Nvidia Laptop GPU Class Action Litigation

Overheal

A year or two of courtroom battles later, Nvidia has consolidated a list of the 50 or so laptop product lines that have been listed as affected by the meltdown-gpu's (or, at least the ones they lost to in court_:

http://www.nvidiasettlement.com/affectedmodels.html

The list specifies Macbooks, Dells and HPs, sold between 2005 and 2010.

The Deadline for filing an objection or exclusion is November 5. If you have a laptop with a nvidia GPU, purchased within the last 5 years, review this list.

Notice and Information Relating to the Settlement
Case No. 08-04312-JW
NVIDIA GPU LITIGATION

The purpose of this website is to inform Settlement Class Members of the proposed settlement which may affect their rights, to provide information on important dates and deadlines, to collect email addresses for those Settlement Class Members wishing to be contacted with future updates, and to inform Settlement Class Members of the options available to them. You may be a Settlement Class Member if you are a United States resident who purchased for your own personal use and not for resale one of the computers listed in Section 7 of the Full Notice during the corresponding time period, which contained one of certain NVIDIA chips that were incorporated into some versions of those computers. A list of the models affected can be found here. You can also click here to see if your specific model is affected by this settlement.



The lawsuit claimed that NVIDIA sold defective Graphics Processing Units (“GPUs”) and Media and Communications Processors (“MCPs”) that affected the performance of some of the computers in which they were incorporated. NVIDIA denies all allegations of wrongdoing and has asserted many defenses. The settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing.

x in the city

does that mean that the million or so xps users can get cash back...

Voodu Child

x in the city wrote: »

does that mean that the million or so xps users can get cash back...

It was an American class-action lawsuit so it doesnt apply to anyone here im afraid.

The fact that they settled and released a list of affected models would certainly help your case if you took them to the small-claims court though.

M00lers

I have a Presario F500 (listed) from the US that has a fried GPU, received it from a family member in the USA, anything I can do? I doubt it, but you never know.

DerrewDawg

I have an HP tx1000 bought from the States in the right timeframe that dies with the exact same problem, but my Product ID Number is not part of their "list". How they can justify isolating this problem to specific Product ID Numbers is beyond me. It's the GPU chip that is the problem and if the chip in my system falls within the manufacturing dates associated with the problem I should be compensated.

I called the class action lawyers who handled this case and ask them how they came up with this list the Product ID Numbers who should be rewarded and who should not. They didn't have much of an answer other than they couldn't keep dragging this case along trying to get everyone on the list. In other words, they didn't want to delay getting their $13 million payment for the case.

So, their suggestion for the ones who are not on their list...

Find a lawyer willing to take up another class action case against NVIDIA for the same problem. It may be easier this time seeing that there has already been a settlement and with the many consumers whose hopes were crushed after not finding there Product ID Number, there may be enough angry folk out their to go for it.

DerrewDawg

Moolers2000,

If you have a laptop that is on their list of affected laptops, you should make the claim. If it was purchased by a family member in the USA, send the laptop back to that family member and have them process the claim. It's a little more shipping costs on your part, but you should be able to get it fixed up/replaced under this class action.

El Gato

Overheal, thank you for publishing this thread.

As you know, you & I have had different opinions on this issue in different threads.

I have looked at the link you provided & all TX1xxx models are eligible for the scheme.

I am aware that this is for US customers only but should strengthen my small clpaims case.

Many thanks.

DerrewDawg

El Gato,

Thanks for pointing that out. This was not the case several weeks back when I checked the same site. The Tx1*** had a specific list of Product Identification Numbers listed and I was not part of them.

This must have changed within the past few weeks.

El Gato

Yeah, something must've happened for them to include the TX series.

When I checked originally in July the TX was not listed & HP/nVidia downright blanked any appempts to have the series included.

On my side, I have written to HP Ireland on 2 occasions & the have ignored both letters (registered), one of which had an engineers report attached.

I am about to file with the SCC.

woolymammoth

Voodu Child wrote: »

It was an American class-action lawsuit so it doesnt apply to anyone here im afraid.

You're mostly correct.

While the litigation was taken in the US, and is really only applicable inside the US, you may still have some recourse through the laptop manufacturer. Dell, for example, have been rather impressive IMHO in their response to the issue.

