wrote:
> ----- quote -------
>
> Author ---> Michael Lasky at WindowsSecrets.com
>
>
>
> Dell and HP balk at replacing bad Nvidia chip
>
>
> An old urban myth claims that the microprocessors used in PCs and
> other consumer electronics are designed to fail within days or weeks
> of their warranty expiration.
>
> For tens of thousands of people who bought Dell and HP notebooks whose
> motherboards fried often a few weeks after their warranty expired
> there's nothing mythical about it.
>
> The cause of the machines' fried motherboards is an overheating Nvidia
> graphics chip. The failure rate is so huge that Nvidia had to take a
> $196 million charge against earnings in the second quarter of its 2008
> fiscal year in anticipation of the reimbursements that would result
> from the faulty GPU (more info).
>
> What's particularly scandalous, though, is how HP and Dell first
> handled the deluge of complaints from customers with notebooks that
> failed after their warranties expired. The companies either charged
> the customers (victims?) for repairs or refused service because the
> systems were past the warranty period.
>
> Even worse, HP and Dell continued to sell notebooks with the same
> Nvidia chip long after the companies were aware of the problem.
> (Ultimately, Nvidia released a new version of the GPU that didn't
> cause overheating.)
>
> Unwary consumers who purchased the affected notebooks no doubt based
> in part on the heady reputations of the vendors were left in the lurch
> when their PCs failed, which usually occurred after 18 months or so.
> The purchasers had no recourse except to yell and scream at clueless
> tech-support reps.
>
> When the heat from consumer complaints became as hot as the faulty
> Nvidia chip, HP and Dell relented and published a list of defective
> model numbers on their Web sites. Dell extended the standard one-year
> warranty to two years for the systems they identified as having the
> problem. HP offered a 24-month warranty extension for the specific
> issue.
>
> However, instead of issuing a recall as you would expect in such a
> clear case of a defective part the vendors instead merely offered a
> BIOS upgrade. The "patch" for the affected notebooks made their fans
> run continuously in an attempt to lower the GPU-induced heat, which
> was cooking the motherboards onto which the chips were soldered.
>
> This "fix" merely extended the time before the motherboards finally
> burned out while simultaneously devouring the machines' battery life
> sort of like putting a Band-Aid on a coronary. Of course, notebook
> purchasers became further inflamed by the power drain on their systems
> due to the constantly running fan.
>
> (Unlike Dell and HP, Apple quickly acknowledged the presence of the
> defective Nvidia chip in some MacBook Pro notebooks and offered
> repairs or replacements to its customers.)
>
> How to get vendors to respond to your gripes
>
> There ought to be a PC lemon law, like the lemon laws enacted in many
> states that protect purchasers of defective automobiles. Those laws
> came about because legions of consumers complained after they got
> stuck with cars new and used that were clunkers. Until such
> protections are available, you can take the following steps to get
> redress for your grievances:
>
> * Post a description of your gripe on consumer-complaint blogs.
> People who bought the defective HP and Dell notebooks would have been
> out of luck if it hadn't been for the rising power of Internet
> communities and blogs ironically, some of which were on the vendor's
> very own sites. These grass-roots efforts demonstrate that consumers
> are not powerless when they own a lemon PC, even in the absence of a
> lemon law to back them up.
>
> As the number of postings about the problem on gripe sites rose,
> HP and Dell could no longer hide from their customers. For example,
> the site HP Lies was created specifically for consumers to fight back
> against what the site calls "HP's cover-up of the Nvidia defect." A
> massive number of people who had bought now-dead HP notebooks that
> fried due to the overheated Nvidia chip not only spewed their venom at
> the company but also offered legal and logistical advice to others who
> shared their misfortune.
>
> Surprisingly, many burned customers discovered the HP Lies site
> through links on HP's own Business Support Forum. Likewise, news of
> Dell's offer of a limited warranty enhancement with a list of affected
> units was reported at Dell's Direct2Dell user-community blog as a
> response to the thermonuclear anger expressed by unhappy customers at
> the site.
>
> * Take it to court. Many customers went the legal route and filed
> lawsuits that were consolidated into a class-action complaint against
> Nvidia, Dell, and HP last September. While less effective in getting a
> full reimbursement or replacement, lawsuits serve as a wake-up call to
> corporations and produce corresponding action to mollify the
> plaintiffs.
>
> * Skip low-level tech support and go directly to the top. If you
> have a PC problem that's been proven to result from a defect, ask to
> speak to a high-level tech-support representative, who will be more
> empowered to address your complaint and likely more knowledgeable
> about the issue as well.
>
> Be persistent, but keep your cool (which may be more than your
> PC is doing). Advice at the HP Lies site suggests going the corporate
> route and obtaining a case manager to get free repairs or a
> replacement, which standard tech support might not provide.
>
> * Buy an extended-service warranty. HP and Dell customers who had
> extended warranties got no-charge repairs and/or replacements for
> their Nvidia-murdered systems. Because cheaper components are used in
> most of today's low-cost computers, chances are those components will
> fail sooner than in the past. Extended warranties generally offer no-
> or low-hassle tech support and repairs for up to three years beyond
> the standard warranty.
>
> PCs may be unreliable and vendors unresponsive to customer complaints,
> so it pays to know your options.
>
> ---- unquote ------
What Lasky has written is too true. The most popular replacement part
in my repair business is a graphics card to replace a burned out nVidia
chip. This has been going on for years. And laptops become
electro-trash when the soldered-on nVidia chip causes a motherboard
failure. Nowadays, if people want an nVidia card in the computer I sell
them, everything EXCEPT the graphics card has a replacement warranty.
.... Ben Myers
Linear Mode
