HP laptop woes
I know, I know. You may be going ‘How could you?’ Believe me, I am regretting the decision to allow my wife to get an HP / Compaq laptop for school. Read on for the whole gruesome details. Warning - not for the faint of heart.
The laptop had everything she needed and wanted. Due to a discount, it was a great price. At least the inital cost was a great price, but you get what you pay for or sometimes less than you pay for. Fine, it’s ordered. This is where we got our first inkling of future problems. After placing the order we were informed it would take over 3 weeks to receive it. Wow!
Once she received it, ok. Or not. What’s this, problems logging onto the ‘net wirelessly. Hm, let’s call tech support. This was the first of many calls. After spending time with tech support they determined that the laptop was fine and that the problem was the wireless network. Ok, wait. We had the same problem with 3 different wireless networks and other laptops aren’t having this problem. Sorry, they say, it isn’t the laptop, you need to check your wireless network. All right, here is issue #1 that was never resolved and still plagues her.
My wife likes to customize a bit. She has certain colors she likes for windows, fonts, etc. So she went through setting them. Hm, she says, I thought I changed that border color. Let me change it again. Hm, she says, still not changed. But the other colors were. After several days of some settings changing and others not, she calls tech support. Sorry, they say, this is a software issue and you need to contact Microsoft, we can’t help you. All right, here is issue #2 that wasn’t resolved.
Wait, why is the clock off? Wait, I reset it yesterday and now it’s off again. Hm. Her very wise husband says it might be the bios battery. Call tech support. Nah, they say, has to be a software issue. Problem #3.
Hm, why did the laptop just die on battery power. I had it charged up. Oh well, I’ll charge it up again.
Next day:
Hm, the battery didn’t charge up and is dead again. Call tech support. Oh, that may be a bad battery. (Wow, like , ya think. How much are these guys paid?). We’ll send you a new battery.
Once the new battery arrived everything is perfect and wonde… oh wait. Still having the same issues. Problem #4.
Now I’m looking at USB ports. Why? Because only 2 of the 4 are working. Hm. Call tech support. They tell us you need to take it in and have them reload it. WARNING!!! For everyone that has ever been or may be told this, reloading will completely wipe out everything on your system and you will lose any programs and files you have put on there. Funny that they don’t mention that part. Oh no, my wife complains, I need my laptop and may have a very difficult time getting the University stuff back on here for connecting and some of the programs I need. I can’t take it somewhere for a week to be fixed and then a couple more days for the university to put things back on. Sorry, they say, that is your only option. You should have told us right away about problems. The only problem you’ve had was the battery in December. WHAT! There are no records of any of the other phone conversations we had to tech support! This is problem #5!
So - long story short, I can not recommend purchasing an HP ( Hewlett Packard) or Compaq laptop.