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/Direct2Dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2010/09/30/nvidia-gpu-update-nvidia-class-action-lawsuit-and-limited-warranty-enhancement.aspx

In my own experience with it, about 3/4 weeks ago, I got a dell latitude d620 in from one of our customers with the described GPU problems. The thing was literally just out of warranty, but from looking into it I found that Dell were offering a limited 1 year extended warrany on the part, from the expiry date of the original warranty.

now, when i contacted Dell, they put me through to their Out of Warranty service section, where the lovely indian chap tried to convince me that, as the GPU was integrated with the motherboard, it would also need to be replaced. And since the motherboard was not under warranty, I would have to purchase a 1 year extended warranty (which was €99, but still..). After presenting him with the information on the Dell website, he was suddenly more than happy to offer the service free of charge, claiming that was what he was offering all along! Within 24 hrs the laptop had it's free service and is working perfectly. So, anyone reading, beware of Out of Warranty trying to sell you an extended warranty.

I cannot attest to the policies of other companies, but i know that dell took it on board.

HTH

lil_tuts

x in the city wrote: »

does that mean that the million or so xps users can get cash back...

Hi my Packard Bell laptop was one affected by the Nvidia Defects i bought it from PC world 2 years ago and it stopped working a week or two ago i have since been in touch with PC world i made sure i knew my stuff before contacting them and they are refunding me 1/2 the price of the laptop .
Here is a very useful website

http://www.nvidiadefect.com/

they have pre made letters to stores and brilliant advice for getting a refund, replacement or repair. Also you are entitled to a refund , replacement or repair with in 5 years i think it is under the sale of goods act so they cant fob you off

smackyB

I have a HP bought 2 years ago which suffered from the problem. I'd love to get compensation for it but 2 things make it difficult:

- I bought in from Amazon in the states when I spent a summer living there. I'd imagine any refund process would have to happen in the USA.

- I've already tried to repair it myself (by putting new thermal padding + paste in)

Should I bother pursuing it?

DerrewDawg

smackyB,

It wouldn't hurt to try. You did purchase it in the USA (can you support that with proof of purchase?). State your case when the claim period begins. Do you have friends/family in the USA that could process this claim on your behalf?

If you have not done so yet, register your email with the NVIDIA Settlement site. Submit the claim when the time comes. The worst that can happen is that they say no.

FGR

I suffered from this problem on my 9400 with 7900 go gs card. I'm definitely eligible for some sort of compensation however am outside of Dell's 'extra 12 month' warranty.

Seeing as I paid €1,500 for this laptop, and that it's under three years old; do you think I would still have a case in the Small Claims Court? I don't think three years is a reasonable period for this machine to last considering the cost of it.

DerrewDawg

Well the claims phase for the NVIDIA settlement has started and the HP laptop owners get screwed once again. The terminology in the settlement stated that replacements would be of "similar kind or value".

Well they have decided to replace the Tx1000 laptops with ASUS Eee T101MT netbooks. So our high-end DualCore processor systems with optical drives, bluetooth, etc. are being replaced with basically a web browser system with an Atom processor, no optical drive, no bluetooth and Windows 7 Starter.

Not very similar in 'kind' or 'value'.

Needless to say there are a lot of unhappy Tx owners out there right now, including myself. But I guess I should be grateful that I'm receiving some sort of replacement for my dead Tx laptop.

El Gato

As I have received settlement from HP without any conditions.....

I filed a claim with the SCC on 1st November 2010.

HP failed to respond to the claim.

I received a cheque for €1,000 (the value of my claim) on 5th January.

As ASUS Eee T101MT netbooks are not of similar kind or value (in any way) to the TX1xxx series, if I was offered this as settlement I would refuse & persue action legally.

Cryos

El Gato wrote: »

As I have received settlement from HP without any conditions.....

I filed a claim with the SCC on 1st November 2010.

HP failed to respond to the claim.

I received a cheque for €1,000 (the value of my claim) on 5th January.

As ASUS Eee T101MT netbooks are not of similar kind or value (in any way) to the TX1xxx series, if I was offered this as settlement I would refuse & persue action legally.

