(Ooh, so this is what the computer forum looks like. Not as scary as I thought.)

So my laptop went bongo mental over the course of several days, going from occassional screen blackouts to fuzzy "no-reception-on-the-TV" style meltdowns. Then the picture just completely went blank and stayed that way.

Took it down to the shop at Fortune Town where I bought it (my 1 year warranty expired in October) and the techie takes one look and says it's a fault with the nvidia chip set and it needs replacing. 5,000 baht and back in 3 days. Sounded fine so I agreed.

A quick trawl on the Internet showed that this was a common problem and has cost people like Dell and HP squillions. It also seemed like HP were offering free repairs.

Now I'm no techie, but it occurred to me that the shop might be sending my laptop off to HP for a free repair, then charging me 5k.

I'm not sure that they are wrong to do that (I did agree without question), but it has me thinking.

Due to pick up tomorrow afternoon. Any thoughts?

Edited March 12, 200917 yr by polecat

(Ooh, so this is what the computer forum looks like. Not as scary as I thought.)

So my laptop went bongo mental over the course of several days, going from occassional screen blackouts to fuzzy "no-reception-on-the-TV" style meltdowns. Then the picture just completely went blank and stayed that way.

Took it down to the shop at Fortune Town where I bought it (my 1 year warranty expired in October) and the techie takes one look and says it's a fault with the nvidia chip set and it needs replacing. 5,000 baht and back in 3 days. Sounded fine so I agreed.

A quick trawl on the Internet showed that this was a common problem and has cost people like Dell and HP squillions. It also seemed like HP were offering free repairs.

Now I'm no techie, but it occurred to me that the shop might be sending my laptop off to HP for a free repair, then charging me 5k.

I'm not sure that they are wrong to do that (I did agree without question), but it has me thinking.

Due to pick up tomorrow afternoon. Any thoughts?

If you are over the 1 year warranty, I don't think they will fix it for free. Back when I used to work for Compaq we would sometimes let things slide if it was a short period, but October was a long time ago.

Only thing I can suggest is to maybe take it to a couple more shops and see if they say the same.

But bottom line is you really don't know what the problem is so you just have to take their word for it. You have a problem and it needs fixing. If you are willing to pay, you go with them, if not you have to seek out other options.

Edited March 12, 200917 yr by ungcas