Fie on Hewlett Packard

Thanks to everyone who sent their reassuring thoughts and bolstering sentiments about my dad-in-law. No further news updates from the in-folks front, which I’m taking as “no news is good news.”

I am deeply, deeply displeased with Hewlett Packard. My laptop arrived bright and early via FedEx yesterday morning. I bounded to the door to sign for it, gleefully pulled my shiny laptop from its packaging, and booted it up. The “Customer Care” receipt they enclosed informed me they had only done two things: re-image the hard drive (sigh) and replaced the battery. This did not thrill me, as I was reasonably certain the problem I’d been having was not a battery issue, and if it was, then why didn’t they just sent me a @#$! new battery? I could’ve re-imaged the thing myself if I’d thought it was necessary. But hey, maybe I was wrong, maybe it had been the battery all along. I started loading it up, restoring software and data, and while I was in the middle of that, it turned itself off. Yep. They hadn’t fixed the problem.

So I packaged it back up in the box it came in, and FedEx retrieved it this afternoon to make the trip back to California. The HP support folks were not at all helpful when we called them. They tried to get us to go through all the useless rigmarole processes (power drain, restore the bios, etc.) that hadn’t worked the first time before agreeing that it needed to be sent back.

So I remain without my laptop. I am mightily pissed off.

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
– 77-day personal “sweet but not for us” with invite to try again from Sheila Williams of Asimov’s. That first sale of 2006 is turning out to be rather elusive . . .

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50 Responses to Fie on Hewlett Packard

  1. yukinooruoni says:

    Bah on HP!!! Which center is it being shipped to? They’re one of my clients and if that centers one of my listed ones, I may be able to give you some names of people to contact directly up in the chain of command to yell at.

  2. yukinooruoni says:

    Bah on HP!!! Which center is it being shipped to? They’re one of my clients and if that centers one of my listed ones, I may be able to give you some names of people to contact directly up in the chain of command to yell at.

  3. Sorry to hear you’re having problem with your computer. I was so unproductive when my laptop bit the dust, and had guilt dreams about word counts going into the negative. Bummer about Asimov’s as well. Yours is the third Asimov’s rejection I’ve heard about today so they must have all gone in the mail at one time.

  4. Sorry to hear you’re having problem with your computer. I was so unproductive when my laptop bit the dust, and had guilt dreams about word counts going into the negative. Bummer about Asimov’s as well. Yours is the third Asimov’s rejection I’ve heard about today so they must have all gone in the mail at one time.

    • Eugie Foster says:

      Yeah, I’ve hit a depressing low point in my writing productivity without my laptop. Even though I’ve got a backup station to work on, it’s not set up properly for how I work, and it’s killing my muse. Feh.

      Yours is the third Asimov’s rejection I’ve heard about today so they must have all gone in the mail at one time.

      Heh. They probably wanted to get the SASEs out before the postage rates changed.

    • Eugie Foster says:

      Yeah, I’ve hit a depressing low point in my writing productivity without my laptop. Even though I’ve got a backup station to work on, it’s not set up properly for how I work, and it’s killing my muse. Feh.

      Yours is the third Asimov’s rejection I’ve heard about today so they must have all gone in the mail at one time.

      Heh. They probably wanted to get the SASEs out before the postage rates changed.

  5. pleroma says:

    I was having problems with my Powerbook not recognizing my lower RAM slot, so it was only running off 512 MB of RAM, not 1 GB.

    Gave it to the local Apple store on Thursday afternoon, they shipped it out that day. The place that repairs them, got it on Friday, fixed it and shipped it out on Saturday. Yesterday, they got the laptop in, and the store itself ran a number of diagnostic tests to make sure that everything was up and running before getting in touch with me.

    Sorry to hear of your laptop drama, but I was just kinda in the same situation, only with a more satisfactory result.

    Good luck!

  6. pleroma says:

    I was having problems with my Powerbook not recognizing my lower RAM slot, so it was only running off 512 MB of RAM, not 1 GB.

    Gave it to the local Apple store on Thursday afternoon, they shipped it out that day. The place that repairs them, got it on Friday, fixed it and shipped it out on Saturday. Yesterday, they got the laptop in, and the store itself ran a number of diagnostic tests to make sure that everything was up and running before getting in touch with me.

    Sorry to hear of your laptop drama, but I was just kinda in the same situation, only with a more satisfactory result.

    Good luck!

    • Eugie Foster says:

      Just rub it in why doncha . . .

    • Eugie Foster says:

      Just rub it in why doncha . . .

      • pleroma says:

        O.o

        Me like Macs. Just trying to help encourage some violence into the system. I say you go kick their collective asses.

      • pleroma says:

        O.o

        Me like Macs. Just trying to help encourage some violence into the system. I say you go kick their collective asses.

        • dude_the says:

          I didn’t start it, but….

          Yeah, I’m really happy with Apple’s hardware support right now. It look less than a week to get my iMac G5 back when I took it in. They put a shiney new logic board (mine was one of the batch that had problems with bad capacitors) in it and hadn’t wiped the hard drive. Same thing with my Powerbook. Even better was a buddy of mine who, after the newly replaced logic board on his old iBook failed, Apple gave him a brand new iBook free (it was a jump from an iBook G3 to an iBook G4).

