laptop broke by now!!! aarghghgh

magoogy

most of you will remember me enquiring about the best laptop to buy/from where, etc, and the trouble i had setting it up wirelessly - now.......

the thing has broke - one of the keys has snapped off....i have taken it to comet who have sent it off to be fixed but said i may have to pay even though it guarenteed and i have insurance on it - because it looks like it was forced off and broken ???? why would we do that????

what do i do if this is what happens when they are due to give me it back in 21 days?

calleyw

magoogy wrote:

most of you will remember me enquiring about the best laptop to buy/from where, etc, and the trouble i had setting it up wirelessly - now.......

the thing has broke - one of the keys has snapped off....i have taken it to comet who have sent it off to be fixed but said i may have to pay even though it guarenteed and i have insurance on it - because it looks like it was forced off and broken ???? why would we do that????

what do i do if this is what happens when they are due to give me it back in 21 days?

How in the hell does a key just snap off. I managed once to flick off one of keys off my laptop keyboard. And had to put it back on with a little bit of brute force. I was so scared that it would break. The laptop is now about 4 years old and still going strong.

They might have thought that a child had pulled a key off and when you tried putting the key back on you snapped it off.

Stranger things have happened and I am sure that most shops have seen and heard it all from it was like that when I bought it to the dog ate it. LOL!!!!

Yours

Calley

IvanOpinion

I must admit I would also wonder how a key 'fell off' .. and why is it always a flamin vowel . It might have been cheaper to approach the manufacturer and ask them how much a new keyboard was for that model ... they are usually quite easy to fit (I have broken several in my time).

Ivan

magoogy

its nice that you assume that we did this delibarately - do you know how long it took to save to buy my daughter a laptop? so - obviously we are going to be really careless and make sure we break it in the first month - thanks for the advice im sure

IvanOpinion

Magoogy .. chill. Keyboards are actually quite strong and they do take quite a bit of force to break ... in my case it would need to be that way considering I keep dropping my keyboard (standard .. not a laptop) and, after the local kids have been rubbing their sticky fingers all over it, I just shove it in the bath and wash it with a stiff brush (and then hang it out to dry for a few days).

Laptop keyboards often have limited travel and are therefore even harder to break. Which key was it? The most often one I see broken is the '$'/'4' key (usually by someone trying to add a key cap with the euro symbol on it) and, on cheap keyboards the 'return' and 'spacebar' can give problems.

The only way I can see one breaking is a fault during the manufacture/assembly or simply by accident. Given the short time that you have had it I would be surprised if they did not fix it FOC, however if it is not returned within 28 days then start making a fuss.

Ivan

magoogy

sorry didnt mean to get upity - i just feel sooo annoyed cos i saved ages to afford my daughter a good laptop and now the blooming thing has broke on her - it is the backspace key that has come off.....she has assured me it hasnt been dropped or anything so how it came off is a mystery, but, i am now worried that they wont be able to mend it and i am left with a broke computer for her - sorry didnt mean to sound unchilled lol...

you say you can buy new keyboards, but, how can you for a laptop?

IvanOpinion

To get a new keyboard for a laptop you often have to go to direct to the manufacturer and order it as a spare part. They are not cheap (I can't even remember how much the one on my Dell cost) but basically (again on my Dell) you have to remove about 6 screws from the underside of the laptop and the keyboard swivels up with a small ribbon cable attaching it to the motherboard (the biggest problem is knowing which screws to remove).

Backspace is also quite common .. I broke one myself many years ago after losing my temper with a computer that was doing what I typed instead of what I wanted and I walloped the backspace sending it halfway across the office (I did similar damage to a mouse giving me loads of jip and was left with a lot of broken plastic and a circuit board dangling at the end of a piece of wire).

What is the make and model? Maybe somebody on this forum can help more

You can usually plug in a standard keyboard in an emergency. You can also get around backspace by using left-arrow followed by delete (not ideal) - you used to be able to use alt-h but that often does not work nowadays.

Ivan

magoogy

the shop has actually sent it off to the manufacturer at the moment and said i should have it back within 21 days - so, will see what happens - i also bought the additional cover for £68 to cover me for 4years so i think i should be insured for it.......???????

thanks

calleyw

magoogy wrote:

its nice that you assume that we did this delibarately - do you know how long it took to save to buy my daughter a laptop? so - obviously we are going to be really careless and make sure we break it in the first month - thanks for the advice im sure

No one has said you or your daugther did it.

But see it from the shops point of view. You buy a new laptop and give it to a child (don't know the age) and you go back a few days later and say a key has broken off. What is the first thing you think of. The child broke it off. Sorry to say that would be the first thing that would cross my mind. it is nothing personal.

As has been said it is not an easy thing to break any computer, laptop or not. And yes random things do happen.

And I have seen somethings as I have worked in IT support and sold computers and printers. So seen and heard a lot of reasons as to why things have happened. And how they managed to loose a years worth of work from the network drive. How the only copy of this report in the world is on a manky floppy disk that no longer seems to read. Or managed to get a floppy disk stuck in a disk drive.

Or why there home computer does not work anymore after there children have played on it.

So I do have a little bit more experience with computers then just using and owning one.

You would need to check the insurance policy that you took out to see what it excludes. But would have thought as the laptop is not very old that the manufacturer would have as a gesture of goodwill fixed it for free.

Also might be worth looking at your home contents insurance to see if that would cover the cost.

Hope you get it fixed and back soon.

Yours

Calley

magoogy

my daughter is 17 so hardly a child and very very sensible......just hope we arent waiting too long as all her work is stored on the computer - but, luckily before they took it away in the shop she put some urgent stuff onto some discs so she could do her work on our desktop......

tvawter

On the same subject, I just popped off one of the keys on my laptop keyboard (actually, my dog jumped on it and did it) and I was wondering how I can get it back on. I think I have all the pieces. Thanks.