The Nvidia Defect Forum

Hi Paul,

Further to our recent communications I would like to update you on my situation and ask further advice. I purchased my Sony laptop in September 2008. In February of this year the laptop failed with what I believed to be the Nvidia defect. I found this website and followed the various claim procedures as suggested by yourself. Included within this I submitted the various letters and subsequent engineers report supplied by yourself.

I am now at the court stage of the process. In April I submitted a claim to the small claims court and have today recieved the defence from Comet which I need advice on. The defence states 4 points which are as follows:-

1. They accept I purchased the laptop for £499.99.

2. " The Claimant is alleging there is a known fault with this make and model of laptop. Sony and Nvidia admit to a problem with certain models and have identified which models are affected. They are confident based on their notification that this particular model is not affected. We therefore dispute the 3rd party engineers report which is assuming this is an affected unit".

3. "We deny the laptop is not repairable and therefore put the Claimant to strict proof of this allegation"

4. They are questioning why I am claiming more than the cost of the laptop but this is due to your, the court and other associated costs and I have evidence to support this.

Therefore my questions are in relation to the 2 quotes in 2 and 3 above.

Are the any successful cases I can use in court whereby a Sony laptop not on the list has won a case thereby setting a precident?

How valid is their claim against your report...they use the word assume??

Any other comments from anyone would be gratefully received.

Many thanks
Phil

Hello Phil,

You have nothing to worry about with their defence as it is a standard defence which I have seen numerous times.

Sony and Nvidia may admit to the defect in certain models, but this is wholly irrelevant.

Of course they are going to state that your laptop is not defective and that your model doesn't have a defective GPU, but this doesn't mean that is correct.

The manifestations you were experiencing, which were lines and artefacts are all related to the Nvidia defect. The test that I performed proves this conclusively as the laptop worked correctly after the rework test.

They haven't even bothered trying to explain why, if your laptop doesn't have the defect, it has failed in exactly the same way as the others which they acknowledge has the defect.

Simply stating that it is not affected is not a defence and they should know that.

Furthermore, I take issue with their claim that I am "assuming" that your laptop is affected. There is absolutely no assumption on my part as my conclusions are based on cold hard facts. I never produce reports based on assumptions as those reports would not be irrefutable.

They may well deny that the laptop is not repairable but the issue is will they give a written guarantee stating that the replacement parts will be free from the defect?

Did you ask for such a written guarantee?

If you did and they refused then the question is, why didn't they have the confidence in the replacement part to give such a written guarantee and if they do not have the confidence to give such a guarantee why should you have the confidence to accept the repair?

I would press on with the small claims action as they have absolutely no defence and their claims about the report etc are simply tired, overly used excuses.

Best wishes

Paul
The Admin Team

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Hi Paul,

I have now recieved the court date for my claim (1st August). After paying the inital court application cost c£60 the court has now requested a further £80 "hearing fee unless I make an application for a court concession"

What is this fee?

Thanks

Phil

Hello Phil,

That is the hearing fee and, like the application fee, is fully recoverable.

Any further questions please let me know.

Best wishes

Paul
The Admin Team

_________________
=======================================================
Calculate the minimum refund that you would be entitled to.
FAQ's
Why you should not accept a repair
Links to evidence
What is the Nvidia Defect?
Step by step help to getting a refund
Do you need an engineers report?
=======================================================

If you like what you see on this forum and would like to help then please post links to this forum in other forums or blogs. The more people we can help the better.


Please note that I am not legally qualified and I only offer my own personal advice. You are advised to seek professional legal advice for formal clarification of advice I give.

Hi Paul,

I am to submit my evidence for the hearing within the next couple of days. I have your report and various other items extracted from the forum. There is so much varied detail on here, what would you also suggest I include within my pack?

Also I went down the court mediation this week option as I recieved 2 letters from the court re this. However, this proved to be fruitless and pointless as the best Comet finally offered was a free repair with 3 months warranty ( although they would look sympathetically if anything went wrong after this date!!) and the return of £60 court costs. Obviously rejected.

