PC World HELP!!!

SmokeyHudson

I recently bought the Advent T9306 from PC World.
I transfered all my data across with out any hassle and just started to use it when it started resetting without warning.
The problem continued until it would reset almost instantly from turning the machine on.

My solution was to buy a new hard drive, install windows on that and use original hard drive as a data only drive.
This plan went wrong when windows would not install on the new hard drive, it keeps coming up with a blue screen error or resetting still.

So being fairly angry as my new PC is failing so soon I ring the customer support team where I am informed I must buy a 'System restore' disc for £30 which could take a month to arrive.
I explained that losing my data was not an option and that there was something more wrong with the PC itself due to the new hard drive erroring.
The standard reply was they can not fix it until i have bought system discs.

I decided to take it in store instead so I could prove my point. I again got the same answer about system discs and they would not touch it until I bought them.

Now is this legal?! Surely as the machine is under its year's warrenty and only 3/4 weeks old I should be entitled to a refund?
I am shocked at PC World's treatment of this case and any advice on how to take this further would be welcome.

A very annoyed PC-less customer

zincoxide

PC World will not refund if they can avoid it, and they use numerous tactics to bamboozle the customer!!

If the item is faulty, you are entitled to a refund, speak to CAB (Citizens Advice) who may be willing to take this up on your behalf.

lipidicman

The system resets could be a virus, or hardware. Have you tried memtest86? This will test out your memory. Follow this with Prime95 to test if you machine can reliably do calculations and cope with a 'stress test'

http://www.memtest86.com/
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

I had a faulty motherboard a few years back, only swapping out the memory a few times enabled me to point the finger at the mobo. Luckily I had built the machine myself so was not afraid to get my hands dirty and fix the problem

IMHO fiddling with the harddrive will just complicate the issue

lipidicman

zincoxide wrote:

they use numerous tactics to bamboozle the customer!!

You need to make sure that you know what you are talking about, that way they will not stand a chance

kipper_2-2

Go and find the number for your local trading standards office and ring them about it

lipidicman

I would advise you to diagnose the nature of the problem first. You may end up with egg on your face

zincoxide

lipdicman is right - if you can, diagnose the exact problem to make your claim a lot easier.

SmokeyHudson

Thanks for the advice.

I can not access anything due to it resetting constantly.
Have tried taking out the RAM and trying it one piece at a time to see if was a piece falulty but still errors with each piece.

I will look into the trading standards route then to see if I can get any mroe advice

SmokeyHudson

Any advice on what it could be then.

Basically resets constantly as soon as I turn machine on and with a new hard drive it will not install windows as it blue screens (googled error messages - mainly about RAM) or resets itself again.

espresso

SmokeyHudson wrote:

Any advice on what it could be then.

Basically resets constantly as soon as I turn machine on and with a new hard drive it will not install windows as it blue screens (googled error messages - mainly about RAM) or resets itself again.

Can you not boot into safe mode to investigate? Could it be some software that you have installed? I saw a similar thing when someone had installed an old version of Zone Alarm which was incompatible with XP. Investigate with the machine as standard first before trying to get the second drive running.

HTH

lipidicman

You do realise that PC world will query the warranty if you have been inside swapping RAM. I would have diagnosed the system with Memtest (this is a boot disc so eliminating any Windows problems - if it cant run this it is broken)

I am a little concerned as I get the impression you are relatively new to this (?), yet you have been inside this new machine quite a bit from the sound of it.