The claim is nothing to do with HP, the sum arising comes from NVidia for supplying a defective product to manufactuers; if you lodge a claim with hp its forwarded directly to Nvidia.

El Gato

Cryos wrote: »

The claim is nothing to do with HP, the sum arising comes from NVidia for supplying a defective product to manufactuers; if you lodge a claim with hp its forwarded directly to Nvidia.

I'm not sure what you're implying - that HP did not pay out the €1,000 at all or that in fact it was nVidia who paid out?

I am fully aware that the fault was an nVidia manufacturing fault. The litigation in which vNidia have forked out $215 million refers to the US only. The product partners - mainly HP & Dell, do in fact have partial responsibility.

Returning to my pervious post.
1) I DID take a Small Claims Court case against HP
2) I'm sure HP have a legal department who would've opposed the case if they felt HP had no liability
3) HP did NOT fight the case
4) HP DID write a cheque (a HP cheque - not an nVidia cheque) to the value of my claim

So - you are incorrect. I filed a claim against HP and HP paid out.

Whether HP then seek compensation from nVidia for my claim is not my concern nor should it be.

Cryos

El Gato wrote: »

I'm not sure what you're implying - that HP did not pay out the €1,000 at all or that in fact it was nVidia who paid out?

I am fully aware that the fault was an nVidia manufacturing fault. The litigation in which vNidia have forked out $215 million refers to the US only. The product partners - mainly HP & Dell, do in fact have partial responsibility.

Returning to my pervious post.
1) I DID take a Small Claims Court case against HP
2) I'm sure HP have a legal department who would've opposed the case if they felt HP had no liability
3) HP did NOT fight the case
4) HP DID write a cheque (a HP cheque - not an nVidia cheque) to the value of my claim

So - you are incorrect. I filed a claim against HP and HP paid out.

Whether HP then seek compensation from nVidia for my claim is not my concern nor should it be.

Im not saying that you didnt and that HP didnt pay you, all im saying is that the process is transparent to you. Liability is with nvidia and HP is the middle guy, as apart of the class action agreement all the questions you may have asked HP have gone direct to nvidia which is why you probably havnt gotten a response. Its taken a long time for nvidia to admit to multiple vendors about the problem.

In relation to the US only, yes the class suit relates only to the US, but all cross charging at the vendors goes through the US and therefore is eligable.

RoyalMarine

my xps m1710 (listed on the dell site as having a potential fault) has fried.

I bought a replacement motherboard and gpu about a year ago, and it was working ok. then it happened again.

I used the bake your gpu in your oven trick, and it got another 5 months out of it.

2 days ago it kicked off again, and wont work anymore.

warranty is LONG out of date.

have i any come back on this?

x in the city

RoyalMarine wrote: »

my xps m1710 (listed on the dell site as having a potential fault) has fried.

I bought a replacement motherboard and gpu about a year ago, and it was working ok. then it happened again.

I used the bake your gpu in your oven trick, and it got another 5 months out of it.

2 days ago it kicked off again, and wont work anymore.

warranty is LONG out of date.

have i any come back on this?

worth a shot, pretty unlikely since your warranty is gone

is that the 7950gtx?

El Gato

Cryos wrote: »

.....all im saying is that the process is transparent to you.

The process, in fact, in not transparent to me.

The fact of the matter is, I sued HP (not nVidia), HP paid. As I stated in my previous post, if HP then proceed to claim back the cost from nVidia that is between both companies...that does NOT mean that the process is transparent

Cryos wrote: »

Liability is with nvidia and HP is the middle guy

That again is incorrect. Due to the fact that HP failed to rigerously test the hardware & discover the fault themselves makes them somewhat culpable. This was made clear in the litigation (yes I have followed the case in great detail)...futrther to this HP (and other partners Dell etc) were made aware of the defect in late 2007 but ignored the defect. Dell however did a limited recall...

Cryos wrote: »

as apart of the class action agreement all the questions you may have asked HP have gone direct to nvidia which is why you probably havnt gotten a response. Its taken a long time for nvidia to admit to multiple vendors about the problem.

