Last night I set my laptop to sleep, packed it into my computer backpack and went to bed. Today I brought it with me to work (as usual) and set it up on the desk, hit the power button and went to fetch a cup of coffee. When I returned to my office I was dismayed to find that the screen was black – pitch black. I moved the mouse… nothing happened, hmmm.. I used the touchpad… nothing happened… What the… I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL… still nothing… Okay, probably Bill Gates at work, so I held down the power button for 4 seconds and the machine powered down. I hit it again and waited for the usual HP logo screen… NOTHING!? and then… a long beep, and then two short ones. NOOOOOO… The videocard has died, and since this is embedded on the motherboard the whole thing needs to be replaced.
I contacted HP customer support, but since the warranty expired a long time ago, I mean – I bought this machine October 2006 – no immediate luck there. But, Norwegian consumer laws to the rescue. Under law I have 5 years in which I can complain and have the machine fixed. So I submitted my claim to HP and are now waiting their response, which I should have sometime tomorrow. (Wish me luck)
Being impatient I went to some online stores to see if there were any laptops I could think of purchasing if it comes to that. Microsoft has been running a lot of ads centering on the fact that Apple machines are way to expensive compared to PCs that are available. Well, are they?
Living in Norway, I went to Apples online store and was shocked to see the prices there:
For a 13 inch MacBook with and 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM and a 160 GB hard drive they wanted a whooping kr 11.000,- (approximately 1500 US dollars). No way…
Then I went to komplett.no, one of Norway’s largest online computer shops and found this beauty;
A HP (yes, again) Pavilion dv5-1190 15,4 inch laptop, with a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4 GB RAM and a 320 GB Hard drive for kr 7500 (approximately 1100 US dollars).
So, in other words a much larger screen, double the amount of RAM and double the amount of storage for kr 3500 less? Maybe my taste is awful, but I do think that the HP is every bit as appealing to the eye as the MacBook, so why the difference in price? It must be the silhouette of that one bite Golden Delicious on the front…
Conclusion;
None so far, other than the fact that a snowball would survive in hell before I buy a Mac (or their prices have to drop significantly).
For now I am waiting for HPs response, and hopefully a repair of my laptop. You know, I really like my HP dv9074ea. It was purchased 2 1/2 years ago, which is a long time when it comes to computers, but it’s specs can still hold up, and it ran (hopefully runs) Windows 7 beautifully!
Wish me and my laptop luck! 🙂
Excellent Blog. I’ve been reading along and just wanted to say hi. I will be reading more of your posts in the future.
– Jason.
YES, finally I found you 🙂
I have been searching for this issue all night because my HP Pavilion 9074ea has the exact same problem.
I have swaped memory modules, removed the battery on the main board, tried a different battery on the main board and even installed a new HDD (I knew that this was not the issue – but just for fun…)
WHen I power on the machine the Computer is totaly black and it makes one long and two short beeps then nothing hapens when I press ESC or F10, F11 or delete F2 etc… just black
Alot of forums mention that the cause of the problem is that the Video card is f…ed and that HP is doing nothing to help them.
I also live in Norway, and I am wondering what the status is regarding this case, have you heard from HP or komplett – if they have contacted you – what did they say???
What did you write to them to tell them that you have 5years of warranty – or that they have to fix the problem.
Hi Glenn
Check out my update to this story in this post; http://abokevin.com/?p=406 where I tell how it all went. I had to take my case to Komplett, and under Norwegian Consumer laws I still have my 5 year warranty, and they fixed it without any problems.
Good Luck!
Computer failure is such a disappointment. It’s inevitable, but still when it happens, it just really ruins your day. Anyways, the HP sounds like a good find, I read your update and it seems like you’re happy with it, which is the most important thing really. Macs are way overpriced anywhere in the world in my opinion, and nothing about them justifies the price in my opinion.
article! Thx!
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