I am quite looking forward to my day in court as all the evidence is compelling but I want to make make sure my case is water tight. Any links greatfully accepted

Cheers

Phil

Hello Phil,

There are a number of documents in this forum that will greatly help your case.

nvidia-form-10k-filing-t416.html
nvidia-sec-filing-for-2011-t1402.html
http://nvidiadefect.com/Nvidia-defect-news-articles.htm
evidence-with-links-to-external-sites-t10.html

You will find more than enough evidence there to swell your file.

I hope that the above helps.

Any questions please let me know.

Best wishes

Paul
The Admin Team

_________________
=======================================================
Calculate the minimum refund that you would be entitled to.
FAQ's
Why you should not accept a repair
Links to evidence
What is the Nvidia Defect?
Step by step help to getting a refund
Do you need an engineers report?
=======================================================

If you like what you see on this forum and would like to help then please post links to this forum in other forums or blogs. The more people we can help the better.


Please note that I am not legally qualified and I only offer my own personal advice. You are advised to seek professional legal advice for formal clarification of advice I give.

Hi Paul,

Many thanks for the links. I have now submitted all my evidence for the court case on 1st August 2011. I think the most compelling piece of evidence comes from the Nvidia annual report which highlights a further financial provision they have allocated for "late failing systems that we had not previously considered to be at risk" as highlighted below

"During the second quarter of fiscal year 2011, we recorded an additional charge to cover the estimated remaining customer warranty, repair, return, replacement and other costs arising from a weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of our previous generation MCP and GPU products used in notebook configurations. The net charge amounted to $193.9 million, of which $181.2 million was charged against cost of revenue. The extra remediation costs are primarily due to additional platforms from late failing systems that we had not previously considered to be at risk. Included in the charge are the estimated costs of implementing a settlement reached during the second quarter of fiscal year 2011 with the plaintiffs of a putative consumer class action lawsuit related to this same matter and the other estimated consumer class action settlement. As a result of this settlement, the other related estimated settlement, and offsetting insurance reimbursements, we recorded a net charge of $12.7 million to sales, general and administrative expense during the second quarter of fiscal year 2011. Together with the $282.0 million net charge we had previously recorded for related estimated costs, this brings the total cumulative net charge to $475.9 million, of which $466.4 million has been charged against cost of revenue and the remainder has been charged to sales, general and administrative expenses."

This is basically an admission that they do not know which models have been fitted with the failing chips and threfore any lists produced by retailers are relatively meaningless.

I will let you know how things progress over the coming days

Phil

Hello Phil,

The most important part of that filing that you have quoted is where they state the following:-



That is, in my opinion, quite telling don't you think?

Good luck with the next stage and fingers crossed for you.

Best wishes

Paul
The Admin Team

_________________
=======================================================
Calculate the minimum refund that you would be entitled to.
FAQ's
Why you should not accept a repair
Links to evidence
What is the Nvidia Defect?
Step by step help to getting a refund
Do you need an engineers report?
=======================================================

If you like what you see on this forum and would like to help then please post links to this forum in other forums or blogs. The more people we can help the better.


Please note that I am not legally qualified and I only offer my own personal advice. You are advised to seek professional legal advice for formal clarification of advice I give.

Hi Paul,

Yes..very telling.

It will be interesting to see what happens over the next 48 hours in my case. If I do not hear anything from Comet by Friday they will be commited to the £80 hearing fee (if/when I win) that I have paid which has to be cancelled in writing 7 days prior to the hearing if an out of court settlement is agreed, for the hearing fee to be refunded by the court.

Phil

Hi Paul,

Just an update on my claim against Comet. I am due in court on Monday and thought I may have recieved a call from them this week with an offer but I didn't therefore it looks like they may be preparing to defend their postion.

I will update the result on Monday afternoon

Phil