The Nvidia Defect Forum

Hello all,

The following letter was posted to the forum by one of our members.

This customer is proceeding to litigation and was told from day one that he was out of warranty and both Comet and HP refused to do anything to help.

Then, once he had filed his small claims action he received the following letter:-



There are a number of points I take issue with in the above letter.

Firstly is the line "Following negotiations with Hewlett Packard on your behalf......"

Sorry Comet, but you sold the laptop and so you are 100% responsible for sorting the problem out. You negotiated with HP on your own behalf as it is you that purchased from HP not the customer.

Please stop telling your customers that you are acting on their behalf when, in fact, you are acting in your own best interest.

I am also seriously concerned with the following statement:-

"They (Hewlett Packard) have also told us that they have redesigned the motherboard, which is now free from the original Nvidia Defect and is no longer "tweaked". "

How have they managed this?

Have they redesigned the Nvidia GPU itself as that is root cause of the problem?

The fact that the cooling system in the laptops is, in some cases, wholly inadequate, could be what has been changed or "redesigned".

But the Nvidia GPU's are, in my opinion, still the same Nvidia GPU's that were made 2007/2008, Hewlett Packard could not possibly have changed these.

They also said the board is no longer "tweaked".

Why not? The "tweak" was done to help stop the GPU rising up from the mainboard. Are they trying to say that by not applying this tweak then the board is no longer defective?

If these new "redesigned" boards are indeed 100% free from the Nvidia defect then why are Comet and HP so unwilling to give a written guarantee confirming this?

Why are laptops still failing even after one of these new "redesigned" boards have been used?

I will say again what I have always said.

In my opinion there are no reliable parts available for these laptops. Staples concur with this belief and have acknowledged this in the following letter:- staples-do-not-reccomend-a-repair-please-read-t194.html

If Comet or any retailer insist that you accept a repair then you should request that they give you a written guarantee on the retailers headed notepaper that states the following:-

"The motherboard being used to repair your laptop is from a new batch and is 100% free from the Nvidia defect. If at any time in the future it transpires that the laptop is inherently defective due to to the Nvidia GPU then a refund or replacement laptop will be offered"

If Comet and HP are so confident in the repair they are offering then they should have no problems in providing you with such a written guarantee.

Furthermore I would also suggest that you request from Comet or HP specific details of the new "redesigned" boards.

HP should have a datasheet for the new boards or at the very least a technical specifications sheet showing the changes that justify their claim that the boards are now free from the defect.

You should request a copy of that document and, if they do provide you with it then let me see a copy so that we can verify or otherwise their claims.

Best wishes

Paul
The Admin Team

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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.

Paul

IIRC, when the story hit the consumer press bigtime (sometime around summer 2008 I think), HP (and other manufacturers too) redesigned many of their products to use an ATI chipset in place of the inherently faulty nVidia components. This was probably also a marketing necessity as few technically-aware people would have bought anything with an nVidia GPU at that time.

Now if HP were to repair the faulty laptops by replacing them with motherboards using ATI GPUs, would that not address the problem? Would probably mean replacing the processor/fan/heatsink also to have any real confidence in the repair (all thermally stressed from running with the overheating nVidia chips), but I'm guessing it would still be cheaper than a whole new laptop - the case, screen, keyboard, memory, HDD, wifi card etc would all be reusable.

They'd also have to rebuild the OEM OS image for each of the affected models.

If on the other hand they're just replacing the nVidia chips with supposedly non-defective ones, then it's another matter entirely & I for one would have no confidence in the repair.

Any way of finding out the pedigree of these "redesigned" motherboards? Only by asking HP I guess, but as you rightly say, that's Comet's problem and not ours.

I'd be VERY interested to strip down one of these laptops immediately after a repair by HP.

Our problem now, as I see it, is that it might be hard to prove to a non-IT litereate Court that Comet's new offer is not reasonable.

Any ideas, anyone??

J.

Hello J



Well, I think the lack of a written guarantee is enough for the customer to refuse the repair.

If a customer requests a written guarantee confirming the repair will not contain an inherently defective GPU and the retailer refuses to provide this then I would say it would not be unreasonable of the customer to reject this.

Furthermore, if, as you suggest, HP have redesigned these boards by changing the Nvidia GPU for an ATI GPU then that is wholly inadequate.

What if you purchased your laptop because of its features, which includes an Nvidia GPU.

If they replace this board with an alternative GPU then you do not have what you initially wanted or paid for.

So under those circumstances it would not be unreasonable to reject the repair.

If they cannot replace like for like then the customer is quite within their rights to reject the offer.

Hope this helps.

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.

Tomorrow I'm sending Hewlett Packard a copy of this letter requesting they confirm this.

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