Faulty new laptop

MrPez

I bought a new laptop in May this year - HP Spectre x360 14.

It frequently locks up. Nothing works at all and the only option is to do a forced shutdown by holding the power button. I don't recall exactly when it first happened but at first it was just occasionally and I didn't pay that much attention. Now it happens more often, sometimes every few minutes and I've not noticed any patterns of what might cause it.

I've tried getting help from HP and they instructed me to try a few things (installing all updates, resetting bios, resetting cmos). Nothing has worked and they now want me to reset the machine completely which would be extremely frustrating but I'll probably have to do it.

I said I wanted to return it for a refund given how new it is but they've refused and said that is only possible for faults reported within 30 days.

Do I have any rights here? Given the cost of the laptop (around £1800) I'm not impressed that it is faulty.

TadleyBaggie

Who did you buy it from, HP direct or another retailer?

Mark_d

After 30 days you don't have the legal right to a refund without giving the retailer an opportunity to fix the issue first.

The symptoms you've described could be related to hardware or software...possibly malicious software depending on what you've downloaded.  If you completely format the hard drive, install the operating system from fresh, and still have the problem then that proves whether it's faulty hardware or  whether something has changed with the software since you've had the laptop.

MrPez

I bought direct from HP.

Nothing dodgy downloaded and I've done full scans with nothing found.
Ok, I guess I'll have to do a full reset.

Ectophile

If the laptop has an Intel 13th or 14th Generation processor (probably 13th on a laptop), also known as "Raptor Lake", then they are known to have problems with the chip overheating and crashing.

If it's caught early enough, a BIOS update can fix it.  Otherwise, the processor can be permanently damaged and needs to be replaced.

MrPez

It does have the raptor lake chip but I've applied the bios updates as soon as they became available.
Whether or not that was quick enough is a different matter.

Okell

MrPez said:

... I said I wanted to return it for a refund given how new it is but they've refused and said that is only possible for faults reported within 30 days.

Do I have any rights here? Given the cost of the laptop (around £1800) I'm not impressed that it is faulty.

Go back to the seller (HP I understand) and tell them that under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 any fault that manifests itself within 6 months of delivery is legally presumed to have been present at purchase unless the seller can prove otherwise.  (See s 19(14) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk) )

The seller is permitted ONE attempt either to repair or to replace the faulty item.  If that ONE attempt fails, you are entitled to a refund.

If the refund is before 6 months after purchase it is a full refund.  If after 6 months the seller is entitled to deduct an amount form the refund to reflect the use you've had of the item.

voluted

Ectophile said:

If the laptop has an Intel 13th or 14th Generation processor (probably 13th on a laptop), also known as "Raptor Lake", then they are known to have problems with the chip overheating and crashing.

If it's caught early enough, a BIOS update can fix it.  Otherwise, the processor can be permanently damaged and needs to be replaced.

That's not quite the issue but regardless that issue only affects desktop chips.

MrPez

Okell said:

MrPez said:

... I said I wanted to return it for a refund given how new it is but they've refused and said that is only possible for faults reported within 30 days.

Do I have any rights here? Given the cost of the laptop (around £1800) I'm not impressed that it is faulty.

Go back to the seller (HP I understand) and tell them that under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 any fault that manifests itself within 6 months of delivery is legally presumed to have been present at purchase unless the seller can prove otherwise.  (See s 19(14) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk) )

The seller is permitted ONE attempt either to repair or to replace the faulty item.  If that ONE attempt fails, you are entitled to a refund.

If the refund is before 6 months after purchase it is a full refund.  If after 6 months the seller is entitled to deduct an amount form the refund to reflect the use you've had of the item.

Hadn't seen this reply come in, sorry.
Thats very useful, thanks. 
They released another bios update last week so I'll give that a bit of time, but if it happens again I'll be going back for escalation.

LightFlare

Could easily be a software issue as opposed to hardware 

I would start with a fresh system install and the gradually reinstall any programs untill the problem occurs again.

Are all updates and drivers up to date ?

Are you using any commercial antivirus? If so start with uninstalling that

MrPez

LightFlare said:

Could easily be a software issue as opposed to hardware 

I would start with a fresh system install and the gradually reinstall any programs untill the problem occurs again.

Are all updates and drivers up to date ?

Are you using any commercial antivirus? If so start with uninstalling that

The only non-standard software I'm using is VMWare. I tried taking that off but no difference.
Everything I can update has been done.
I've got Malwarebytes and Sophos on the machine (not running together) and it has happened without Malwarebytes installed.
The difficulty is that it is very sporadic. Can happen within minutes and then can go a week without anything so quite difficult to troublshoot.