When I bought my HP Pavillion 510C, the EMachine computers were about $200 cheaper, but I didn't buy one because they had already been talked about as having so many problems with breaking. I bought my HP a year and a month ago.in the last year since I have had my PC it has been shipped back to HP 6 times now and it is still not working right but I am not sending it back anymore.
The first time the power supply went out. They said it was fixed and sent it back. I didn't have it back but 5 minutes and it quit working, this time just loading up to the Windows screen then restarting. I didn't want to send it back again, having it take another 4 weeks so I argued with them and finally they gave me the name of a local repair place they allow to do warranty work. I brought my PC to this man, and he called me later on saying that the hard drive was shot and HP told him he had to ship it to them for repair. I asked him if HP was going to make sure I got the CD-ROM and 256mb RAM chip I had put in my PC back and he said he would write it in the work order and I would get a copy of the work order also.
They sent back a different PC to the tech 2 weeks later and he called me to pick it up. When I got home I checked for the RAM chip and it was missing. We called the tech and he said he didn't have it. The paper work did say to move the parts to the new PC. We called HP and after about 20 minutes of wasted time were told someone would call us back. When someone finally did call us back they said it was sent with the PC to the tech. We told them the tech said he does not have it, and then were told they'd replace it if we could send them the recipt. I did not keep the recipt because RAM doesn't have a warrenty, and I paid cash. I was just SOL.
Two months later the Windows screen would only come up again, so again I shipped it off, and again they sent me a different one. The motherboard went out that time. I recieved that computer and there was nothing on the hard drive, so I tried to load an opperating system on it from a disk I had from my old PC since HP does not give you a CD with your computer. The hard drive wouldn't hold the data, so again my PC was shipped away.
I was told by HP that the RAM portion of the motherboard was shot and the RAM was unable to load anything, and was sent another PC. That PC worked well for about 4 months until I decided to add some RAM. I bought the RAM from the HP web site, and it said spacifically that it was the correct RAM for my model. I got the RAM and put it in. My PC wouldn't boot up. It would boot up fine only one RAM chip was in (it didn't matter which one) but would not work at all when both RAM sticks were in. We called HP and argued with them again to allow us to bring my PC to a local repair tech, and allow him to swap the hard drives so I would not loose everything I had for the 6th time if they had to swap PC's again. They finally agreed, so we made arrangements with the tech and brought the PC in, and after he looked at it told us the motherboard was shot. Since it still worked he let us take it back home while we waited for HP to send another PC to his shop. When the "new" PC got there we got a call from the tech to let us know it had gotten there but that the integrated video on the motherboard was shot, so it would have to be sent back and we would again need to wait for one that worked. Eventually we did get one that worked and get the hard drives swapped.
Each time I have had to call there it has been long distance, because they don't have a toll number, and then they let you sit on hold forever, and when you finally do get to talk to someone they seem to have less of a clue then I do. One of the last times I had this PC fixed my husband had to yell at them and the repair tech we brought it to also had "words" with them. Each time I have had to have my PC fixed except for the last time I am without a PC for 2-4 weeks, and get it back with a different hard drive free of anything I had saved on my PC. During all of the weeks we are without a PC we still have to pay for internet charges, but have no use for them. Some of my school classes are offered online, which would be much easier for me to take but how could I when I don't even know if I will have a PC?
I found out when we finally identified my motherboard that it is in fact the same one used in the EMachines computers. I also have a suspicion that the power supply is as well. The motherboard is called a Trigem Lomita. These are links on information:
HP's: http://h20015. Www2. Hp.com/en/document. Jhtml? Lc=en&docName=bph07028&prodId=hppavilion70993
EMachine's: http://server855. Gisol.com/~smac/motherboards/lomita.htm
On the EMachine's listing there is a link to the Lomita's Supported CPU's. The fastest Celeron it lists is a Coppermine FC-PGA 1.1 GHz, but my PC came with a Celeron 1.3 GHz, as shown at this HP site: http://h20015. Www2. Hp.com/en/document. Jhtml? Lc=en&docName=bph07041
I bought the extended plan for an extra $20 for 2 years, but I spent about $400 last year on phone calls to HP. (My PC was on sale for $799) I am in the Microcomputer Specialist Program so I have pretty much decided that the warrenty they give is worthless. If the problem is hardware failure they will just replace the hardware with the same working model of crap that will fail in another few months. If I need any other kind of support chances are I am going to end up paying long distances charges to be told I don't know, so if I really need to hear that I can ask my 3 year old how to fix my PC and get the same answer HP will give me for free, and my 3 year old is much cuter.
With the money I will save on the long distance I can buy decent parts from companies who have good reputations and service and build a computer that will serve me. I know that it will be reliable because I will do the research on the prospective companies, and I will put the parts together, and I can take my questions or the all of the parts and case to school and get help from people who have an education and have been trained to do more then answer the phone and put you on hold for 15 minutes before they can say "I don't know". When I am done with school I will be in the field of fixing PC's and HP better hope people who ask for my opinion don't base their decissions to buy a PC on what I say, or HP will loose business.
Kristie
Green Bay, Wisconsin
U.S.A.
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