line was culpable as well (and either way, those things are ridiculously loud and hot)

As far as I can tell, nvidia never came clean about the issue, only bowing to pressure from a few laptop manufacturers to supply replacements.

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/08/inquirer_pretty_much_every_nvidia_geforce_8800_9600_and_9800_graphics_card_is_defective-2/

I note that your repair included a new board & heatsink, which in effect is a replacement! (bar the case), also did you check if the CPU had been underclocked to protect from running hot?

No I had not checked this in any official capacity but I play a lot of Source Engine games which are very CPU Intensive and never noticed a lapse in performance before and after.

Anyways, either way, I feel that you have been very fortunate indeed.

I still wouldn't have fancied spending 6 hours on the phone (especially as there is no freephone number here in Ireland that I am aware of so €€€€€'s to fix an inherent problem!!!)

As the Enquirer said the financial fallout for nVidia would have been catastrophic, had they admitted the issue.

Like I have said before, anyone in Ireland affected by this issue please do not hesitate to contact me. I have had 5 people PM me since yeaterday expressing interest in persuing this - thanks guys.

I didn't spend it on the phone I had several different Online 24/7 Tech support queries; which probably involved someone in India. Either way it was a matter of a) Filing my claim early on, within the first month the problem was discovered and b) Blitzing him with information on the problem from the internet. I'd say after the 3rd or 4th chat session they could see I was quite serious about getting a fix and not just some schmuck looking for an excuse to get a fresh board 3 weeks before my warranty was up. And as I said, I did a serious amount of homework, followed every tip I could find on Consumerist for dealing with CSRs and ran ample diagnostics to explore the defect.

As I was successfully able to convey at the time, the problem was not the High Heat it was the Heat Cycling - But, If the Heatsink/Cooling method was insufficient that meant essentially that the chipset was going from Cool to High Heat to Cool to High Heat rather than Cool-Warm-Cool-Warm which if my Fixed chipset is an indication is a safer way to operate.

Shzm

Well it's no real surprise you got some form of action since you were still under warranty.

Unfortunately for the vast majority of people this problem has happened after the standard warranty has ended and now HP don't want to know unless brought to the SCC.

Funny thing is if i'd have bought a plain old €500 laptop, it would still be going, unlike my €1600 doorstop.

Overheal

Yeah I had to act fast on that because the model was not on the Extension List - anything that was on that list got their warranty extended to/by 2 years on problems related to the defect. Cant remember which. But again it helps that I was already very technically knowledgable about it; CSRs do try their darndest to volley canned responses at you which would easily scare down the illiterate.

To top things off I had to wait to file my complaint. I was already having the heating and crash issues but then I dropped the laptop and cracked the screen. Had to drop $200 on a new LCD before they tried to tell me they wouldnt fix the chipset due to user damage o_O

Which is funny, because I had talked online to them after the 'incident' and while they told me they wanted $600 to replace the whole lid and screen (!) they apparently didn't keep a record of that conversation because it never came up when I filed for the nvidia issue. For that matter they didnt seem to keep any records, even when I requested the transcripts of the IM chats. I resorted to .txt copy-paste after a couple sessions.

I can definitely see how so many people would still be bricked. I won't be buying from HP again - ever.

El Gato

For anyone in Ireland who is interested in tsking this further, I have written a 1st draft letter to Mr Murphy (HP Irl MD).

If you would like a copy of this letter please PM me & I will forward it to you.

I am either hoping to have 1 letter sent with a list of names & S/N's etc from affected machines or have many letters from many people.

Either way action will be taken.

@ Overheal. I appreciate that you have experienced some issues with your HP but the fact that you were within warranty is a major difference to most affected by this issue. I personally was almost 11 months beyond warranty when my fatal failure occured (I did act as soon as the initial issues started to no avail.)

I haven't started looking into this too deeply until last week when I came across the €1300 (almost $1800 at the time) HP paperweight.

As I use 3 different laptops for 3 different reasons (none of them HP) & 2 desktops for other reasons I didn't have much time/need to look up information re the nVidia issue.

As I am off work for 2 weeks for the 1st time in almost 3 years I decided to investigate further.