Yet again, you are incorrect. My initial correspondence was to HP in Kildare, which I received a phonecall from the South African HP complaints dept stating that HP did not accept any liability. They did NOT state that nVidia ws responsible.

My second correspondence (again sent to Kildare) prompted another phone call from South Africa stating that HP were aware if the issue but due to the fact that the laptop was NOT PURCHASED IN THE USA that HP did not accept any liability - so no, my questions did NOT go direct to nVidia

Cryos wrote: »

In relation to the US only, yes the class suit relates only to the US, but all cross charging at the vendors goes through the US and therefore is eligable.

Again, HP deny this (see above) as do the other product partners.

As well as that HP could easily have responded to the SCC request & apply for a time extention in order to consult with nVidia - they didn't.

In the UK, the owners of HP machines are sueing HP directly & are receiving the same reply as I have.

I have no intent on continuing to defend a subject that I have been dealing with since Sept 2008.

RoyalMarine

x in the city wrote: »

worth a shot, pretty unlikely since your warranty is gone

is that the 7950gtx?

yeah the 7950gtx. great card, still runs modern games like black ops, starcraft2 etc on very high settings getting around 30fps.

shame it died

BostonB

Be interesting to see if you could take this to the small courts.

Tetrarch

El Gato wrote: »

As I have received settlement from HP without any conditions.....

I filed a claim with the SCC on 1st November 2010.

HP failed to respond to the claim.

I received a cheque for €1,000 (the value of my claim) on 5th January.

As ASUS Eee T101MT netbooks are not of similar kind or value (in any way) to the TX1xxx series, if I was offered this as settlement I would refuse & persue action legally.

El Gato, did you purchase directly from HP and did you have to submit a technical report?

cast_iron

RoyalMarine wrote: »

my xps m1710 (listed on the dell site as having a potential fault) has fried.

I bought a replacement motherboard and gpu about a year ago, and it was working ok. then it happened again.

I used the bake your gpu in your oven trick, and it got another 5 months out of it.

2 days ago it kicked off again, and wont work anymore.

warranty is LONG out of date.

have i any come back on this?

I'd say you do. Mine (M1710) fried a year ago and they blankly refused to fix it. I did the bake trick too and it worked for a while.

Rang them a few weeks ago for the fun and was replaced within a few days free of charge. Laptop is over 4 years old now. I was a bit surprised to say the least, but this action has obviously spurred them on somewhat.
The quote was €514 to replace - all waived after a strong but fair argument. And yes, it was the lovely 7950gtx.

RoyalMarine

im going to ring them tomorrow and see what happens. cheers dude.

x in the city

good luck!!

i have a M1730 with a 9800GT Sli, got it second hand and first thing i did was renew the warranty, cant risk this GPU going up in smoke..

the 7950Gtx was a mega card, surprised they still make them, they must be extinct now...?

El Gato

Tetrarch wrote: »

El Gato, did you purchase directly from HP and did you have to submit a technical report?

Hi Tetrarch, Yes I did get an engineers report (as my own report would have been teated as biased).

The report cost me €80 from http://www.repairmypc.ie/ (if youre locaed in North Co Dublin)

The report was not requested for the court application but I did send it to HP.

Further to earlier posts : http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware/Questions-regarding-the-proposed-NVIDIA-GPU-settlement/m-p/338330

This states tht HP are NOT party to the proposed settlement which would indicate to me that HP are still denying liability....

El Gato

DerrewDawg wrote: »

Well the claims phase for the NVIDIA settlement has started and the HP laptop owners get screwed once again. The terminology in the settlement stated that replacements would be of "similar kind or value".

Well they have decided to replace the Tx1000 laptops with ASUS Eee T101MT netbooks. So our high-end DualCore processor systems with optical drives, bluetooth, etc. are being replaced with basically a web browser system with an Atom processor, no optical drive, no bluetooth and Windows 7 Starter.

Not very similar in 'kind' or 'value'.

Needless to say there are a lot of unhappy Tx owners out there right now, including myself. But I guess I should be grateful that I'm receiving some sort of replacement for my dead Tx laptop.

Just received a mail containing this : http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/hp_tx1000_problems/blog

Hecklar

Hi guys,


I understand this thread is getting on a bit, but i thought id dig it up instead of starting another on the exact same topic.

