Do Not Buy An Hp!

[rocknbil]

This is a rant of gargantuan proportions. If you don't want to hear pissing and moaning, hit the BACK BUTTON NOW.




Okay, color me idiot. I knew this was going to happen, just not this bad. I'm only posting this in case anyone falls prey to the same thing - the lure of cheap price so you don't have to spend hours setting up a computer for a family member.

I've always avoided HP's, Compaq's, and Acers. They are CRAP. But for my stepdaughter's birthday she really wanted a computer. I could spend hours and hours getting one of the old ones here configured for her, or just drop $400 on a comp. I figured what the hell, le'ts get a cheap one and call it quits.

BIG MISTAKE, more than I'd have ever dreamed.

Hard drive failed in 5 days. I have **never** seen an HD go down so fast, and I've been working with macs, PC's, and unix's for almost 12 years.

After 3 disconnects and 3 hours on the phone with their offshore Indian supoort line, although I could barely understand a g$^$^ d#$%# thing they were saying, finally we get to "Sir, I think your hard disk has gone bad." I literally said "NO S***, that's what I tried to tell you three hours ago!"

So they fedex a new drive and 13 "restore" disks. You see it coming, don't you?

Drive in, 3 hours into the install, on disk 11 is says "that is not the requested disk. Please insert disk 11."

So back on the support line I go, they tell me to insert disk 1 and restart the computer.

"Start over? Are you INSANE? I'm telling you, disk 11 is corrupted!"

So anyway I go through this process THREE TIMES over the course of 3 days. Same deal.

Why didn't I just take it back to where I bought it? Same old screw-job, once it goes out the door it's HP's ball.

Finally they decide to send me a new set of disks. We both know what's going to happen when they get here . . . it's going to get to #11 and die.

So I'm saying F*** THIS S*** and spring for a copy of XP. Install it and runs fine . . .

But doesn't recognize the onboard sound.

No problem, right? Download the drivers from their site!

But they don't have downloads for this comp. It just points to a page telling you how to restore the drivers from their restore disks.

Which don't work.

A**HOLES!

Never ever fall for the lure of low price. Any by all means, do not buy an HP!

Excerpt from last email to their support:

========================================


Thank you for writing back.


By reviewing your message, I see that you are frustrated with our
support. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to you in
this regard.


*******, to tell you, we at e-mail support do not have access to all the
chat or online transcripts which you had earlier to resolve the issue.
However, the recovery CDs will be reaching you by 09/25/2006. The
Recovery Process did not succeed in your PC may due to the corrupt
Recovery Partition of hard drive in your PC. However, you can recover
the system by using the recovery CDs to the manufacturer default
settings.


Hence, I request your patience and cooperation to resolve this issue.


If you need further assistance, please reply to this message and we will
be happy to assist you further.


Sincerely,


Sandra


My reply:

========================================

Sandra, or whoever,

You want to actually HELP? Send me the sound drivers for this hunk of junk. To get around your corrupted disks, I bought a fresh copy of XP and the computer is installed and running. The only problem is, XP does not recognize the HP onboard sound device.

DO NOT ask me to run a system restore, the disks are corrupted and I will be back at square one.
DO NOT ask me to go to your website, no drivers for the a1217n are available. This is probably due to the fact that you are set up to rely on the restore disks so why bother? Because the disks can become corrupted and are WORTHLESS, that's why.

Simply send me an install of the sound drivers. That's all I need.

Can you do that?

If you cannot, I'll go buy a $20 sound card and disable your onboard audio. This computer is going to run **in spite** of Hewlett-Packard.

 

[Lessen]

damn, that's crap. I just had to do a complete system recovery (HP) two nights ago... at the cost of a $45 support phone call. I did a defrag the other day and after it was finished my IE wouldn't work. Next computer will be a Dell for sure. I hear they make a good product.

Fortunately, my support lady was very pleasent. Sorry to hear about such a rough time, that's such a PITA.

 

[Karl M]

I have a Compaq that has treated me pretty well, it made it through a deployment to Kuwait and a few other trips. I did have a hell of a time trying to get SP2 for windows installed, online support sucks A$$. I had to hand my computer to a friend who loves a good mystery, he said it took him the better part of an evening trying to figure it out. All works fine now, I can't say that I would recommend an HP product to aynone. If I had it to do over again, I would buy Dell or Toshiba.

 

[Greyryder]

Damn. Sorry to hear about the hassle you had to go through. I'd heard that HP dropped to compaq's levels, after they bought compaq. Before, they'd run flawlessly for a few years, then fail to turn on one day.

We had a compaq, once. I fought with it for about a year, then I built my own computer. I refuse to touch a brand name computer, because of it. I don't have to deal with preinstalled junk software, and restore disks that way.

 

[olds97_lss]

Our network guy at the office buys acers without much of a headache, desktops and laptops. He just doesn't' buy anything with a celeron. Although, I don't even know if you can buy celeron anymore.

He replaced my desktop at work with an acer duel core processer with a gig of ram... it makes my 2G dell at home (w 1G of ram) seem like a dog. Although, I have had no problems with my dell at home in 3 years. It's a desktop.

I had similar issues to your hardrive failure with a gateway 5 years ago...

 

[rocknbil]

So three hours later, they indeed sent me some links.