Unfortunately I dont have the time to build up a post count anywhere near yours, so in conclusion i bow to your superior knowledge regarding this issue & am happy you have a fully functioning HP machine, but unfortunately it is very unhelpful in the vane of what I'm trying to do here in Ireland.


AGAIN, anyone who is affected by this HP/nVidia issue please spread the word - thanks

stuartanderson

Shzm wrote: »

Well it's no real surprise you got some form of action since you were still under warranty.

Unfortunately for the vast majority of people this problem has happened after the standard warranty has ended and now HP don't want to know unless brought to the SCC.

Funny thing is if i'd have bought a plain old €500 laptop, it would still be going, unlike my €1600 doorstop.

Another victim here , i have only just recently been made aware that my Pavilion DV9500 has gone haywire due to a fault , like you said 1600 for a gizmo to fail is not good new's , with the option to get it rapaired expensive and worthless , mine saw very little use while under warranty and now is no use due the the LCD or motherboard or Nvidia card being fried ..
I'm looking into my option's , had considered purchasing a new mother board from Ebay @ 130 euro but if this is a persisting problem it seem's like a daft option .
I'm not familiar with irish consumer law but that'll change .
Thank's for boards.ie and thank you El Gato for starting this thread .
This is my gizmo http://partsurfer.hp.com/Search.aspx?SearchText=GT433EA

stuartanderson

TouchingVirus wrote: »

Didn't RMA it, because problems only appeared in October. Since April though it's been properly broken

Gonna pursue this through the SCC because PC World never responded to my registered letter

Best of luck with that , let us know how you get on . Here's to you getting satisfaction .

Shzm

Read up on nvidiadefect.com and hplies.com will give you an idea of the problem. Do not buy another motherboard on ebay, it's likely it'll have the exact same issue.

Overheal

Unfortunately I dont have the time to build up a post count anywhere near yours, so in conclusion i bow to your superior knowledge regarding this issue & am happy you have a fully functioning HP machine, but unfortunately it is very unhelpful in the vane of what I'm trying to do here in Ireland.

Well you asked and I took the time to answer. You're welcome, I guess.

El Gato

@ stuart.....

Hoping to get this in motion very soon.

The more momentum we can gather the better.

Have a software deployment to complete before 03:00(22:00 NY time), so no time for a full post but let me know if youre interested in coming together to build numbers for a HP assault!!

@ Overheal, any positivity in relation to fighting HP & trying to force them to admit the issue is warmly welcomed.

Any comments informing me of how I should have acted sooner or how HP have solved your issues are counter productive, no disrespect intended

stuartanderson

Shzm wrote: »

Read up on nvidiadefect.com and hplies.com will give you an idea of the problem. Do not buy another motherboard on ebay, it's likely it'll have the exact same issue.

That is whot i thought myself , between a rock and a hard place with this gizmo , 130 from Ebay might work for ? well at least the warranty peroiod , 30 day's .
And to part with how much ? i don't know for a new motherboard from HP with a one year warranty . i could buy a reliable gizmo as it seem's to take nearly a year for this fault to rear it's ugly side / from whot i have read ..
thank's for you'r advice

El Gato

stuartanderson wrote: »

That is whot i thought myself , between a rock and a hard place with this gizmo , 130 from Ebay might work for ? well at least the warranty peroiod , 30 day's .
And to part with how much ? i don't know for a new motherboard from HP with a one year warranty . i could buy a reliable gizmo as it seem's to take nearly a year for this fault to rear it's ugly side / from whot i have read ..
thank's for you'r advice

To be honest with you Stuart, I have been in commercial computing since 2000 & dealing with manufacturing since 1984 (have dealt with commodore, spectrum & IBM back in the '80) so I do actually understand the issue from the ground up..

A new motherboard will not resolve the issue (99.999999% of the time, overheal is an exception to the rule) & I mean a 1 in 2409 that I have read of and 1 in 317 I have direct experience of - including 2 of my own personal.

The MPBO's advertised on eBay are the same MOBO's originally offered & most are reconditioned units. I am at a loss as to how overheals unit performs so well with replaced thermal paste & a little reconfigeration.

