Please help acer laptop broken only a year old and not the first problem

[pug306]

Please help me,

 

Ive brought a advent 9112 laptop notebook from pc world on the 14th of february 2008. In june/july 08 the harddrive went and this was replaced by pc world. Now on friday my screen had vertical black and white flickering lines and the computer glitched and the mouse would not move nothing responded, i then had to hold down the off button to turn it off. On sat i ran virus checks etc and there was no virus or anything and then after it went funny again so i switched it off.

 

Yesterday i turnt it on and there was horizontal black and white lines on the screen and i only managed to type the first letter of my password to log into the computer it didnt repond again so i turnt it off. when i turnt it back on there was no screen atal it was just black.

 

Ive only had this just over a year. im going to pc world today, what do i say? what grounds have i got to stand on? What right have i got?

 

What part of the sales act am i covered by?

 

I want my laptop to be repaired i paid £499 for this thing.

 

Please help.

 

Thank you

Edited March 31, 2009 by pug306

[bobbyblade]

phone trading standard first find out what your rights are, i assume you didnt get pc performance? dont bother contacting acer there not interested since it was purchased from pc world, good luck anyway mate, keep us informed.

[chris-t-2k7]

Unless its a known problem with that laptop and acer are aware of it, pc world won't fix it, as its out of its warrenty and thats why extended warrentys are there.

 

To prove the fault was there from when you first bought it, you would have to get an independant report.

 

It would be the screen that would have to be replaced. Its a problem with some laptops, from general use or pressure added to the back of the screen.

Edited March 31, 2009 by chris-t-2k7

[dx100uk]

under SOGA, there is no specific time that a product becomes unrepairable due to a fault, infact, the one year warranty does not affect SOGA using the 'unfit for purpose' term.

 

you will prob have to pay for an independent eng to assess the unit at your cost [which will be refunded if proved]. then be guided by pc world, but they should agree for it to be repaired. and don't be fobbed off by it not being their problem, they were the point of sale, they should investigate the claim.

 

let us know how you get on.

 

dx

 

 

ps. don't be pushy

[pug306]

sort a good result so far i think?

 

I went into pc world last night and said ive had this laptop over a year and its broke. I said i want the laptop to be repaired, replaced or i want a refund. He said that this would cost £230, i was prepared for that answer after reading a fews similar threads on this site. I said under the soga i am covered etc. I did not have the pc performance i cancelled it after one month of having the laptop.

 

He said did i still have this cover i said no. He then went onto say what he could do is reinstate it and after two week i will have to contact the tech guys and claim for a repair. I had to pay £8.99 up front and setup a direct debit. I think it is reasonable considering the laptop is 14months old even though you would not expect that to break that quickly.

 

Fingers crossed il give them a call in two weeks and see what happens.

 

Cheers for you comments il keep you posted.

[ForestChav]

No, that isn't reasonable.

 

Under SOGA you are entitled to a free repair or replacement if the goods fail due to an inherent fault. As the machine is over six months old you do need to prove the fault was inherent and get an engineer's report for this (the costs will be refunded if they settle or if you win in court) but the action should not leave you out of pocket.

 

Go back to the store and explain again, you want this fixing under your statutory rights free of charge and not under the warranty. If they fob you off again, then you need to write to head office...

[H20-H20]

Yes but what if an independant engineer considers it not the fault of the manufacturer. You will be left to pay for the engineers report & still have a broken laptop.

 

Judging by what you have said it sounds like the VGA chip/card is blown or the solder joints have become brittle due to the excessive heat they produce.

 

When a VGA Chip goes on a laptop there isnt really anyway of proving if this is a manufacturing issue unless it is a known issue.

[ForestChav]

Then you pay for the repair or replace the laptop, as you would do if it were wear and tear, or if you did the damage yourself...

[pug306]

Just to update you.

 

I got my laptop back on saturday after 5 weeks and 3 days! I asked them what the problem was with the laptop and the woman said im not sure it should say on the bit of paper?? there was nothing on the paper. I then said i wanted to check that the laptop was fixed and she said il try it for you. She went away with the laptop and came back saying yes it is fixed but you need your operating disc to reinstall all the programmes. I said would have i been provided with this and she said yes when you brought the laptop.

 

Got home turnt the laptop on and the screen is black and it says please enter the operating disc. Then underneath it says ctrl + alt + del.

 

The only disc provided with the laptop was microsoft works 8.5 i have no other disk. I put this disc into the laptop and it did nothing so i pressed ctrl + alt + del and it brought back the same process again.

 

To me this laptop is not fixed i was not provided with the disc they say i have.

 

This laptop was broke before as the hard drive went and when i got it back i did not have to put in a disc it just came on like normal but with out all my software etc.

 

Im going to go back in today. Do i have the right to say to them to provide me with a disc? Or take this back and repair the laptop?

 

I dont have a recovery disc either because i could not recover anything of the laptop as it froze/glitched etc.

 

Please help

 

Many Thanks

 

Rachel

[ForestChav]

If you contact the tech guys they should be able to look up the details of the repair, not that it's really that important...

 

The issue is surrounding what constitutes repairing it - they have probably had to change the hard drive and the new one obviously doesn't come with an OS installed on it. The question is should this be their responsibility (if the hardware is working, they have fixed the fault) or yours - and I suspect it boils down to them having the required images in the workshop, they probably don't, and because your laptop was supplied with a means to back up the recovery partition to disc, and probably advised you to when you switched it on, when the HDD fails is it their fault you haven't followed the instructions? It's a tricky one, and software tends not to be considered, rightly or wrongly. The techguys will know how you get recovery discs for your laptop but you might have to pay for it as the argument is you should have made them yourself and chose not to...

 

The other options are relying on goodwill from PCW - the store might be able to order one for you as a gesture of goodwill (pfft) or an appropriately worded letter to head office might have more pulling power.

 

It is pretty standard for computers to be sold with no discs but an image on a partition to recover factory settings, with the facility to make a disc yourself in case the drive fails. It's quicker and easier to use than going through an OS installation and manually installing everything else. Few non-bespoke PCs are supplied with media now so the argument that it should be there isn't quite so valid as a few years back.

 

Otherwise, you could just download a free Linux distro and install that...

[chris-t-2k7]

Its your responsibilty to make your own recovery disks, under cover plan they will give you the disks for free.

Edited April 29, 2010 by chris-t-2k7

[The Chez]

Another option, being as the new hard drive has no operating system on it, provided you don't need to use any microsoft programs, would be to install (or get a tech to) Ubuntu Linux. It's a free OS that has virtualy no known viruses or malware made to infect it, does not need fiddly security programs etc and provides ad hoc updates when Ubuntu release them.

 

This will save you having to buy Windows Vista, which is not the best ever OS, for around £190.

[ForestChav]

Windows Vista is a perfectly good OS - I have used it since beta and not had any major issues which were down to Vista itself.

[daves6599]

Stick with XP - Vista is too slow and too buggy.

[ForestChav]

Stick with XP - Vista is too slow and too buggy.

It isn't.