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Grex > Hardware > #116: Advice Needed: Is what this company doing LEGAL??!???!!? <ryan1@cyberspace.org> | |
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ryan1
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Advice Needed: Is what this company doing LEGAL??!???!!? <ryan1@cyberspace.org>
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Sep 9 23:53 UTC 1996 |
I have a question as to if or if not a certain company is
following the law.
A few months ago I bought a new computer (Pentium 120MHz 16MB ram,
+ the whole works) and I have had some problems with it. One of the most
recent problems is that the CPU Cooling Fan quit working. I opened the
computer up, and I saw the fan not spinning at all. This was causing
frequent crashing. (It started crashing frequently BEFORE I opened it) I
called tech-support for the company, and they said that they would fix it
for free as stated under their Waranty. They said I would have to ship it
all the way to California, and it would take 2 weeks at the minimum. Well
as you probably know, I'm addicted to computers, and I do not want to live
with my SLOWER computer for 2 weeks.
I asked the person at the end of the line if I could replace the
cooling fan myself, or pay a lisensed professional in my area to do it.
They said it would void my warranty if anybody except the folks at their
little company fixed it.
I read their warranty and it said "Any hardware configuration
changes without written concent from ABS will void your warranty." The
term "Hardware configuration" is rather vague. It could mean any hardware
upgrades, bios settings, or even the drivers you use for your hardware.
Now if there are any lawyers out there, is what they stated in
their warranty legal? If it is legal, it is most certainly unethical. I
know it is probably used to provent complete idiots from trying to perform
surgery on their PC, but they also said it would void the warranty if i
paid a lisensed professional to preform the switch.
Well, in any case, I had it shipped a few days ago, and right now
i'm using my old 486 with 8mb ram. I'm going to be stuck with this old
paperweight for a while, but I am really curious about this issue.
Any thoughts/opinions/questions/advice?
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| 40 responses total. |
ajax
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response 1 of 40:
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Sep 10 00:59 UTC 1996 |
Offhand, it doesn't sound either illegal or unethical. "Hardware
configuration change" is a bit subjective, but I'd generally take it
to mean anything you have to open up the computer's case to change.
Changing BIOS settings or loading new software drivers are what I'd
consider software changes. In practice, I doubt they're all that
strict about it, and you could remove traces of hardware changes
even if they were, but that type of clause isn't all that unusual.
As to whether I'd deal with the company again, I'd say probably not.
I would expect a company to mail me a replacement cooling fan, at the
very least if I sent them back the defective fan first. (Unless it's
attached in a complex way, but all the ones I've seen pull right off).
The time and expense of shipping the entire computer is ridiculous.
I had a similar problem about a year ago, where my motherboard's
battery was defective, and the company mailed me a replacement right
away. If a person indicates the technical wherewithall to swap
simple parts, I think that's a better solution for both parties.
Faster fixes or turnaround can be an advantage of buying locally,
and if you can't stand being without a computer, it's worth
considering when you buy a computer. A few mail-order companies
offer on-sight service, but you pay a premium for such service.
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rcurl
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response 2 of 40:
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Sep 10 01:54 UTC 1996 |
Did they pay the return shipping cost? Probably not....that is a major
impediment to mail order shopping - to have to pay shipping every time the
warranty is exercised. I buy heavy things locally, as a result, unless
warranty service locally is guaranteed.
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n8nxf
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response 3 of 40:
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Sep 10 03:42 UTC 1996 |
I all sounds fine and legal to me too. Hope you didn't have to pay any
shipping cuse those junky little CPU fans most of the clones have in
them cost less than what it costs to ship the whole puter to CA!
Course, you could have told them to send you a new CPU fan or else you'd
have to wait to send the computer back till it quit all together ;-)
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scg
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response 4 of 40:
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Sep 10 04:59 UTC 1996 |
Yeah, it sounds legal to me, even though it's probably something you could
handle just fine yourself.
Look at it from their perspective. They've probably got a fair amount of
customers who do know something about computers, and who could probably change
that sort of thing themselves if they had to. Then, they've probably got a
large number of customers who don't have a clue what they're doing. If you're
a computer company, and you promise to warranty a compuer no matter what the
customer does to it, you may end up having to deal with computers where users
who didn't know any better did things like soldering the RAM to the
motherboard, or plugging something in wrong and shorting it out, or something
like that.
Still, as others have said, I'd much rather deal with a more trusting company.
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arthurp
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response 5 of 40:
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Sep 10 22:42 UTC 1996 |
And at CCS we actually do get people trying to collect on warranty when they
have done things such as put the CPU in the socket with the wrong
orientation/bent pins/broke the ceramic package, soldered their SIMMs in (no
lie), connected the power to the motherboard reversed and melted
everything....
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rcurl
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response 6 of 40:
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Sep 11 03:36 UTC 1996 |
...nothing ventured, nothing gained...
