HP PAvillion DV7 faulty sandybridge

Private Joker

It seems i have one of the laptops that was part of the sandybridge recall a couple of years ago. My problem is i bought it in the New york and now i'm seeing serious degrading of the sata bridge, everything is slowing down .

I have been on to both irish support and US support. Irish support cant do anything because they have no recall notices on my laptop and US will only repair if its at a US address.

There are 2 sata connections on the board but when i put my hd into the spare sata prot nothing happens. is there any way of activating that spare stata port to boot from my primary drive, there doesnt seem to be any option for it in the bios screen.

Thanks

asgaard

Did You update Your BIOS to the latest firmware?

Torqay

Did HP customer care (US) confirm that your laptop was subject to the recall?

Run System Spec and identity make and model of the motherboard. Contact the manufacturer (HP doesn't make the components) and find out if your motherboard is indeed equipped with the flawed Cougar Point chipset.

Overheal

There's always small claims court. But build up your proof, as Torquay suggests. I'd also attempt to reach executive care at HP US.

http://consumerist.com/2009/01/22/reach-hewlett-packard-executivce-customer-service/

number may still be valid. 4 years old though.

Private Joker

Just to update lads, btw thanks for the replies

i was on to them again and got no joy so sent them this

dear sir/madame.


I am totally unsatisfied with the manner in which my problem has been dealt with by HP. I bought a laptop which has an acknowledged manufacturing fault. I don't see this as a warranty issue . HP as a company have an obligation to their customers and i feel i have been very badly treated in this case . nobody seems to be able to take responsibility for it.

As such i wish to have all the information regarding my case sent to me , along with the official response from hp regarding the matter, as i will be taking this to the small claims court in ireland.

Regards,

this was their reply



Unfortunately, our department cannot assist you and therefore, your case was escalated to the appropriate team.

According to a colleague from the consumer Customer Relations team, he has provided an explanation as to why you cannot be supported.

I’m sorry about the situation.

Regards,

they said it was out of warranty. they then sent this

It is our intention to resolve any issues our customers experience with HP products quickly and satisfactorily in accordance with their warranty agreement.

We recognise that you are not happy with the information given to you regarding the failure of your dv7-4290us, and thank you for taking time to pass on your comments to us.

It is unfortunate that your product has developed a fault outside of the 12 months manufacturer’s warranty period. However I am writing, with regret, to confirm that we are unable to offer a free repair or exchange unit. Our obligations to you as the end customer are as detailed in the warranty statement that accompanied the product when you first purchased it, and such warranty cover has since elapsed.

After reviewing your product this unit was not marketed in the UK and Ireland and therefore any support offered would be best effort.

In regards to the recall you have mentioned by Intel, after reviewing the issues you have experienced it would appear that they relate to the hard disk drive and not your processor. However as a good will gesture we will offer free technical phone support to identify the issue. Should you wish to accept this offer please contact me on xxxxxxxxxxx or reply to this email.

Please note if this issue is hardware related any repair would be chargeable and you may need to contact HP in America to carry out these repairs.

Kind Regards,

my reply

HP have admitted that i was sold a defective product. the recall was for the sandy bridge chipset ,this is a chipset issue, not a Sandy Bridge processor problem. The chipset--or companion chip to the Sandy Bridge processor--is codenamed "Cougar Point." That's where the flaw resides. Chipsets, generally speaking, are conduits that allow the main processor to communicate with hardware in a PC.
And the flaw, in this case, is related to how the Cougar Point chipset communicates with SATA devices, such as a SATA hard disk drive or SATA optical drive. this really does sound like the issue i have.

I repeat, this is not a warranty issue this is a manufacturing flaw.

What is covered by HP Global Warranty
HP Global Warranty covers HP products at the level of standard warranty offered in the country in which it is used. For example, a product purchased in country "A" and moved to country "B" receives the current warranty coverage provided by country "B" (if that product is marketed or supported in country .

you could be pedantic and say that 'product' is the actual model but it could also be taken as a laptop.

My consumer rights:
Where goods turn out to be faulty and where you are not to blame, you have a number of options under consumer law. Faults with goods may be major or minor and present different issues for particular products.

If the fault is major, for example if you buy a mobile phone and it stops working shortly after you start using it due to a major fault with the phone, you have the option to reject the goods and rescind (end) the contract.

If the fault is minor, for example a button is missing from a piece of clothing you bought, you have the option to request arepair, replacement, a reduction in the price you paid or a refund. However, if the trader refuses to meet your requests or there is an unreasonable delay in providing one of these remedies, then you have the right to reject the goods and rescind the contract.

Your contract is with the retailer or supplier who sold you the goods or products so if there is a fault, it is up to them to fix it. You may also have extra protection if you have a guarantee or warranty from the manufacturer..



Now, if you don't want to help me in this issue, then i have no alternative than to take HP to the small claims court . I feel i have been badly treated by HP in this matter and i will never recommend let alone buy one of your products ever again. and for the record i had brought this to HP's attention while the product was in warranty


they got back to me and basically told me to sod off in a nice way. so i am now awaiting a reply from HP US but they more or less said theres not much hope.

I there any real point in taking them to the small claims court. i have gotten back an email stating i had rang them about it while it was in warranty.

DarrenWilson

Hi, I came across this thread whilst researching the Sandy Bridge flaw on my Pavillion DV7. I have noticed that the System Event logs are showing a lot of errors relating to the Intel chipset on the secondary HDD & performance is nowhere near what it should be (and has been). I recently replaced the 2 x 500GB drives that were factory supplied with 512GB SSD's. Performance from the primary drive is blistering, but as I use the secondary drive for storing RAW images and HD video on, it is not at the performance level I would expect from a 5400rpm platter based drive without the flaw!

