Headlines - HP offers free repairs for a wide range of symptoms

[HEXUS]

Hewlett Packard has joined the BIOS update party but is also offering free repairs. No direct mention of NVIDIA.

Read more.

[koocha]

My dv6620ea was picked up yesterday to be repaired. I'm going to have to wait 7-10 days for them to flash the bios now. They told me they're replace the motherboard though, so whatever.

As long as it works when it comes back. Used to make the screen go black, then it would blue screen and reboot. when it came back on it would say that a problem with an nvidia driver caused it to reboot

[Bob Crabtree]

Scott,

Thanks for highlighting this announcement!

I spent a lot of time while visiting my daughter in Barcelona in March struggling to sort out her boyfriend's all-dancing HP dv9030ea, even ending up buying a battery for the machine.

A month or two ago, though, the pesky PC just plain died - when before it had been booting intermittently.

I'm hoping this announcement means that HP will fix the problem once and for all and at no charge.

I'll keep people posted.

Bob

[koocha]

Got my laptop back today. It seems fine so far. They replaced the motherboard, cpu, heatsink, fan and did a BIOS update

[Bob Crabtree]

koocha,

How old is this machine (well, the original bits, that is)?

[koocha]

koocha,

How old is this machine (well, the original bits, that is)?

Bought it in January this year

[Bob Crabtree]

Got my laptop back today. It seems fine so far. They replaced the motherboard, cpu, heatsink, fan and did a BIOS update

Do you know if the new motherboard contains the same NVIDIA chipset as the old motherboard?

Bob

[koocha]

Do you know if the new motherboard contains the same NVIDIA chipset as the old motherboard?

Bob

Yeah, it's the same...

[mercyground]

You are going to have the same issues again then.

Its starting to appear that The Inquirer was right about all G84/86 nvidia chips are flawed/faulty over time. I personally think its down to a too hot chip (25W) in a encloseure that was never designed for it (20W).

I'm seeing same symptoms with the other halfs laptop. Gets hot. Wireless dumps and wont reconnect. Let it cool and its straight back on. Game on it some more and it bluescreens with nvidia driver issues.

Once the machine is damaged you just start getting random bluescreens it appears.
Althou from one board a guy is saying its the PCI-e connector chip that is the problem hence why you loose wireless. Either way its too hot and ends up desoldering the chip and you have to replace motherboard. Its ugly... and apparently by best guess... there are 18million laptops out there with the issue.

Nvidia wont publicly say. The OEM's are under NDA or they dont get paid for fixing them. Not a pretty sight. And the customer gets the shaft.

If your laptop develops issues? Report it ASAP. Then at least if it gets worse you have a logged time for it and even if it drops out of warrenty you can hassle them as the issue was reported pre warrenty expiration.
Acer got me to reload the software to prove not software fault. I duely did so but i did complain that it cannot be software as if left to cool overnight the damn thing works fine till it gets too hot. (Ps. I have the laptop off the desk so airflow can get to it. The fan runs fine. I checked for dust too.)

I will be returning the laptop and waiting to see what they do to it. If they just swap mb out for same type i will be informing them that this isnt fixing the problem and it will just reoccur. If they are happy for me to keep returning it whenever it screws up... fine, otherwise i will push for a refund.

:edit: HP pays for half of the fix - http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...vidia-problems
Nvidia plays pin tail on Fabs - http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...own-blame-game

I've been trailing round forums looking for more evidence and there are more ppl seeing same thing i am. This will get alot worse before it gets better. Teir 1 OEM's seem to be handling it better but whatever fix they are doing will cripple your battery life from a fan that will run 100% now instead.

[koocha]

Found this thread again while looking for a BIOS update to try and sort a battery discharge error.

Just letting everyone know that the laptop was fine after the fix and hasn't crashed since. it is, however, not keeping the battery charge...