Aside from that, we should become united in the effort to obtain some sort of satisfaction & monitary compensation.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Regards

James

Freeman

My sister has a HP Pavillion DV9000 that has been in my care since Nov 09. She gave it to me to fix as I fix everything tech related around here but this is a lot more complex than what I am used to. It cost her almost €2k in PC World. It was one of the models in the extended warranty and did go back to HP for a free repair but went on the blink a few months later. All they did was an in place reflow and set the BIOS to keep the fan on constantly.

After all the research I have done and money spent by me, I beleive it is possible to fix. There is a possible defect in the Nvidia GPUs but I think the solder used and the pathetic cooling system used is the real problem. The solution is simple: Reball the GPU with leaded solder and implement a better cooling system, through modification of the heatsink and software monitoring. This problem is not confined to Laptops, it happens to Desktops, Graphics Cards and Games Consoles.

I don't know if the 6 year entitlement for defective products they seem to have in the UK is available here. If it is not, I am unsure of how successful a court case would be, but there is always hope I guess. Personally, I am going to reball the chip in this laptop and try to recoup some money from my sister and if it goes again, her only option would be to pursue DSG.

Shzm

Freeman wrote: »

After all the research I have done and money spent by me, I beleive it is possible to fix. There is a possible defect in the Nvidia GPUs but I think the solder used and the pathetic cooling system used is the real problem. The solution is simple: Reball the GPU with leaded solder and implement a better cooling system, through modification of the heatsink and software monitoring. This problem is not confined to Laptops, it happens to Desktops, Graphics Cards and Games Consoles.

I don't know if the 6 year entitlement for defective products they seem to have in the UK is available here. If it is not, I am unsure of how successful a court case would be, but there is always hope I guess. Personally, I am going to reball the chip in this laptop and try to recoup some money from my sister and if it goes again, her only option would be to pursue DSG.

Lol - that is not really a simple fix. A product like this should not need such modification from the end user to enable it to continue working in the way it's meant to.

I'm not sure if that law exists either, however basic consumer law here states that goods should be of merchantable quality and fit for purpose, taking in to account what they're meant to do and the price of the item. Clearly a laptop costing €1600 should not die after a couple of years normal usage because of its own flawed design.

dinite

For what its worth - I had two of these at one stage early 2008. DV9000 or 6000 if memory serves. Sold them to two mates. Within 5 months both had faults - got onto HP - refused to take any bulls**it - let me speak to your manager - let me speak to your manager . Can you try this sir, troubleshooting - tried pawning me off etc. No chance. Nice but firm.

Even though they were out of warranty by a few months.

Courier arrived the next day - picked up the laptops - came back 10 days later - problems fixed. All good since then.

Can get the details etc. if needed.

Also, found info. on the net that confirmed HP were the culprits and I was entitled to a free fix.

dinite

Any comments informing me of how I should have acted sooner or how HP have solved your issues are counter productive, no disrespect intended[/QUOTE]

Sorry El Gato - Only read this now.

El Gato

dinite wrote: »

Any comments informing me of how I should have acted sooner or how HP have solved your issues are counter productive, no disrespect intended

Sorry El Gato - Only read this now.[/QUOTE]

No worries dinite.

TBH, due to the fact that I have multiple laptops/desktops I never really persued the issue with HP & I have already replaced the TX so a replacement wouldn't be acceptable to me personally.

Happy you got sorted.

Regards

El Gato

Freeman wrote: »

My sister has a HP Pavillion DV9000 that has been in my care since Nov 09. She gave it to me to fix as I fix everything tech related around here but this is a lot more complex than what I am used to. It cost her almost €2k in PC World. It was one of the models in the extended warranty and did go back to HP for a free repair but went on the blink a few months later. All they did was an in place reflow and set the BIOS to keep the fan on constantly.

After all the research I have done and money spent by me, I beleive it is possible to fix. There is a possible defect in the Nvidia GPUs but I think the solder used and the pathetic cooling system used is the real problem. The solution is simple: Reball the GPU with leaded solder and implement a better cooling system, through modification of the heatsink and software monitoring. This problem is not confined to Laptops, it happens to Desktops, Graphics Cards and Games Consoles.

I don't know if the 6 year entitlement for defective products they seem to have in the UK is available here. If it is not, I am unsure of how successful a court case would be, but there is always hope I guess. Personally, I am going to reball the chip in this laptop and try to recoup some money from my sister and if it goes again, her only option would be to pursue DSG.