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n8nxf
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response 7 of 40:
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Sep 11 14:18 UTC 1996 |
(I always thought the power supply connector on PC mother boards was
a stupid choice. What's wrong with something like AMP's 15 pin
Mate-N-Lock connector? You need a hammer to plug that in backwards.)
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gull
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response 8 of 40:
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Sep 11 14:39 UTC 1996 |
I'd guess that IBM didn't put much thought into reverse-polarity
protection when they set the standard. They were only selling PC's to big
companies, right? Big companies would have someone who really knew what
they were doing working on these systems, right? ;)
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rcurl
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response 9 of 40:
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Sep 11 15:49 UTC 1996 |
Circuit board designers don't give much thought to maintenance, period.
Soldered-in chip fuses....hrrrmph!
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ajax
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response 10 of 40:
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Sep 11 16:06 UTC 1996 |
And don't forget soldered batteries! A friend of mine plugged in the power
connectors to a new motherboard wrong once...pretty spectacular, capacitors
actually shot off the motherboard! :-)
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gull
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response 11 of 40:
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Sep 12 00:53 UTC 1996 |
I can't claim to have matched that, though I did accidentally hook up an
LM317 voltage regulator wrong once, blowing the ceramic package completely
in two. (If you're curious, I misread the pin-out diagram, thinking it
heatsink-up instead of heatsink-down.) It was pretty startling,
especially seeing as it happened just as I was reaching for the circuit
board to adjust a trimpot. ;)
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davel
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response 12 of 40:
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Sep 12 13:06 UTC 1996 |
I once was shown a minicomputer board that was basically burned in half. An
electrician was supposedly wiring in a 240-volt outlet for a disk drive to
plug in to (*that* dates this story, doesn't it? the disk drive was the size
of a large washing machine & held around 100 MB) & apparently managed to run
power through the computer itself ... possibly the disk controller board, I
don't recall. But there was this charred streak stretching across the
material of the board ... quite impressive.
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ryan1
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response 13 of 40:
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Sep 27 02:25 UTC 1996 |
Well, here's an update:
I got the computer back just today, and the cpu fan problem is fixed, however
they really "Fixed" my system. (And not in a good way)
They either replaced my hard drive with a new one, or they formatted it, in
either case, when i got it back today the only thing it had was windows 95 on
it. This really pissed me off
I am missing a TON of data and configuration files that i absolutely NEED
I called the company and they said that they don't have a copy of what was on
the computer. and they were just totally unhelpful. I walked with the manger
of the people at tech-support and then i talked to his manager, up a few
levels, and i got nowhere.... I am just ttally pissed off. Advice to the
computer buyer out there:
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, BUY ANYTHING I MEAN *ANYTHING* FROM A COMPANY CALLED
"ABS"
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scg
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response 14 of 40:
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Sep 27 05:24 UTC 1996 |
You had a backup, I hope?
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n8nxf
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response 15 of 40:
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Sep 27 11:09 UTC 1996 |
Have you tried the unformat command?
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ryan1
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response 16 of 40:
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Sep 27 19:35 UTC 1996 |
The unformat command did nothing. I suspect they either did a low-level format
or they completely replaced my hard drive with another one. In either case, I
lost everything.
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ryan1
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response 17 of 40:
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Sep 27 19:37 UTC 1996 |
Oh, an done more thing. I did not have a backup, and here's why:
before i sent it to them, i asked if i could (asked the company) install a zip
drive temporarily too backup my stuff, and htey said that i couldn't install a
zip drive because it would void the warranty. Either way, i'm screwed,
unless i wanted to buy a few thousand floppies, i would lose everything.
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ajax
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response 18 of 40:
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Sep 27 21:07 UTC 1996 |
Tough break. Lousy company. For future reference, you can get
parallel-port Zip drives, which don't require opening up a computer
to install.
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arthurp
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response 19 of 40:
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Sep 29 07:30 UTC 1996 |
Maybe your HD got jarred to death in shipping? Where I work we would have
recevered all possible data to our network and restored it to the new drive,
and we also would have called the customer and been upfront with them. Sorry
to hear about your troubles. OTOH, I did monthly full backups to about 250
floppies for years until I got a tape drive...
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n8nxf
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response 20 of 40:
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Sep 30 13:42 UTC 1996 |
(250 floppies? Wow!)
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arthurp
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response 21 of 40:
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Oct 2 02:06 UTC 1996 |
You mean Yuck!, don't you? ;)
But I've never lost data.
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n8nxf
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response 22 of 40:
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Oct 2 14:17 UTC 1996 |
I just back up data. Never applications.
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rcurl
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response 23 of 40:
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Oct 2 15:49 UTC 1996 |
I back up my whole HD - then the whole thing can be restored in the event
of a crash, or a change of HDs (the latter being the only way I have used
backups). The very thought of reinstalling all the applications, INITS, etc,
leads me to back up the whole shebang.
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arthurp
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response 24 of 40:
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Oct 3 03:28 UTC 1996 |
My sentiments, Rane.
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