Is a few weeks, to a month, or more, reasonable for fixing a new laptop?

davie185

I bought a brand new ASUS Zephyrus G14 from the laptop outlet website on August 13th. 

I've had various issues with the laptop with it being too hot and other weird glitches, however it has reached the point where the laptop is unuseable for high demanding tasks. I used to (and should get) 60+ FPS on most new games on high settings. Now, I get barely 40 when on low settings. 

I tried to fix this myself with uopdating drivers, software etc, and then finally with a totally clean install of windows 10, with nothing else installed except latest drivers plus a couple of gamnes. Yet, the issues persisted. The laptop could barely run games, was running 90+ C, despite cpu and cpu being below 50% utilisation. 

So anyway, I contacted ASUS, they said they can repair of course but it could take a long time becauyse of covid + not knowing what the fault is yet + not knowing if the parts required to fix will be in stock. I asked is there any way they could replace instead as I need my laptop for income, and they said it is down to the retailer as stated in the consumer rights act. 

I then contacted the retailer, and they first said because 30 days have passed it's nothing to do with them and I should only talk with the manufacturer. I informed them that that is false, that the consumer rights act 2015 clearly states it is their responsibility to provide one of 2 things in these circumstances, either:

1. Repair the product. This has to be done with no cost to the consumer (in particular for postage), without major inconvenience, and in a reasonable time.
2. Replace the product. 

Now, they have offered the following:

They said I can send the laptop to them (and I have to pay postage, it will definitely not be refunded to me, they said), and they will send it to asus on my behalf. In their words, it will take 'a few weeks, to a month, or more' to get fixed. They also said it would take a lot longer to get fixed by using them rather than me just going direct to the retailer. 

I argued with them that this breaks basically all 3 conditions stated above, and that the laptop is barely 2 moths old, and it cost me £1400, and now I have to potentially many weeks without having it, and therefore unable to make an income in that time (as I recently lost my job due to covid, so now trying my best to make an online income). However they said this:
'As per the above emails, we are obligated by the law to send this to the manufacturer to supply at least 1 repair to the unit."

I replied asking which law this is, because the consumer rights act clearly states they can either repair, OR, replace it. 

So, my question:

What realistically are my options. It's incredibly frustrating that I could go 'a few weeks, a month, maybe more' without a laptop that is barely 2 months old and not cheap. I have been pushing hard to try and get them to replace, arguing that this is not reasonable for something such as a laptop, especially in times like we're in where lockdown is coming back. 

Are they legally allowed to do this? Is their timeline for repair reasonable (or does the law see it as being reasonable?)? What exactly counts as causing 'significant inconvenience'. It will be a huge inconvenience to now have my laptop for an unknown amount of time. 

So yeah, is there anything at all I can do, or I just have no choice but to go through with what has been offered?

I'm not sure if this is relevant at all, but today I opened up my laptop just to see if anything was clearly amiss on the board or anything. Nothing in particular to see there, but what I did see were both the fans utterly caked in dust. Now this laptop has been sitting on a desk for 2 months, in a room which honestly has barely any dust. My last laptop was sitting in the same spot for a year, I opened it up too to have a look, and very little dust in it. Yet this new one is caked in dust? Does that help my case in any way at all ( doubt it but just putting here just in case). Photos here:

Thanks for taking the time to read and any advice you can give. I would enormously appreciate if you can help me to get a replacement rather than going so long without my laptop when I vitally need it. Cheers

Aylesbury_Duck

Two immediate potential problems jump out:  You've mentioned work/income at least twice.  Be careful with that in case they come back with "this is a B2B purchase and not a B2C one".  Secondly, you've "opened up" the laptop.  You have probably invalidated any warranty should you want to go down that route but even under consumer rights, the retailer or manufacturer might refuse to deal with it now it's been tampered with.

davie185

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Two immediate potential problems jump out:  You've mentioned work/income at least twice.  Be careful with that in case they come back with "this is a B2B purchase and not a B2C one".  Secondly, you've "opened up" the laptop.  You have probably invalidated any warranty should you want to go down that route but even under consumer rights, the retailer or manufacturer might refuse to deal with it now it's been tampered with.