The deadline for forming a claim is due pretty soon, the 14th or March 2011 i believe.

On the 12th of January 2008 I bought a HP DV2000 (DV2175ea - p/n RN065EA#ABU) under a finance agreement from Dixons in Jervis Street shopping center and have only recently finished the payments on the laptop to the total of €1349.99. Since owning it I have had various problems with the graphics/screen and even had it brought back to the shop under warranty (possibly twice but its been a while). I might still have receipts of this warranty repair. Anyway, After about 18 months the laptop was completely unusable. It would power on and make a series of beeps (that indicated a graphics failure) but nothing would show on the screen. If i left the laptop on for a good while and then restarted it, it would boot up no problems but it would never boot from cold.

Reading about the Nvidia chip problem explains exactly the problem and it fits with exactly the issues that are being covered over in the US litigation.

The laptop has spent much of the last year or more locked away in a press where it has been unusable due to the faulty chip and I only found out about this whole Nvidia issue a few weeks ago after i decided to research a repair on the laptop.

What would be the likeliness of getting a refund/replacement from HP? As the store i bought the laptop from has since changed to PC World (although still the same company) am i likely to get any help from them?

I see a poster had some success in taking HP to the small claims court, what is involved in doing this exactly?

Sorry about all the questions, I appreciate any answers.

El Gato

Hi Hecklar,

I am the person (on should I say one of the people) ho has successfully obtained a settlement from HP in relation to the nVidia issue.

The best advice I can offer is to return to PC World (DGS Irl) & request that the resolve the issue for you. You have the hire purchase agreement & confirmation of the previous repairs.

If you do not get satisfaction initially, write to DGS explaining you are aware of the nVidia defect & want them to resolve the issue via a cash compansation or a replacement produce equivalent in value & spec to your unusable HP (ensure the replacement is NOT HP)

If you still are not compensated satisfactory, then issue SCC proceedings.

It is a simple straightforward process & costs €15. Make sure you factor in the cost of the laptop, the court fee & any unnecessary travel to/form the court to file the claim (€1349.99+€15+expences) you may need to obtain an engineers report (approx €100-€120 dont forget to add to calim amount) but in this case there is a history of repair so may not be necessary

In my case HP failed to reply to the court request & a judge found in my favour due to non-reply from HP.

The process takes about 8-10 weeks from filing to decision.

Hope this helps

Hecklar

Brilliant, thanks for the info.

I'll collect up all the info on it i have and get in touch with pcworld/dixons and see if i get anywhere with it. I'd be quite happy to take a new laptop worth similar value to the disaster i spent a few years paying for. As ya said though id rather not touch another HP. The laptop new i replaced the faulty one with hasnt lasted very long either and even started showing problems after only 3 months so i've decided im never again going to buy anything from HP again. I have ten year old work laptops that are as good today as they were when they were made.

thanks again.


Edit: Is their anywhere in dublin city center that i could obtain an engineers report? Theres a little place that does laptop repairs in the Ilac that i pass all the time, would they do it maybe?

El Gato

I think you might want to address the 2nd laptop aswell :eek:, if its only 3 months you have the right to a repair/replacement.

I'm sure if there is a repair centre they should be able to provide an engineers report. I would proceed without the report initially due to the 2 previous repairs (which will be recorded).

If they do require a report, you can then get one (at their cost).

I too have a laptop (an Inspiron 6000 )purchased in 2002 which still works perfectly

Hecklar

Thanks again El Gato,

Unfortunately I put up with the niggly problems of the newer laptop (A HP DV6) with the intention of "getting around to it" and when i did finally get the finger out i found i was 2 days out of warranty. The problems were there from only 3 months mild use though but battling them on that didnt really appeal to me at the time.

I dug out the documentation for the DV2000 earlier and I have found the finance agreement, The sales receipt and the Dixons Service docket i received when i brought the laptop for repair. Im 80% sure i had another second repair docket but i havent found it yet.

The docket stated "Display/Control fault" as the sales assistants diagnosis when it was being sent away but nothing had been filled from the engineer as to what was fixed or changed on paper. I remember the sales guy telling me this, that and the other had been done, quite unconvincingly i might add, but the laptop was exactly the same as it was when i left it in.

