Back in 2004 I bought a Pavilion Desktop. I paid roughly 800. Warranty was for a year.in July the motherboard blew.
I was taking online classes, had just started the summer semester and had to have a computer so I immediately bought a laptop from HP within a couple of weeks. (Aug) for about 750 with Duo core processing and 120 G Hard Drive. Again the warranty was for a year.
In May I get a message upon booting that the HD may be failing. The laptop is not even 2 years from purchase. And of course the warranty ran out in Aug.
I run cleanup, defrag, disk check on a regular basis and I run full antivirus on all systems I have ever owned. I leave it running in power save to take the stress away of turning it on and off constantly.
I have now spent approx 1600 in 4 years on their products which one doesn't work, and the other apparently MAY fail at any moment. The life expectancy of their products appears to be about 2 years. (right after the warranty expires) I have a friend who bought an Emachine with a Celeron back in 2002 and it's still running... Hmmm.
I'm not doing major computing here. I’m not using it to contact life on other planets or solve the golden ratio... I'm taking classes and checking email. I do Java programming but 70 percent of my HD is free. My HD has passed every diagnostic. I went into BIOS and ran one and it passed. The only one it doesn't seem to pass is the HP one. Which is a bit strange.
So HP tells me to replace this one part will cost me... Wait for it...$598... That's right. The cost of a new Dell or Lenovo laptop. (Because I won't buy another HP)
I also told her that I can buy the Hard Drive from a computer retail site for 99.00 and swap it out myself. So why does it cost so much? Perhaps because it's a sure-fire way to get money out of panicking consumers who are unaware of their options.
The motherboard on the Desktop I purchased in 2004 had similar defects. When I took it apart I found 2 of the capacitors on the Mother board bulging. I was a victim of the capacitor plague.
Faulty electrolyte formula. Cut corners to improve profit. Then charge the consumer six times the retail to replace the part... What a winning combination. Unless you are on the consumer end.
The point of my post is to let others know, shop around... Once could be a fluke, twice... I don't think so. And to ask $600 to replace only the HD is complete proof that they are fleecing unaware consumers or smoking crack. Or both. Absolutely insane.
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