Since we got the pair of new Core i7 computers at the end of May, we’ve been quite happy with them. Then yesterday, I walked into the room where Tom’s lives (not his office; he remotes into it … don’t ask) and wondered “what’s that awful noise?” It sounded like a 747 taking off – or rather, trying to take off and not quite making it. One of the nicest things about these computers was that they were so quiet, so what in the world was going on? I got down close and listened and it was pretty obviously a fan making the noise.

I would normally just open up the case and start troubleshooting – but we had bought an on-site repair service plan with these machines and I wasn’t sure whether opening the case would void the warranty, so I got out the paperwork to start the support process. I also figured it would be a good opportunity to assess HP’s support service. We’ve purchased five HPs over the last couple of years but we’ve never needed to use their support service so I was curious as to how it compared to Dell’s (which we had used a couple of times over the years).

The documentation advised to start the process by going to the support web site. Well, I quickly found that there was nothing there for me. There were numerous forums and such but they dealt mainly with software problems. I don’t need help with software problems; I can fix software. This was obviously a hardware problem. So I reluctantly turned to the second step, the support phone number. Reluctantly because I have difficulty hearing over the phone anyway, and I figured first level support was going to be someone with a thick accent, which would make it that much more difficult for me to understand.

Of course I had to go through voicemail hell before I could talk to a real person. And this was the especially annoying type, where you have to talk to the damn machine instead of keying in your choices. I always feel like an idiot doing that, especially when the stupid thing can’t understand me. But we got past that and I got a support tech. Yes, he had an accent but (thank goodness) it wasn’t bad and I could understand him pretty well. I only had to ask “Pardon? Could you repeat that?” about five times during the call. Given the length of the call, that really wasn’t as bad as it sounds. And he was very polite, even when I got impatient.

We spent about ten minutes with the preliminaries – my name and information, the serial number and product number, the machine’s specs, etc. etc. I explained the problem and offered to turn the machine on so he could hear it over the phone, which I did. He then had me open the case (I have to give kudos to HP here – this was one of the easiest to open cases I’ve encountered in a long time) and identify each of the fans. It was obvious that the sound wasn’t coming from the power supply fan, but the other two fans – main case fan and video card fan – were close together so it was hard to tell which was making the noise. He had me do a pencil test of the video card fan (stopping it) and the sound ceased. Let it go and it spun back up and the sound started again. Yep, that was the culprit.

Okay, you’d think from here it should be pretty simple, no? We have a defective video card fan that needs to be replaced. Unfortunately, he then insisted that I turn the computer on and run the system diagnostics to see if there was anything wrong with anything else. So we go through that, and by the time it’s finished (everything passed with flying colors) we’ve been on the phone for an hour. I thought at this point we could wrap it up, but I was mistaken. Now he had to “document all this.” So he stops talking and I’m sitting there on the phone, waiting. After ten minutes or so of silence, I asked “are you still there?” He assures me he is. I ask for a ticket number; my big fear at this point is that we’ll get cut off and I’ll have to go through all this all over again. I feel a little better with a number to reference if that happens.

However, the phone systems on both ends prove to be reliable, although every five minutes or so I feel compelled to check and make sure we’re still connected. He always come back with “I’m so sorry it’s taking so long; thank you for your patience.” After we’d been on the phone for an hour and twenty minutes, that patience was wearing thin. He had a problem “finding” the record for my on-site service plan. The Service Plan Certificate they sent has several different numbers on it; we try all of them before finally hitting the right one. At last he tells me he has the documentation done – but he “doesn’t have the authority” to order the new part so now he has to talk to his supervisor. Grrrrr. He goes away again, for about ten minutes. Then a lady comes on the phone, with a thicker accent than the man’s. Oh joy. She goes over everything that the guy told her, apparently, confirming what he had me do. Then she wants me to power up the computer again – huh? What for? I’m starting to get a tiny bit hostile at that point. She tells me she needs to do that to find out what model the video card is. Well, hell, I have that right here on the invoice; I don’t have to power up the computer for that. We get that out of the way and she says okay, they will give me a replacement video card, and “You feel comfortable putting that in yourself, right?”

Well, yeah, I’ve put in heaven knows how many video cards in my time, I’ve built entire computers, but my comfort level is not the issue. We paid for an on-site service plan whereby a technician comes and does that for you. I remind her of that. Oh, okay. I guess she forgot. But to her credit, she doesn’t argue, but schedules it for Monday (this happened on Thursday). Dell always came out the same or next day – but I’m not going to quibble. The Plan does say 3 business days. Total time spent on the phone: an hour and thirty-eight minutes. Based on my usual billable rates, it would have been cheaper for me to just order a new video card from NewEgg and install it myself. But it’s the principle of the thing.

I’m not bashing HP here. It could have been a lot worse. Everyone was polite and apologetic and they ended up agreeing to give me what I wanted and what we had paid for. They didn’t talk down to me like some phone techs do. They were thorough – way thorough – and made sure to double check every fact, every number that they gave me or I gave them, etc. The process wasn’t as painful as some phone support experiences I’ve had; it was just way too long.  If their service wasn’t as prompt as Dell’s, well, we paid hundreds of dollars less than for the same system configuration from Dell, too. Do I still enthusiastically recommend that you buy from HP? I’ll withhold judgment on that, pending the outcome of the service tech’s call on Monday. Stay tuned for Part 2.

P.S. Today I got an emailed shipment notification showing that the video card they’re sending has 1 GB of memory. The original card has 512 MB. The model number is the same. Okay, that’s sort of nice; we get double the RAM for our trouble. Er, my trouble. Hmm. I did all the work on this, and Tom gets the new, better video card. Doesn’t seem fair somehow.

deb@shinder.net    www.debshinder.com