Bobby thinks he’s spotted a widespread problem with the HP laptop he bought a year and a half ago. His computer runs too hot and burns itself from the inside out, roasting its innards.

He’s connected with others who have faced the same issue and brought the issue up to HP brass via an Executive Email Carpet Bomb to no avail. He writes:

So a year and a half ago I bought an HP TX1000 laptop. At the time it seemed like a good unit, if a bit more expensive ($1,000-1,200). A little over a year into owning it, as its warranty expired, i watched a few episodes of Lost and went to sleep. The next morning was the beginning of a slow death. The root of the problem is a graphics card that runs so hot it self destructs the motherboard. The GPU core runs about 170 degrees, pretty typical for it in light use and about 50 degrees too hot.

Luckily i have found a whole community online, all stuck with either a failed motherboard just out of warranty, or a motherboard failing for a second time after a replacement under warranty. The failure is multi-stepped with the wireless card connection failing, then audio, then the death spiral of failed connections to the graphics card (mine is currently in and out of audio, with a UBS wireless stick- so around step 2).

The catch is none of us can get HP to do anything. They know it is a problem, it is all over their own message boards (and never with an official fix- that would admit it is a problem), and they won’t do anything about it. it is the heart of what they sold me failing, in a years time, and a $400 fix- almost 1/2 its original cost. What do we do when 500 of us in yahoo, google, and facebook groups and online petitions can’t get them to budge? Our biggest problem is it wasn’t a big seller, so there aren’t enough of us for them to really care.

What do we do when nothing seems to work?

Bobby isn’t alone in his problem. This forum is filled with similar complaints.

The point of an EECB is to bring a problem to the attention of the bigwigs, not necessarily to bend them to your will. Even though he hasn’t gotten his computer repaired, at least he’s taken the process as far as possible and learned about how the company operates, and he can keep that information in mind when he makes his next computer purchase.

HP can’t go extending its warranties forever, but it would probably be prudent to take care of widespread hardware issues before they bubble over. Any suggestions for Bobby and his friends?

(Photo: digi_dt)

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