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I have just been through the worst ordeal getting my PC fixed.
The saga starts several months ago, where one day the machine just locks up. Solid. Attempts to reboot result in the box getting through a randomly varying part of the Vista pretty logo screen and either locking up, dumping to black and staying there, or rebooting itself.
I'm a pretty savvy computer geek, so I:
At this point, I'm out of spare parts to futz with. I restore it to the factory power supply and I take to Best Buy. They then take ages, with multiple excuses as to why it's taking so long: "The video doesn't work" (it worked for me just fine), "It won't finish our diagnostic tests", "we are running memory tests", etc. I leave to go out of town on business, and then get the verdict: "It's a windows problem." How do they come to this conclusion: "It successfully runs our diagnostics tests." Never mind that half the excuses for it not being done was the box NOT successfully completing the tests. Never mind that I'm loading it from the factory image that worked when the system shipped. Never mind that I've successfully rebuilt the system using the factory image before. Nope, it's a software issue. They tell me to order CDs from Acer and rebuild that way. I do, and it does the same thing. Too bad I'm out of town, which makes arguing with the morons not possible.
I take it to another shop (this is my credit card insurance paying for all this), and I relay the sorry history. I helpfully suggest trying a different motherboard, as it seems to freeze around the time I would expect onboard peripherals to come on-line. (The Southbridge, and any accessory chips, for the technically inclined.) They proceed to do the EXACT SAME THING over the span of a week "video doesn't work", "it won't complete the diag tests", etc. It's like they are reading from the same script. They eventually (a week later) announce it is the CPU, they order another one, install it, and proclaim it fixed.
I go to pick it up, they proudly put it on the bench, and what happens? The exact same problem I brought it in for! (Freezing during Vista boot) Their response: "Oh, I didn't know you wanted us to load the OS." If the OS won't start, it's a doorstop! In this case, "loading" the OS consists of successfully completing a single boot! (They don't have to load a single CD or answer a single question) I then question what troubleshooting process they used to determine the CPU fixed something, given that the worksheet shows the CPU passed tests before they replaced it. The response: well, it didn't boot before, and it boots now. My response: "No, it doesn't boot now, it clears POST, but it did that before."
I leave with promises by them to get my box working.
They assign it to the same tech, who STILL proceeds to give me some mumbling about memory tests. I remind him that they've already tried swapping the memory out with spare modules, and it didn't help. (And software memory tests never work anyway... I've seen modules pass software memory tests where a hardware tester couldn't even figure out what size they were...)
They finally... swap the motherboard. And it works. With the old CPU even.
I pick the thing up last night, they plug it up, and it does indeed boot. Too bad the old motherboard had a 3-pin fan socket, and the new one is 4-pin. It means my fan isn't speed controlled and sounds like a jet engine. However, I decide to cut my losses and get out of there.
At least the damn thing works again... and my credit card warranty extension is covering it all. The shop does an "even swap" for the CPU they were going to charge me for, so it all works out the same for the original work order, which I now file for reimbursement.
SirWired
The saga starts several months ago, where one day the machine just locks up. Solid. Attempts to reboot result in the box getting through a randomly varying part of the Vista pretty logo screen and either locking up, dumping to black and staying there, or rebooting itself.
I'm a pretty savvy computer geek, so I:
- Boot into safe mode: works
- Logged boot: useless... Windows won't tell you what it is trying to load, just what it has successfully loaded
- I backup to my server, and reload from the factory recovery image: No good. It never successfully boots Vista.
- I pull my video card and use onboard video. No good.
- I shuffle the memory around to see if I have a bad module. No good.
- I replace the power supply, with the theory that the crappy OEM one died under the onslaught of my wimply ATI 4650. No good.
At this point, I'm out of spare parts to futz with. I restore it to the factory power supply and I take to Best Buy. They then take ages, with multiple excuses as to why it's taking so long: "The video doesn't work" (it worked for me just fine), "It won't finish our diagnostic tests", "we are running memory tests", etc. I leave to go out of town on business, and then get the verdict: "It's a windows problem." How do they come to this conclusion: "It successfully runs our diagnostics tests." Never mind that half the excuses for it not being done was the box NOT successfully completing the tests. Never mind that I'm loading it from the factory image that worked when the system shipped. Never mind that I've successfully rebuilt the system using the factory image before. Nope, it's a software issue. They tell me to order CDs from Acer and rebuild that way. I do, and it does the same thing. Too bad I'm out of town, which makes arguing with the morons not possible.
I take it to another shop (this is my credit card insurance paying for all this), and I relay the sorry history. I helpfully suggest trying a different motherboard, as it seems to freeze around the time I would expect onboard peripherals to come on-line. (The Southbridge, and any accessory chips, for the technically inclined.) They proceed to do the EXACT SAME THING over the span of a week "video doesn't work", "it won't complete the diag tests", etc. It's like they are reading from the same script. They eventually (a week later) announce it is the CPU, they order another one, install it, and proclaim it fixed.
I go to pick it up, they proudly put it on the bench, and what happens? The exact same problem I brought it in for! (Freezing during Vista boot) Their response: "Oh, I didn't know you wanted us to load the OS." If the OS won't start, it's a doorstop! In this case, "loading" the OS consists of successfully completing a single boot! (They don't have to load a single CD or answer a single question) I then question what troubleshooting process they used to determine the CPU fixed something, given that the worksheet shows the CPU passed tests before they replaced it. The response: well, it didn't boot before, and it boots now. My response: "No, it doesn't boot now, it clears POST, but it did that before."
I leave with promises by them to get my box working.
They assign it to the same tech, who STILL proceeds to give me some mumbling about memory tests. I remind him that they've already tried swapping the memory out with spare modules, and it didn't help. (And software memory tests never work anyway... I've seen modules pass software memory tests where a hardware tester couldn't even figure out what size they were...)
They finally... swap the motherboard. And it works. With the old CPU even.
I pick the thing up last night, they plug it up, and it does indeed boot. Too bad the old motherboard had a 3-pin fan socket, and the new one is 4-pin. It means my fan isn't speed controlled and sounds like a jet engine. However, I decide to cut my losses and get out of there.
At least the damn thing works again... and my credit card warranty extension is covering it all. The shop does an "even swap" for the CPU they were going to charge me for, so it all works out the same for the original work order, which I now file for reimbursement.
SirWired