The first driver installed two sets of everything under sound and game devices (Two audo codecs, two video codecs, OMG what a mess.) But it didn't install the Realtek driver in the control panel. Still no sound.

So I ripped all that out, re-installed the standard drivers off the XP disk, then went to "Add Hardware" and navigated to the Realtek directory to install the driver from there.

In the middle of the install, the computer RESTARTS! :jittery:

So nowit won't start up in XP. (Getting more pi**ed by the minute)

I reboot it in Safe Mode, disable the driver, come back to my comp to start typing in caps (for all the good it will do ), and find this reply:

=================================

Thank you for writing back.

I understand that you are unable to get audio from your PC.
(No s**t Sherlock)

This issue might be due to Microsoft Universal Audio Architecture (UAA)
driver.

Your PC should be first installed with Microsoft Universal Audio
Architecture (UAA) driver before installing the audio driver which I
gave in previous message. However, I now provide you the Microsoft
Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) driver and the compatible audio
driver for your PC. You can download and install from the following
weblink:
Microsoft Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) driver:
(link here)

Onboard Audio Driver:
(folowed by ANOTHER link to a Realtek driver, different than the first.)

LOL!! Well finally they got it right, the UAA fixed it, my day is gone, boy I'm too old for this crap. hahaha . . . .


Boyz 'n Gals learn from my mistakes, DO NOT BUY AN HP!


:stupid:

 

[HeartBreak]

That, amongst quality issues, is why I tell anyone that asks me to either let me build 'em a PC, or get a Dell. I've seen countless HP's fail with bad capacitors. One even had a cpu cooler fail.

HP's are no good. I don't even like their printers; ink hogs.

 

[Lessen]

hogs.

I heard that! I have a 7900 series and it seems to drink ink like crazy. Granted.. it puts out some REALLY REALLY nice photos, I can't complain there. But yes, it does go through ink pretty quickly if I'm printing photos

 

[rossb]

I build all of my PCs using Intel Retail boxed motherboards and CPUs. I don't save any money but I don't experience all of the hassles of a pre-built PC.

 

[4u2nv]

Dude.. I got a dell.. Its been a good computer and there customer service is pretty awesome. Kinda hard to understand since there all pakistani, but there helpful. My comp crashed a while back (Its like 5 years old) so they walked me step by step threw deleting everything off of it and rebooting everything. Took like 2 hours. My next comp will be a dell as well.

 

[jetmechG550]

I couldn't agree more! I've built my last three computers myself and have never had an issue other than wanting more speed or space. At work, I'm an aircraft technician (that's my official title) but being that we are so far removed from the company and getting help is like pulling teeth, I'm also the onsite IT guy. I've never had any kind of formal IT training so I pretty much have to wing it or do a lot of research. They had crumbpaks when I started there and we managed to get them the hell out rather quickly. Outside of support from India, the Dell's have been great.

 

[Greyryder]

HP's are no good. I don't even like their printers; ink hogs.

I hate their printers. I had to remove their printer drivers from a computer, once. I've seen spyware that was easier to get rid of.

I stick with Canon printers. Great image quality, and the ink doesn't cost a fortune.

 

[Plaidfish]

Bill just be thankful they did away with the emulated sound cards....you get a pc with that crap on it and you'd better pray you never have to reformat...I learned that mistake years ago buying a compaq for my pop.....what a freakin hunk o junk.....I get systemmax stuff and I've still got the first one I bought running in my daughter's room now.....P3 667mhz....still running strong as the day I bought it too.....

 

[1500valk]

Two words: Dell XPS. XPS systems support is all IN THE UNITED STATES. With the XPS system, they do not outsource the tech service. Is that worth the extra $600 I paid for my system over my brother's dell 7800? oh, you betcha!
Actually, his 7800 is a fine machine, only thing it doesn't have compared to mine is a 256 meg vid card, his is 128 megs. To me, that and the US-based tech service that goes with an XPS is worth the extra $$$.
And yes, HP sucks. Their systems suck, their customer (non)service sucks, heck, their whole company can suck my left....overs.

 

[.21Rc10GT]

Unfortunatly, my parents (and grandmother) absolutely love HP. I am using one as i type this... My next comp will be Alienware, Dell, or built myself.

 

[saiyuki411]

You should have built your daughter a custom PC it only takes an hour of your time at most :/ but you already know this soo

COMPAQS are the BOMB!

 

[robriguez]

I've built hundreds of computers in my life and although the quanitity has died down to about 1 every 4 months now I have found that building your own with quality components will cost you a bit more upfront but save you hundreds if not thousands in hours spent on the phone with tech support.

My company started with Seimens Towers (when towers were brand new to the industry). Went 100% Comcraps. Then switched to Comcraps for servers and Acers for Desktops. Then Intel servers. And now finally to HP Servers and white boxes for desktops for the last 5 years. The white boxes we build are all Intel mobo, Intel processors, WD or Seagate HDD, Kingston Memory and as much onboard as we can get away with. ANY time we have had a hardware failure, Intel or our supplyer has had new parts to us without hassle. For OUR customers, 95% of all computer problems are traced back to the user doing something they werent supposed to.

I have heard nothing but issues with HP and ComCrap "desktops" but I have to tell you the HP servers absolutely ROCK and the support reps are top notch.

For white boxes I HIGHLY recommend Intel boards. Not the cheapest or the fastest but rock solid reliable business machines.