At the moment im just trying to figure out who exactly i am to get in contact with, whether to write a letter or to bring the laptop to the actual store but id imagine id be fobbed off if i did that.
Its been nothing but a headache, and one that has cost me 14-hundred euro for the displeasure and it sikened me to see that payment going out every month, knowing It was to pay for such a poor quality, unusable piece of hardware that has been gathering dust since receiving it back from its last repair. That said, If i can come out of it with a machine worth as much as i have spent on the defective one i would be happy to put it down to experience and be very selective with what i spend my hard earned on in future.

BostonB

You'd need to group together and make as much noise as possible. Bad publicity you'd assume companies would try to avoid.

Hecklar

Just reading up on this site over here, http://www.nvidiadefect.com/pc-world-dixons-currys-f36.html

I know its mostly aimed at UK customers but its very much the same process.

I think I'll package up the laptop later and wipe all my data from it before giving the PC World store a go and get the ball rolling.

Hecklar

Update:

Hi guys,
Well I went to the store with my laptop and as expected, they said it was out of warranty and couldnt do anything with it. I wrote to the head office of DSG Ireland about my problem on the 10th of March and after a week or so I had no reply. Instead of going on to the Small Claims Court straight away, I got in touch with Declan from the Curry & PC World forum on here on the 21st, Who i believe is the Managing Director of the company.

Declan pointed out he has been busy with work and the letter hadn't come to his attention and that it may be on his desk back at work. I forwarded on a copy of the letter to the email address he provided me and have heard nothing since in return. Yesterday i sent a PM to ask if he had received the email previously and that too hasn't been replied to despite being online a few times since.

I would be inclined to give it a few more days in case its a genuine case of him just being really busy but I'm just wondering what others reckon of the situation.
Should i just go straight ahead and escalate it with the small claims court? I have the form and its ready to be filed. I'm thinking i should give it until maybe Monday and then go ahead with the case if i don't get a satisfactory response? What are your feelings on having no response after 18 days?

thanks again.

BostonB

Even if he does reply I don't think he'll be able to help you. he won't be allowed. I'd go to the small claims myself.

FGR

Reviving this thread; apologies to mods if it's too old!

Just wondering whether Hecklar had any success. I'm looking at going down this road too.

Lash_Alert

Sorry to be bumping old thread. But my xps just failed me the last few days., Exact same thing as all the above. Had no idea about the fault. Any idea where i can go from here? Going to ring dell tomorrow and throw up stink first and foremost.

Overheal

If your XPS is too old you may be SOL. And to be fair if it's 3 or 4 years old it's beyond the standard life expectancy of a laptop anyway, ie. it's expected you've received your worth out of it. Just as most cars are built to last reliably for 100,000 miles and everything after that is a bit of a gamble: in most cases the little stuff will break, in other cases the car might have to be junked by 150k. One guy got his Honda to the 1 million mile mark before but that doesn't mean it's a precedent.

Lash_Alert

Overheal wrote: »

If your XPS is too old you may be SOL. And to be fair if it's 3 or 4 years old it's beyond the standard life expectancy of a laptop anyway, ie. it's expected you've received your worth out of it. Just as most cars are built to last reliably for 100,000 miles and everything after that is a bit of a gamble: in most cases the little stuff will break, in other cases the car might have to be junked by 150k. One guy got his Honda to the 1 million mile mark before but that doesn't mean it's a precedent.

My laptop is less than 4 years old, i wouldnt call that past its sell-by date would you?

Lash_Alert

Although my service tag has fallen off, what do i do?

Overheal

Lash_Alert wrote: »

Although my service tag has fallen off, what do i do?

No service number = no option. You have to recover the service number.

The laptop is past it's sell-by date, even by the EU's very generous standards, which define a window of 2 years from purchase to seek reprisal

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1677034/Two-year-warranty-EU-law.html

Even at that, this is an old old old issue at this point and has been adequately publicized. If you knew for instance you had an affected model laptop that would fail eventually and didn't get a replacement board within the warranty period you don't have much ground to stand on here. The class action established those units were faulty, it wasnt necessary to wait for your particular unit to fail.

