Jump to content
Brian Enos's Forums... Maku mozo!

New laptop doesn't work properly


G-ManBart

Recommended Posts

So my wife wanted a small laptop for a couple of trips she's taking soon. She has a pretty new Dell laptop that works like a champ, but it's too large for use on a plane or stuck in the airport. We do a little bit of looking around and find a decent deal on an HP Pavillion 12" model and buy it. Take it home, do the setup and IE won't work right :angry: About 75% of the time when you open IE, it tries going to a preinstalled MSN homepage that is no longer available and locks up IE until it's no longer responding, have to shut it down, open a new IE and try again. One time it took me 8 tries to get it to open normally. I tried setting the homepage the normal way, but it wouldn't work. I spent 2.5hrs with HP's online help folks trying to fix it. All the normal methods of setting the homepage, resetting IE entirely, going into the registry and setting it manually etc. They finally had me download Firefox and try that....set the homepage and it worked perfectly. They gave me one last thing to try and pretty much said "let's hope it works"....it didn't. I'll be returning the HP tomorrow and getting the 13.1" Dell they had with similar specs, but a slightly higher price. Talk about wasting an evening..... :angry::angry:

Opps....clicked a little too fast in my anger and put it in the wrong section! Mods please move... :bow:

Edited by G-ManBart
Link to comment
Share on other sites

HP sucks! I bought my Slimline in March, it has been back to HP twice and has worked for a solid month now.

The tech support really killed me, spend 2-3 hours spelling out everything because they don't speak English, and then wind up sending the thing back for repair.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've had poor experiences with HP for several years now. I bought an off the shelf HP desktop model in 2001 or so and it died less than a year later. Likewise with the HP laptop. However, I bought myself and my wife a Dell XPS 410 and a Dell Dimension E510 for our desktops and they've performed flawlessly. Also I bought my wife a Sony Vaio laptop almost a year ago and it's been perfect so far.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glad I'm not the only one! Wife has a Dell XPS desktop for her office, I've got a Dimenstion E510 desktop in mine and both have been perfect. My old Dell desktop didn't give me any problems until it was ancient (like 5yrs old) and I managed to get it working again with a memory upgrade and a few software tweaks. It's definitely back to Dell for us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great, I'm supposed to be getting a new HP for work. I won't have to spend any money on it, but if it has problems it will be a PITA. Maybe I'll get a good one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe you could have just un-installed IE7, rebooted, and then downloaded IE7 and that should have cleaned the registry of the bad startup for IE7.

That did occur to me, but seemed like a PITA and unecessary on a brand new computer.

To top it all off, I returned the HP and picked up the Dell. Unpacked the Dell and turned it on....turns out it had a bad LCD screen and wouldn't even load the first screen page you normally see. An hour on the phone with the Dell guy got the fault codes which pointed out the bad screen. Returned that one (they were staring to look at me funny) and got an identical replacement Dell which worked fine. My head hurts now :wacko:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Man, looks like computers and G-man dont mix :)

Good thing your new dell now works.

I got a gateway and its cheap at bestbuy when i went to Maui a few months ago, and it works perfectly

I think it cost me 599 without taxes.

But before i bought i read all the reviews in their site and this model rocks according to about 30 or 40 people who gave the reviews on the model i bought.

Thus when i got at best buy i just asked for the particular model in their site and turned it on when i got to the hotel, happy camper since then. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have not spent money on a laptop in a while, they are nice for being mobile but if you really don't need it they are a waste because you can't fix them.

I set up 2 new HP desktops in the past year that are both working fine with Vista on them and one is for a non-computer savy user the other is mine.

All brands have good and bad luck... you have to remember they buy parts for the best price they can get and have them put together for the lowest wage they can pay to sell them for the low prices now and you are surprised when you have problems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

HP sucks! I bought my Slimline in March, it has been back to HP twice and has worked for a solid month now.

The tech support really killed me, spend 2-3 hours spelling out everything because they don't speak English, and then wind up sending the thing back for repair.

The thing of it is, they make such bloody good printers (HP1012, HP1020) and used to own the earth hands down when it came to scientific calculators!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My department handles hardware purchases for the company and we're in the process of moving away from Dell laptop's. I'm on one now and it's ok, but we've just had too many issues from them. We're putting most of our users on Lenovo (IBM) T61's and the sales guys who spend a lot of time travelling on X61's. They're fairly pricey but they seem to take a beating pretty well. HP's, Sony, Toshiba, etc. are ok for consumer machines but don't seem to hold up as well for business use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Compaq (now HP) always made crappy laptops.. the desktops seem to be as good as anything out there.

The servers are generally excellent.

Lenovo.. hate them.. The IBM's were garbage.. I doubt this has changed moving to China..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I sell 10 HP/Compaq pc's for one of all the other brands I sell. We get returns on all the brands, but most of the time it is buyers remorse. Rarely is there a true problem with the machine, but every brand sends out machines that are lemons for one reason or another. I also have to say that Microsoft is more responsible for returns than any other factor. My experience is that you will talk to a barely English speaker no matter the brand you buy if you need tech support.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I've owned computers since 1982 and there is one very important lesson I have learned - almost every major manufacture will have a consumer line and a business line. The business products are sometimes more expensive, but they are almost always better in every way. For the past 15 years, I have only owned Dell Optiplex desktops and Latitude laptops and I have never had a single problem.

Now, here are a few real big tips for Dell:

1. Shop and buy online, not from a store.

2. Go to the Small & Medium Business section rather than the home section. They have the better computers there with better prices and with a better selection of software and the chance to opt out of most the "free trialware" and crapware they pile on the consumer machines.

3. Take your time and choose different configurations and look at all the preconfigured choices for the computer you want. My latest laptop was $300 less than a similarly configured machine because I got it pre-configured.

4. Create an account and sign up for their emails. They often have special offers and discounts that you can only get that way.

5. Don't overlook the Dell Outlet (Business and Education section). They have a good selection of returned and refurbished computers with full warrenty. You can get a really good deal here if you take your time and check back frequently. I've owned three of these and had only 1 problem that was fixed in 48 hrs.

Edited by Graham Smith
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I've owned computers since 1982 and there is one very important lesson I have learned - almost every major manufacture will have a consumer line and a business line. The business products are sometimes more expensive, but they are almost always better in every way. For the past 15 years, I have only owned Dell Optiplex desktops and Latitude laptops and I have never had a single problem.

Now, here are a few real big tips for Dell:

1. Shop and buy online, not from a store.

2. Go to the Small & Medium Business section rather than the home section. They have the better computers there with better prices and with a better selection of software and the chance to opt out of most the "free trialware" and crapware they pile on the consumer machines.

3. Take your time and choose different configurations and look at all the preconfigured choices for the computer you want. My latest laptop was $300 less than a similarly configured machine because I got it pre-configured.

4. Create an account and sign up for their emails. They often have special offers and discounts that you can only get that way.

5. Don't overlook the Dell Outlet (Business and Education section). They have a good selection of returned and refurbished computers with full warrenty. You can get a really good deal here if you take your time and check back frequently. I've owned three of these and had only 1 problem that was fixed in 48 hrs.

Good advice. I've owned an Optiplex system in the past and it worked great. I've also purchased two computers from the Outlet as well with good success. This time she was looking to get the laptop quickly for a business trip and didn't want to wait so we figured it was worth a shot buying locally. In the end the new Dell is working perfectly so it wasn't a huge deal, but certainly annoying. R,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...