Hi Freeman,

Yet another faulty HP laptop.....

I would have to agree with Shzm about this not being a 'simple fix' and that a product like this should not require the end user to have to modify the system to allow it to work.

The vast majority of end users dont know what a chipset/CPU/GPU even is!

Reballing a solder is not a job I would like to do myself & I have been in computing (both hardware & software) for many years.

If you reball your sisters laptop & then it fails again, she will have no recourse from DSG unless you are a registered repair partner.

Most retailers will refer the customer to the manufacturer if the product is more than 12 months old.

I am unsure about the 6 year law in the UK but I am rapidly learning Irish consumer law.

I would be very happy if you/your sister were to join the campaign!!!

Shzm

El Gato wrote: »

Most retailers will refer the customer to the manufacturer if the product is more than 12 months old.

Whilst alot of retailers will try this, it's really just a fob off. Your contract that was completed at time of purchase is with the retailer, not the manufacturer. Any legal action etc should be taken up with the retailer.

El Gato

Shzm wrote: »

Whilst alot of retailers will try this, it's really just a fob off. Your contract that was completed at time of purchase is with the retailer, not the manufacturer. Any legal action etc should be taken up with the retailer.

Yeah, I am aware that the contract is with the retailer, but unfortunately in my case the retailer has ceased trading.

I am in the process of studying consumer law (as much as possible as it relates directly to this issue).

The bottom line is that the product was faulty from date of manufacture, in reality the retailer should not be responsible for a product that HP released to the retailer which was faulty......how could the retailer know they were in receipt of faulty goods?

How has this product passed QA testing in the first place? Should never have been released.

Shzm

In reality the retailer is responsible, because they sold you a defective product. The manufacturer hasn't actually sold you anything.

The retailer will just go back to the manufacturer for compensation anyway.

Although yes, your case is unique as the reailer you bought it off isn't around anymore.

dilallio

Another avenue which you might consider is the new Consumer Issues programme which RTE will be launching in the autumn.

http://www.rte.ie/about/pressreleases/2010/0629/theconsumershow290610.html

With the amount of issues that a lot of people have reported in both the Laptops forum and Consumer Issues forum particularly with the Dell XPS overheating issue, it might be good to see these companies explain how they have dealt with the problem in a very public spotlight.

Fixing the issues under warranty, and then ignoring the issues after the warranty has expired is not a satisfactory solution, but up to now, these companies were happy to do that because they were dealing with individuals.

Most people who don't frequent forums such as Boards.ie, are unaware of these issues until the problem arises, and if issues such as this were brought to light in a very public forum such as this new program, these companies would be a lot more open to resolving this issues, as their future sales will depend on it.

I would love to see someone from Dell explain to the public, why it's customers have to bake graphics card in an oven at 200 degress for 10 mins, to fix an issue which is clearly a manufacturing / design fault.

El Gato

That is a very good suggestion dilallio.

I am hoping the issue will be resolved before the new program is launched.

However, if the issue is till not resolved by then I will make every effort to get a slot.

Thanks for the input

markj2009

Just bumping this thread wondering did anyone get any joy pursuing a replacement laptop ? I also have one with the same Nvidia defect.

Mark

El Gato

Hi Mark.

I ended up taking a small claims case against HP.

The court found in my favor & I was refunded the purchase price of the laptop by HP.

If you search for nVidia litigation you should get more info

markj2009

PM sent re my own case.

Mark

sqwarez

El Gato wrote: »

Reballing a solder is not a job I would like to do myself & I have been in computing (both hardware & software) for many years.

While professional reball requires infrared BGA oven equipment, many people have also done it with a heatgun, stencil and solder balls.
You can get leaded solder balls which are much better, about .6mm, original electronics are all lead free now but its very bad and weak for hot parts like GPU.

Its not an easy thing at all but if you have no other options its worth trying.

Also there is the very common reflow method AKA "baking" Although this is much more effective and easy with a heatgun. Dont hold it too close to the motherboard, and use aluminum foil to protect everything but the GPU chip.

Reflow as it does not replace the solder is not considered to be permanent fix, but usually works for some time and people have success of 3 or 4 months. Reball, although it works very well, is not really permanent either - it wasn't just the solder that failed, but something called the 'underfill' of the chip which cannot be replaced.