As I recounted in Part 1, last Thursday I spent an hour and a half on the phone with HP Tech Support in an effort to get a video card with a defective fan replaced under the on-site service plan for which we paid $169 when we bought the computer a couple of months ago.  The tech was scheduled to come yesterday (Monday, July 20th) between 1300 and 1700. The box with the new video card arrived in the morning. To make it easier for the tech, we lugged the computer, monitor, and input devices into the kitchen and set them up on the big counter. I postponed the errands that I needed to take care of, to stay home and wait for the tech. And wait. And wait.

Nobody ever showed up. Nobody called to reschedule. When it was obvious, three hours past the scheduled timeframe, that no one was coming, I gave in. Okay, I’d put the card in myself.

Or maybe not. Opening the case was easy. Taking out the old video card was easy. Then I opened up the box that had been delivered that morning and took out the new video card. Umm, there’s a slight discrepancy here. The new card was about twice as large as the old one.

I had read the model number from my original invoice to the tech support person on the phone: Radeon HD 4350. That was the model of the card that I took out of the computer. The new card they sent was a 4850. As is obvious from the photo, it’s not only bigger; it’s a better card. It has a gig of video memory, whereas the original had only 512 MB. I looked both up on the web and the new one costs about $100 more. I would have thought that it was really nice of them to send an upgraded card. Except … it won’t fit in the case.

Believe me, I tried. I unbundled the cables to try to move them to make room. I maneuvered it this way and that, trying to coax it into the allotted space. It just wasn’t going to happen. The case isn’t all that small, but the inside is plenty crowded, as you can see in the photo on the right.

So … we have a better video card, but no way to use it in this computer. We did come up with a solution: take one of the (smaller sized) Radeons out of the Dell XPS and put it in the HP, and put this new card in the XPS. Overall, I guess we come out ahead – or at least the Dell does. I’ve already spent at least $400 worth of my time on this (not counting the annoyance of being stuck here waiting for half a day) and I’m not inclined to go through the whole telephone dance all over again.

I can’t fault HP’s basic warranty service. They replaced the part – with something better (albeit something better that doesn’t work for the purpose for which it was sent). But after this fiasco, I certainly can’t recommend buying their on-site service plan. Save $169, because apparently you’re going to end up installing the parts yourself anyway.

Oh, and another thing: the box in which the new card arrived was battered and squashed. The card itself was damaged – the edge of the bracket was bent (see the photo on the left). This shouldn’t have any effect on its operation and is easily bent back with a pair of pliers, but it’s just one more example of carelessness and lack of customer service, this time probably on the part of the delivery service. 

Since Part 1 of this post was published, I’ve gotten a number of messages from readers who told me about their (mostly bad, but some good) experiences with HP tech support. I won’t say my experience was typical, but based on that mail, it certainly wasn’t unique. We still love the systems, but we aren’t very impressed with HP’s customer service. For us, this was an aggravation, though not a huge big deal. For someone else, who only had the one computer and who didn’t know how to install the components and didn’t have another computer sitting around to swap parts with, it would have been much worse.

deb@shinder.net   www.debshinder.com