Laptop out of Warranty

MrsTig

Hi all,

Posted on the techie board and was advised to ask for help here....

My daughter has just started Uni and is having to deal with stuff by herself!

Last week her laptop died - it was playing music and suddenly stopped, the screen went stripey and then it went off and wouldn't restart.

She bought the HP Laptop is 22 months ago, so it's out of warranty.

In a state of panic (lecture notes etc) she dashed to PC World where they plugged it in and told her that there was a fault with motherboard. She asked about her rights under the Sale of Goods Act and was told she would need to prove the machine was faulty when she bought it.

Trusting their word and not knowing how she could do that she handed over £180 (student budget instantly blown) to send it off and for data recovery. She was then told it could be up to another £300 for parts.

Was she advised correctly?
Surely the motherboard should be expected to last more than 22months? (Techie board says it should)
Or is it reasonable to expect this fault at this time? (Techie board says no)
Could the laptop be considered not of "satisfactory quality"?

Thanks in advance.

Fightsback

Where did you purchase the laptop from and do you still have proof of purchase ?

JJ_Egan

Surely the motherboard should be expected to last more than 22months? (Techie board says it should)


Or is it reasonable to expect this fault at this time? (Techie board says no)
Could the laptop be considered not of "satisfactory quality"?


All could be true .

<<She asked about her rights under the Sale of Goods Act and was told she would need to prove the machine was faulty when she bought it.>>.

Is true under the SOGA its up to her after 6 months to prove via an independent report any / all of the above points .

daytona0

MrsTig wrote: »

In a state of panic (lecture notes etc) she dashed to PC World where they plugged it in and told her that there was a fault with motherboard. She asked about her rights under the Sale of Goods Act and was told she would need to prove the machine was faulty when she bought it.

Yep, that's correct. After 6 months your daughter has to prove it was inherently faulty when bought. You can do this by getting a fault report, and I'd imagine that PC World would do these (or any other electrical/engineering shop really).

Trusting their word and not knowing how she could do that she handed over £180 (student budget instantly blown) to send it off and for data recovery. She was then told it could be up to another £300 for parts.

It depends on what is happening. I'm a bit confused because it sounds like you've paid for a repair/recovery service and NOT paid for a report to be done....

If you aren't getting a report done before the problems are fixed then you may find it difficult to exercise your rights under SOGA retrospectively.... I would query whether a fault report is being done BEFORE repairs are made, as an inherent fault issue would result in reimbursement of practically everything!

Was she advised correctly?
Surely the motherboard should be expected to last more than 22months? (Techie board says it should)
Or is it reasonable to expect this fault at this time? (Techie board says no)
Could the laptop be considered not of "satisfactory quality"?

Thanks in advance.

She was advised correctly for the most part!

I'm just not sure whether she has taken the correct action.... I would get onto PC World regarding a fault report if you wish to pursue a SOGA claim against PC World.

wealdroam

Just to add that data recovery is a chargeable service however the problem arose.

CoolHotCold

She was advised correctly.

It sounds like they said you need to prove it is inherently faulty under consumer rights, when she didn't know what to do they offered £130 for data recovery (£80 for data recovery and £50 for external hard drive to put data onto) and then £50 for the Fault and Fix charge.

So far, any money paid (unless the service hasn't be carried out) is gone.
£130 for data recovery and storage wouldn't be covered under any sort of consumer rights anyway. The £50 was for a chargeable repair, which she agreed to the T&C when she signed the service docket, even if you requested it to be returned un-repaired so you can go down the SoGA (if purchased from PcWorld/Currys) they are under no obligation to refund you.

If it was purchased from Currys/PcWorld I'd phone them up with the repair reference and ask for them to carry out a SoGA report and they should hopefully transfer the job from chargeable repair to a out of warranty report under the SoGA.
If it's found to be covered under SoGA they'll repair it FoC (or offer a partial refund) and refund the £50.

teddysmum

It could be claimed that damage was caused by overheating.


Apparently, it's not good to use a laptop on your lap, as the vents can be covered, thus preventing heat escape.

macman

Too late now, but if she bothered to keep a backup then there would have been no issue with data recovery.
PCW are fairly notorious for diagnosing mobo failure when the problem may well have been something entirely different, much better to take the machine to an independent laptop/PC repair shop once out of warranty. Any reputable shop will charge a fee for diagnosis and then give a firm price for the actual repair cost, they will not repair until the cost has been agreed.
At this late stage it's impossible to know what the fault actually was, and trying to pursue a claim under SOGA now will simply be throwing more money away.
£80 for data recovery is absurd, she could have done that herself for the cost of a drive caddy (about a fiver), since there was apparently no issue with the hard drive-all the data was still there.

patman99

Her first mistake was to take the laptop to PCWorld. They are not known for their technical expertease and are sales-driven, so would always push for un-needed services like data recovery whether they are needed to solve the problem or not.

She needs to get the laptop back from PCWorld and carry out some diagnostics of her own.

First, she needs to plug it into an external monitor. If the laptop fires-up and displays a picture on the external monitor, then the fault is with the video card.

Second, she should download and run 'CrystalDiskInfo' which will soon tell her the state of the HDD.

It is not unknown for the video card to fail on HP laptops. Just like Toshibas, the build quility is quite suspect.

If the laptop won't fire-up, she could look on ebay for a 2nd-hand one and swap her HDD for the one in that. She can then carry on as though nothing has happened.

unholyangel

patman99 wrote: »

Her first mistake was to take the laptop to PCWorld. They are not known for their technical expertease and are sales-driven, so would always push for un-needed services like data recovery whether they are needed to solve the problem or not.

She needs to get the laptop back from PCWorld and carry out some diagnostics of her own.

First, she needs to plug it into an external monitor. If the laptop fires-up and displays a picture on the external monitor, then the fault is with the video card.

Second, she should download and run 'CrystalDiskInfo' which will soon tell her the state of the HDD.

It is not unknown for the video card to fail on HP laptops. Just like Toshibas, the build quility is quite suspect.

If the laptop won't fire-up, she could look on ebay for a 2nd-hand one and swap her HDD for the one in that. She can then carry on as though nothing has happened.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the laptop fires up AND displays a pic on the external monitor then its more likely to be the screen on her laptop/connections to it (some models are prone to wires in the hinges breaking over time) rather than the graphics card.

If the graphics card had failed, I'd expect no picture whether on the laptops screen or any screen you connect it to.

Of course given the vast majority of HP's feature integrated graphics (around 80% of the models they sell)....its very likely that a graphics failure means having to replace the entire mobo.

macman

patman99 wrote: »

Her first mistake was to take the laptop to PCWorld. They are not known for their technical expertease and are sales-driven, so would always push for un-needed services like data recovery whether they are needed to solve the problem or not.

She needs to get the laptop back from PCWorld and carry out some diagnostics of her own.

First, she needs to plug it into an external monitor. If the laptop fires-up and displays a picture on the external monitor, then the fault is with the video card.

Second, she should download and run 'CrystalDiskInfo' which will soon tell her the state of the HDD.

It is not unknown for the video card to fail on HP laptops. Just like Toshibas, the build quility is quite suspect.

If the laptop won't fire-up, she could look on ebay for a 2nd-hand one and swap her HDD for the one in that. She can then carry on as though nothing has happened.

Not quite. Her first mistake was buying it from PCW. Not for nothing are they regularly rated as the UK's worst retailer.