          Not saying HP won’t do good for you. They probably will. Just saying that Apple was good to me last year.

          PJI

        • dude_the says:

          I didn’t start it, but….

          Yeah, I’m really happy with Apple’s hardware support right now. It look less than a week to get my iMac G5 back when I took it in. They put a shiney new logic board (mine was one of the batch that had problems with bad capacitors) in it and hadn’t wiped the hard drive. Same thing with my Powerbook. Even better was a buddy of mine who, after the newly replaced logic board on his old iBook failed, Apple gave him a brand new iBook free (it was a jump from an iBook G3 to an iBook G4).

          Not saying HP won’t do good for you. They probably will. Just saying that Apple was good to me last year.

          PJI

  7. Hewlett Packard, knowing they are very well-known company, should have an excellent customer service. But guess they’re not. That’s very disappointing. Knowing too that two of my aunts who were CPA used to work for them. Wonder why they give such a lousy customer service and a crappy computer…hmmmmm.

  8. Hewlett Packard, knowing they are very well-known company, should have an excellent customer service. But guess they’re not. That’s very disappointing. Knowing too that two of my aunts who were CPA used to work for them. Wonder why they give such a lousy customer service and a crappy computer…hmmmmm.

    • yukinooruoni says:

      Usually because their direct-user customer-base they can afford to piss off.

      People generally spend enough on a laptop that they’re not just going to ditch the HP and go buy a different one.

      The only ones who they really *WORK* at making happy are their corporate people, and that’s because of the money involved. They FLEECE corporations on their pricing. It’s often cheaper to buy a computer retail than it is through a company, but they offer various incentive programs to keep the corporate folk happy.

    • yukinooruoni says:

      Usually because their direct-user customer-base they can afford to piss off.

      People generally spend enough on a laptop that they’re not just going to ditch the HP and go buy a different one.

      The only ones who they really *WORK* at making happy are their corporate people, and that’s because of the money involved. They FLEECE corporations on their pricing. It’s often cheaper to buy a computer retail than it is through a company, but they offer various incentive programs to keep the corporate folk happy.

  9. keesa_renee says:

    Oh, Eugie, how awful for you!! Hope it gets fixed soon!

  10. keesa_renee says:

    Oh, Eugie, how awful for you!! Hope it gets fixed soon!

    • Eugie Foster says:

      Me too! I’m confident it will get fixed (or replaced), one way or another. But the amount of downtime and frustration I’m having to stew through is really ticking me off.

    • Eugie Foster says:

      Me too! I’m confident it will get fixed (or replaced), one way or another. But the amount of downtime and frustration I’m having to stew through is really ticking me off.

  11. neo_prodigy says:

    hp’s service sounds a lot like dell’s.

  12. neo_prodigy says:

    hp’s service sounds a lot like dell’s.

  13. Oh my god! You think they would have tested it first. Idiots!

  14. Oh my god! You think they would have tested it first. Idiots!

  15. elvesforeyes says:

    These posts have scared the crap out of me. I doubt I’ll ever buy a laptop (though I’m sure it’s a writer’s best friend at times).

  16. elvesforeyes says:

    These posts have scared the crap out of me. I doubt I’ll ever buy a laptop (though I’m sure it’s a writer’s best friend at times).

    • Eugie Foster says:

      Eh, there’s trade-offs. Personally, I require a laptop to write on. This brief period without one has really knocked that point home. I can’t write longhand (I type faster than I write, and between my Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and my elbow and fingers cramping up, writing with standard pen and paper just isn’t a viable option), and I need the portability that a laptop offers.

      So far, my experience with my HP Pavilion has been the exception. My previous job provided IBM Thinkpads to its Systems Analysts, which I was totally happy with. I’d also had experiences with a Sony VAIO notebook (from day job) which was a hands down awesome system. Maybe it’s the machine and the company. I wanted (drooled and lusted after) a Sony VAIO, but I thought those babies were a bit out of the price range of a freelance writer when I was doing my shopping last year.

      But whenever I need to replace my Pavilion (it’s going to last at least three years, ’cause I’ve bought the @#$! extended warranty now), I’m going to look harder at the VAIOs and ThinkPads.

    • Eugie Foster says:

      Eh, there’s trade-offs. Personally, I require a laptop to write on. This brief period without one has really knocked that point home. I can’t write longhand (I type faster than I write, and between my Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and my elbow and fingers cramping up, writing with standard pen and paper just isn’t a viable option), and I need the portability that a laptop offers.

      So far, my experience with my HP Pavilion has been the exception. My previous job provided IBM Thinkpads to its Systems Analysts, which I was totally happy with. I’d also had experiences with a Sony VAIO notebook (from day job) which was a hands down awesome system. Maybe it’s the machine and the company. I wanted (drooled and lusted after) a Sony VAIO, but I thought those babies were a bit out of the price range of a freelance writer when I was doing my shopping last year.

      But whenever I need to replace my Pavilion (it’s going to last at least three years, ’cause I’ve bought the @#$! extended warranty now), I’m going to look harder at the VAIOs and ThinkPads.

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