The Nvidia Defect Forum

Right, first of all, i have a PC, not a laptop, i know this site is for The Nvidia Defect on laptops, but i have seen your success rate on here so i thought i would ask for help. Basically i have submitted a small claim against PC World, they sold me a gaming PC, and within a year it kept shutting of when ever i played any type of game, they sent a repait man from tech-guys and he replaced the graphics card. 2 months after this the same fault occured, once again they sent a techguy to repair it at my house. It worked again for a month before it happened again, this time shutting of when i was on it for over an hour, doing anything, even just being idle. this time they arranged for it to be picked up from my house, they returned it just before 2weeks away, i set it up, and all i could see was that they had made an admin account, but the fault was still their. After a brief phone call they told me to take it to my nearest store, upon doing so i was shocked when i was told i personally had to pay for a diagnostic. after a few minutes explaining my point he finally agreed to take my PC in, and finally after another 2week wait, i picked it up. now until February this year, 8months on. it had been fine, but the fault has yet again returned, i feel i have been very reasonable letting them try to repair this PC 4times now, and when i rang up i was told by a member of staff ''Well we repaired it 8months ago, thats along time ago since we touched it, its out of a warranty, we cant do anything.'' So i issued a complaint, that was actually made quite swiftly and just a few days later i had been contacted. I demanded a full re-fund from the very start of this problem, but they was sure they could repair the problem. Now after 4 times failing to do so i feel i am correct asking for a full refund. Which they refused. I issued them a week to solve this problem positivley or i would start a small claims court. Which they did'nt, so i went down the road of a small claims court. They issued an acknowledgment of service and are stating they will fight the claim. I have just realised that in the claim i stated that i brought the PC in April 2009, upon goin through my statments it was in fact the very end of july, will this cause a big problem? should i try to notify the correct services of this mistake or will it not matter that much?
I am only 20 so i have no idea of how to win this claim if it goes to a hearing so any advice would be very helpful, I paid £629.99 for this gaming PC and i only got it purely for the gaming side, which of course makes it not fit for its purpose, i am in over my head here and do not know what to do

Please help!!


Lee

Hello Lee and welcome to our forum.

Sorry to hear of all the problems you are experiencing with your laptop.

Four repairs to your laptop is completely unacceptable and for it to have failed a fifth time goes to show what a lemon it is.

You stated that when they repaired it the first time they replaced the graphics card. Do you know what they did when they repaired it on the other occasions?

It would have been best if you had obtained a report on the laptop prior to instigating legal action as you would need some corroborating evidence which would support your claim in court.

That should not be a problem though as you can still get one now and use that.

Could you also let me know the specification of your PC and whether you have added or changed any peripheral devices during ownership.

If you can let me know the above then I will advise further.

Don't worry Lee, we will help you through this.

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.

1st of all, sorry its not a laptop it is a PC, i have not upgraded or tinkered with it in anyway.
The 2nd time they said they Reflowed MOBO, Replaced Mobo, added Thermal Paste. But both times i stayed in the room with the tech guy, and they both done exactly the same thing, just took out the graphics card and put a new one in. The 2nd time that they apperently done all these extra things is a lie, i even helped him write down some sort of serial number from the PC. He did take away and gave me a piece of paper stating he only replaced the graphics card but i do not have it so i doubt i can prove this.
My arguement on not getting an independant report was purely as i did not want to have this repaired again, but if it is worth it i will stump up the cash, but where the claim is in order i doubt i can claim this back, also, should i contact them about the incorrect purchase date?

The specs:

1 GB NVidia GeForce GT120 graphics card
Core 2 quad processor - 2.33GHZ with a 4mb cache.
4GB Memory RAM
640GB hardrive
HDMI output, 8 usb ports, card readers.


Cheers.

Forgot to say, im not sure what they did apart from create an admin account when i sent it away 3rd time, but for the 4th time the said the cleaned the graphics card and heat sink.

Also a little extra info, this is some overheating problem, i have taken the side panel of and it does not crash, now it will only crash if i play a high spec new game, but if i place a desk fan at the side it wont cut out, but i shouldnt have to be doing this just to use it. I told them this all along and they havent sorted it out.

Hello Leroy,

Well, it sounds like the problem lies squarely with the Nvidia card.

There are a couple of utilities in the downloads section of the forum that I would like you to run.

The first, GPU-Z, is a temperature monitoring program which will report the temperature of the GPU.

The next, Rthdribl, is a GPU stress tester. You should run that in full screen mode with GPU-Z in the foreground.

Please let me know the temperature with the PC at idle and then the temperature under load.

I would also contact the court with reference to the purchase date and ask if you can correct this. It is best if all the details are correct so that PC World cannot wriggle out of it.

Also, in your claim have you named the defendants as DSG Limited? PC World is only a trading name and is not a business entity and so they would use that to reject your claim in court.

Please let me know and I will advise further.

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.

Will do shortly, i have ran a temperature monitoring program before and it was always saying it was to hot, ill download both programs and post the results. as for the name it says defendant Pc World, but for their adddress i did put DSG Retail Limited? when they responded they have stated they are going to defend all of the claim, and under their own section the filled out they have not put PcWorld under their address, just DSG Limited.

Right, i put on the side panel to make the test more accurate. at idle, it had and average of 64.9'C
and hit a max of 68'C. before i could try the other test it shut down. i had to remove the side panel to finally get the pc to load up. i left the side panel off for the other test, otherwise it would'nt work. i only used the marble video as was gettin very stressful with the pc keep turning itself of, but it recorded 80'C just before it cut out. Even though the temp was getting this high the highest i recorded then fan was at 72%
hope this helps.

Hello Leroy,

The temperatures that you have quoted are not excessive and I have seen PC's reach much higher temps.

Have you checked the thermal paste on the CPU? If this is old and dried then this could cause your PC to overheat.

Have you checked to ensure the fans and grilles are free from dust and debris?

Make sure you check the fan on the CPU and also the one on the GPU (if there is one).

Try the above and then please let me know and I will advise further.

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.

Hello Leroy,

The temperatures that you have quoted are not excessive and I have seen PC's reach much higher temps.

Have you checked the thermal paste on the CPU? If this is old and dried then this could cause your PC to overheat.

Have you checked to ensure the fans and grilles are free from dust and debris?

Make sure you check the fan on the CPU and also the one on the GPU (if there is one).

Try the above and then please let me know and I will advise further.

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.