Please help. Laptop bought from argos is faulty after only 4 weeks of use!

rachel.1989

Argh I'm so stressed out, started getting the infamous Blue Screen of Death error today on a Sony Vaio laptop bought from argos on 26/09/2011. I'm not a computer expert but this seems to be really bad news.

As I understand if a fault is present within 30 days after buying Argos will replace the item on the spot (providing it is in stock) but after 30 days they can send it off to the manufacturer to get repaired and failing that replaced and this can take up to 21 days! I don't know what to do as I need this laptop as I'm in the final year of my degree and have a third year project and dissertation to get done by Christmas, I can't be without a laptop for that long. The laptop was £700 and it's just not right for me to have parted with that amount of money for it to be having problems after such a short space of time, I saved up all summer for this!

I'll go to Argos tomorrow to see what they say, but I read somewhere online that it is the retailers responsibility to replace the item if a fault occurs within 6 months.... can anyone confirm this please?

Any advice would be so greatly appreciated as I am panicking so much now.

Thanks

NCISROCKS

They can repair, replace or refund. You can request your choice but practically it's their call as to what the 'r' is.

NCISROCKS

Use uni and library pc's in the meantime? Christmas is ages away yet!

rachel.1989

Thanks for the reply. If they chose to repair it though it just seems wrong that after such a short space of time they have my money and yet I may be without an item for up to 21 days which would cause such a massive inconvenience to me.

rachel.1989

I'm off campus in halls, and the bus to our halls stops running at about 8 at night. My uni is not in a city and I am not walking in the dark to use a computer.

Ah, Christmas might be ages away but I have about 20,000 words in total to write. All I've done is my research so far.

Zandoni

It could well just be a software problem, have you installed any new software or updated any drivers lately?

Post in the techie forum

withabix

BSOD is often caused by overheating, system updates or lack of them. Were you using it on a table at the time or on your lap/the bed/sofa etc?

Have you done all the updates to Windows and Sony software/BIOS?

visidigi

withabix wrote: »

BSOD is often caused by overheating

No its not.

A BSOD is a system conflict, its not a thermal safety event. The majority of BSOD's are down to software or a conflict on hardware as a result of recently installed hardware.

OP

Remove all additional accessories from being plugged into the laptop, soundcards, USB sticks and hard drives etc etc. If it still occurs try thinking about when it started and use system restore to roll back to the time before that.

If that fails then take it back to Argos, they can refund, replace or repair and its THEIR choice. Your circumstances do not change their legal choice on solution - note its in your favour to try and resolve this yourself as taking it to Argos may risk being with out the machine for some time.

MoneySaver8_2

I would take it to the shop and explain them your situation. They might fix it straight away or give you a demo replacement.

rachel.1989

Thanks for the responses!

I keep my laptop on a desk with good ventilation for the fan.

I have installed a few programs and I installed a program and removed it yesterday along with deleting some files I no longer needed (just word docs and music etc).

I did a system restore last night, after this the bluescreen came back again and I did the windows updates, at the end it couldn't do one update as one update had a corrupt file or something. Then I downloaded some other thing that windows suggested to fix it and then after that re-did the updates and it seemed to go ok. I then checked with the vaio care thing and updated that too.

It all seems ok now, not had a bluescreen since, but is there anyway I can check that it's all completely solved?

I'm not too technical when it comes to computers (obviously!) but I'd heard of the bluescreen before and I sort of had it in my head from somewhere that once that occurs you'll have problems forever with that pc/laptop.

Thanks for all the help guys.

CoolHotCold

Utter hogwash regarding the you'll have problems forever.

Simple thing to check if its a hardware fault or not.

Either do a system restore (not a windows roll back) or use Sony's built in diagnostics which I believe is accessible by tapping either F10 or F11 as soon as you start it.