On the first point, I bought this as a consumer product, and have since lost my job. Obviously given the current national and global situation it's incredibly difficult to find new work, thus I am instead exploring online income opportunities. 

About opening the laptop, I don't think that is correct. I read the warranty and there is nothing at all that says that opening up the laptop voids the warranty. Only if you break the warranty seals, which I have not. And even if opening up the laptop DID void the warranty, they would have to have some kind of evidence of this regardless. But as I said, I'm 99% simply opening up the laptop and then closing it again does not void the warranty. Of course I have told neither I have opened it up, though. 

Aylesbury_Duck

davie185 said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Two immediate potential problems jump out:  You've mentioned work/income at least twice.  Be careful with that in case they come back with "this is a B2B purchase and not a B2C one".  Secondly, you've "opened up" the laptop.  You have probably invalidated any warranty should you want to go down that route but even under consumer rights, the retailer or manufacturer might refuse to deal with it now it's been tampered with.

On the first point, I bought this as a consumer product, and have since lost my job. Obviously given the current national and global situation it's incredibly difficult to find new work, thus I am instead exploring online income opportunities. 

About opening the laptop, I don't think that is correct. I read the warranty and there is nothing at all that says that opening up the laptop voids the warranty. Only if you break the warranty seals, which I have not. And even if opening up the laptop DID void the warranty, they would have to have some kind of evidence of this regardless. But as I said, I'm 99% simply opening up the laptop and then closing it again does not void the warranty. Of course I have told neither I have opened it up, though. 

On the B2B/B2C point, that's fine, but don't labour the point just in case they seize on it as a reason not to help.

On the warranty point, it looks like you're claiming under consumer rights anyway, but be warned that if it's sent to Asus and they detect you've opened the unit, it might complicate things.  The retailer is entitled to check the fault exists, and it sounds like they want to send it to Asus to do so.

baza52

well the dust didnt just appear by magic.
If the fans are caked in dust then thats why its running hot. Clean the dust and will notice an improvement.

mattyprice4004

Clean out the dust etc, of course only if you're confident in this kind of thing.

I had an overheating issue with a HP laptop, turns out everything was caked in dust and the thermal paste HP use was rubbish - I cleaned it off, used some Arctic Silver 5 and it's been great since. Of course if they found you'd done this, it would likely invalidate your warranty (one for after it expires!)

Your use of the laptop to make money is best kept to yourself, standard repair times are usually around the month mark and it's not their problem (to be blunt).

DiddyDavies

baza52 said:

If the fans are caked in dust then thats why its running hot. Clean the dust and will notice an improvement.

If the OP has only had the laptop a few months then providing they are not living in an extremely dusty house, I would be suspicious about the history of the machine.
I occasionally clean out the internals of my laptops (about once a year) and there is normally only a light coating of dust on the fans and the board so for the fans in the OP's laptop to be "caked" in dust, I would be suspicious as to whether or not it had been used before they received it.

Touchstones2

Sounding software issue which is not covered

baza52

Touchstones2 said:

Sounding software issue which is not covered

software has caused the dust inside and overheating lol

Spank

Don't feed the troll

Fosterdog

DiddyDavies said:

baza52 said:

If the fans are caked in dust then thats why its running hot. Clean the dust and will notice an improvement.

If the OP has only had the laptop a few months then providing they are not living in an extremely dusty house, I would be suspicious about the history of the machine.
I occasionally clean out the internals of my laptops (about once a year) and there is normally only a light coating of dust on the fans and the board so for the fans in the OP's laptop to be "caked" in dust, I would be suspicious as to whether or not it had been used before they received it.

This model was only released in March so even if the machine had a previous owner it is still not that long so clearly it is possible for the dust to accumulate quickly. The fact that it didn't have this problem when OP first bought it would suggest that if the issue is caused by the dust it has accumulated since they purchased it.

The obvious thing to do would be to clean out the fans and then run it for a few weeks before checking again whether more dust accumulates, if it does then it's clearly OPs environment causing it, if it doesn't then maybe the reason it was in the outlet was that it was a customer return or a reconditioned model that wasn't clearly inspected before being resold, either way any previous owner couldn't have had it for very long given the timescales even if they bought it on launch day, less than 5 months before OP bought it.