At best you can compile the information in this thread and make your case in a small claims court, for which I advise a solicitor's help in, since we're talking about a lot of jurisdictions here between US-vendored products/class action suits and all other manner of crap.

Lash_Alert

Overheal, not getting your attitude towards me? I had no idea about the problem until it failed and i started googling what could be causing it so maybe cool the jets yea? Had i known about the problem, of course i would have gotten in touch sooner. Also, when you're buying an XPS 1530 for about 1500, you expect it to last a fair bit longer than 2 or 3 years.

got off the phone to dell there, got the service tag. They admit that my laptop has the problem after going through a few steps with me and are willing to replace the motherboard for ''free' but i must pay for the guy to come out to my house to fix it. This will cost 171, surely this isnt right? Anyone else had dealings like this? What do i do?

Any genuine help would be amazing.

Paul

BostonB

Overheal wrote: »

...If you knew for instance you had an affected model laptop that would fail eventually and didn't get a replacement board within the warranty period ...

Lash_Alert wrote: »

...They admit that my laptop has the problem after going through a few steps with me and are willing to replace the motherboard for ''free'...

AFAIK They (nvidia ) never fixed the nvidia chipset causing these problems. If you get the same board back it may eventually fail with the same fault. I'd consider getting them to replace it with the lesser ATI chipset version of the motherboard, which doesn't have the fault. Its no good for 3D games though.

The charge for replacing it, is half the price of new laptop. Seems a bit unfair. I wonder you got their response in writing does it strengthen your case in the small claims.

Lash_Alert

I told him i wasn't happy having to pay to fix there mistake. I said i wanted time to think, so hes calling back shortly. I'm going to ask to speak to his supervisor, and threaten small claims court i think. Surely someone from Ireland has been in this situation before?

Paul

BostonB

This is apples response btw.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2377

duckysauce

Lash_Alert wrote: »

I told him i wasn't happy having to pay to fix there mistake. I said i wanted time to think, so hes calling back shortly. I'm going to ask to speak to his supervisor, and threaten small claims court i think. Surely someone from Ireland has been in this situation before?

Paul

tell them to send the board and you will change it yourself , look on you tube how to do it.

Overheal

Lash_Alert wrote: »

Overheal, not getting your attitude towards me? I had no idea about the problem until it failed and i started googling what could be causing it so maybe cool the jets yea? Had i known about the problem, of course i would have gotten in touch sooner. Also, when you're buying an XPS 1530 for about 1500, you expect it to last a fair bit longer than 2 or 3 years.

got off the phone to dell there, got the service tag. They admit that my laptop has the problem after going through a few steps with me and are willing to replace the motherboard for ''free' but i must pay for the guy to come out to my house to fix it. This will cost 171, surely this isnt right? Anyone else had dealings like this? What do i do?

Any genuine help would be amazing.

Paul

You expect them to last longer, but there is no guarantee that they will. In the case of Apple they are by no means liable to offer 4 years of post-sale support on affected macbooks but they have chosen to do so to preserve their company image.

I don't know why you think I need to cool my jets or have an attitude, I'm just giving you the unbiased reality about the situation. I apologize if I caused offense when I didn't tell you exactly what you wanted to hear. OK. That right there I was a little miffed.

There should be no reason for them to have to come out to the house to perform that repair. Ask them what the shipping cost would be to have it fired off to their service center.

Also in fairness to Dell, any of their reps I've spoken to have been pretty cordial. Also, this is not *their* mistake, technically. It's Nvidia's. Jumping the gun and threatening Small Claims Court is a sure way to get them to lock down and stop speaking with you, it's a common tactic anytime a customer threatens to file suit against you. In my last job if someone even so much as threatened action we cut all contact - hung up the phone if necessary - and pre-emptively contacted our lawyer for advise on how to proceed. If you want to make a SCC case do it without warning them about it first, it's not going to do anything positive to threaten them beforehand - it's certainly unlikely it will coerce them into performing your repair for free. You can also try an EECB, they have a moderately high rate of success if delivered appropriately (ie. Calmly, void of threats or insults): http://consumerist.com/2007/05/how-to-launch-an-executive-email-carpet-bomb.html.

http://consumerist.com/company/dell/