As the original poster mentioned, HP are no help whatsoever and I am now looking towards Trading Standards to resolve this issue, especially as I am still paying for the machine for another 15 months or so! HP also reckoned the machine was out of warranty 4 months after I purchased it but I have receipts etc from PC World (sorry for swearing!) stating when it was bought as a new device. They are also no help as their so called "experts" have less knowledge than my step daughter does regarding IT equipment (they don't understand that I have been in the industry for over 20 years!). I first reported the chipset flaw to HP 2 weeks after buying the machine but they said they knew nothing about a recall, etc & I could not find anything on HP UK's website regarding it either!

If you have got any further, I would be interested in hearing about it, especially if you have a case reference I can present to HP UK and Trading Standards to show that my machine is no an "isolated case" as HP try to tell me.

Private Joker

Hi Darren,

My laptop had finally been put to rest, after months of barely able to use it, it died last week. I jumped through loads of hoops but no one would do anything for me. got on to hp america and they said it wasnt a recall but an enhancement program :rolleyes: and offered me a voucher that i could use only in California state. I can Pm you my complaint number if you wish. but i dont know how far you'll get. It was liking banging your head on a brick wall. Best of luck though.

DarrenWilson

Hi Private Joker, have you kept the laptop? Reason I ask this is that if I know of other people who have the exact same problem (I am trying to find more DV7 owners who have issues but not getting very far until now), then I have more ammunition to go to Trading Standards with or even BBC Watchdog should I find a dozen or so people.

Obviously HP have sold products that are faulty before they are placed in the boxes and shipped to the stores or customer, so they should replace the motherboards on those devices that are still with the consumer, regardless of length of ownership (I do know that in the UK you do have 6 years if you can prove the item is faulty or flawed from the start, the company has to prove that it isn't & with all the info online regarding the issues with the Sandy Bridge chip set, it is going to be hard for them to ignore it).

It is a shame as when the machine is working properly it is blisteringly quick!

Private Joker

yeah, I still have it. Its annoying dealing with HP with them referring to a recall as an enhancement . I do agree though that it was a cracking machine when it was working, played all the games at the time on ultra settings .

DarrenWilson

I have sent a request for BBC Watchdog to investigate the issue as there is plenty of evidence online that these chipsets are flawed & Intel say that they would replace them for OEM's and it was down to the OEM's to replace any boards they supplied in to the consumer chain. HP are a nightmare to deal with as their support team don't really know what they are talking about other than the flowchart they follow.

If I get a response from Watchdog, I will let people know.

Torqay

A shame really that this issue still hasn't been resolved.

Darren, were you able to verify that the problem is indeed caused by a faulty controller?

A while Gigabyte released a little tool (which should work for any LGA1155 motherboard) to check the SATA controller. (direct download).

If your controller is suffering from this fault, the SATA Checker should return a result like this:

DarrenWilson

100% by the controller. I noticed issues with the factory fitted drives after less than a month with the Event Logs showing errors caused by IASTOR on the secondary drive. The drive itself passed all tests on the test bed but was failing with bad blocks on the notebook. I changed the drive for a known good 320GB WD drive that I had on my bench & that failed on bad block readings also, but on the test bed system, passed with flying colours. I contacted HP who were about as much use as a wet tissue, and also contacted the place of purchase who blamed the drives even after the actual flaw was mentioned to them a number of times in the conversation. They wanted me to take the machine to them for them to run tests on it and to replace the drive if it was faulty (which I had told them it wasn't on numerous occasions!!!!).

I have put up with minor read/write errors over the last 15-18 months or so, as the machine is used for 9-10 hours a day (don't fancy setting up another machine to do the work it was bought for). I have back-ups of all the data anyway so if the inevitable happened I would be ok with both my own and clients data.

The SSD on the primary controller is blisteringly quick, but the secondary SSD is running at the same speed I would expect from the 5400rpm drive it replaced basically (and that is being generous). The 5400rpm drive it replaced is running perfectly in the PS3!

Every drive I have used on the secondary controller is reporting IASTOR errors in the event logs, so I expect the controller to fail shortly.

DarrenWilson

I did find this document on the HP UK support pages acknowledging the flaw and procedure for resolution

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=uk&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c02712015&l=

I have (actually on hold at moment) been in contact with HP to resolve this as the document shows they accept certain products do have this issue.

I have now been passed through to HP's customer complaints team who are trying to resolve this, but with the DV7 model now being out of production, nobody seems to know what to do!

Once I get further (& I will) I will report back

Private Joker

I actually brought this up with them too. best of luck with it mate. u may find a more sympathetic ear than i did.

Private Joker

any update Darren?

DarrenWilson

I wish I had good news, but the idiots at HP are trying to worm their way out of it by saying that my serial number does not correspond to the recalled boards & even though I do have a faulty chipset, the "recall" does not apply to me. I have opened a case with Trading Standards (I am not in Ireland & didn't realise this was an Irish board until now!) and they are going to see what they can do for me as I have explained the situation to them and provided them with evidence of the flaw and proof that my machine is affected, so they reckon I have a strong case should it get to a legal point of view (I am still paying for the machine until March 2014). I also spoke to the finance company and retailer customer support, whom both were sympathetic and said that because it was like that at manufacture, the issue lies with the manufacturer (trading standards said the same even though under the Sales of Goods Act , the issue lies with the retailer to resolve). Too complicated for me, but believe me, I will not let this lie and will ruin HP if I have to (I have a lot of people who are willing to rip them new rear ends on social media but I have asked them to hold fire until Trading Standards give me a final decision on what is happening).