HP Offering Motherboard Fix for 3 Pavillion Desktops
HP is offering to replace the motherboards of three Pavilion desktop models due to a higher-than-expected failure rate.
Hewlett-Packard said on Tuesday that it has identified a high rate of motherboard failures in its popular Pavilion line of desktop PCs built in June and July 2010. The company said these system boards have a "slightly higher than expected failure rate" although a specific problem wasn't addressed.
According to the announcement, the affected machines include Pavilion Elite HPE-4xx, Pavilion P66xx and Pavilion Slimline S5660f desktops. "[These] computers may experience no video at start up and stop responding," said HP in its email to desktop owners.
The affected machines won't be recalled, but rather HP will extend their warranty for another twelve months. Customers who already have an expired warranty will have one year to report the problem. Either way, HP will replace the motherboard free of charge, and will even pay for round-trip shipping.
According to HP's support document, symptoms of motherboard failure include: (1) computer powers on with no video, no beeps; (2) computer locks up at the POST screen or reboots; (3) computer constantly reboots. Affected users are encouraged to check the model name and product number, check the serial number, and then contact HP's customer service. Only 20 models are listed as potential returns.
"A small percentage of systems in the serial number range have experienced or may experience one or more of the symptoms," HP said. "After HP repairs your computer, you will continue to be covered by the HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement program for 24 months after the start of your original standard limited warranty, or 90 days after receiving your free repair, whichever is later."
Only U.S. and Canadian customers are eligible for the warranty extension and possible free motherboard exchange. For more information about the problem, head here.
And how long did it take for HP to notice a "slightly higher than expected failure rate"?
It's not just those - the Intel DV2000/6000/9000 series and some of the newer DV6/7, etc. models also had issues. The thermal sensor didn't operate properly so the threshold temperatures for faster fan operation never registered. The board components couldn't handle the extra heat, so the board would literally cook.
Not only that, but I've personally seen DOZENS of AMD Vision laptops in my computer repair shop with the same problems (no POST motherboard fault) as the NVIDIA chipset boards.
The problem is HP. Either they just have bad engineers working for them (unless they contract them out too) or else they aren't paying their OEM's enough money to make quality parts.
Anyway, the whole "let's extend the warranty a year" is such crap. In lightly used "bumpgate-equipped" laptops, users were often unaware of a potential problem until they started acting up (integrated wireless NIC stops working, intermittent display issues or reboots). For a laptop that is rarely stressed (interwebz and email), by the time it dies it may very well be a couple of years old - out of warranty even after warranty extension! They should attempt to contact all owners who registered it and if not repair the system, at least make them aware of it.
Personally if I had a system with known issues that they refused to fix, I'd be really tempted to heat it up and MAKE it fail before the warranty ran out, and send it in for repairs.
Yes, I know that the NVIDIA problem was a defect in the chipset. HP never had Intel systems with NVIDIA chipsets though - they were Intel chipset. Those systems had a defect of a different cause, but the end result was the same - a dead board.
HP's warranty service never helped though, since most failures didn't happen until after year 1, but how many people buy manufacturers extended warranties? (more people should IMO). HP changed the warranty extension terms 3 times before silently killing it altogether. Also, many models that had the same cause and symptoms were never covered under the warranty extension. On AMD systems with the NVIDIA chipset, one of the most common first symptoms that I saw was the WiFi mPCIe (they all had Broadcom WiFi cards too) slot going dead on the board. Once I saw that, the board would only last a few months longer before dying. I've seem probably 3 dozen systems with the same symptom and ALL of them had the same result - a system that would no longer POST. I'm well experienced with the problem. When a person brings a DVx000 system in, there is so little chance it's still working 100% that I tell them about the problem ahead of time.
HP Offering Motherboard Fix for 3 Pavillion Desktops : Read more
Four years ago they had the same problem with the s series 3000, 6000 and the tx. They never changed the mainboards neither they made effective the guarantees. the problem was same, the same symptoms: (1) computer powers on with no video, no beeps; (2) computer locks up at the POST screen or reboots; (3) computer constantly reboots, because een that occasion the processor of video nVidia became unstuck.
I don't really believe that HP will fulfill what offer
Moral of the story ... fool me once, shame on you ... fool me twice, shame on me.