Beware: Phillips (extended Sager) support has been horrible for me

I love PcTorque and I love my sager laptop. The problem I have is with the Phillips extended support.

After a year and 3 months, my 8890 (1G RAM) started to spontaneously reboot itself and blue-screen.
I didn't panic too badly, opened it up, and removed each of my memory modules one at a time and attempted to use the machine.
The machine works fine with one of the memory modules gonzo. Now I'm down to 512M.

Ok, so I deal with Phillips tech support.
First I end up wasting a week because they don't know of me as a customer.
So I had to call PCTorque, get them talking, and get my service contract in place.
That could have been Phillips fault, PCTorque's fault, or Sager's fault, who knows.
(Least likely Sager's fault.) I didn't bother to ask about fault, because who knows what answer I would get and who cares.

Then I deal with Phillips for over a week. I deal with 2nd level support after finally getting the contract stuff squared away and they
work with me to indeed determine that that memory module was the culprit.
I ask if I can just send the memory back and not the entire machine.
Their 2nd level support says "yes", but they have to escallate and this will take time. I would receive a call back in 20 minutes.
They didn't call me for 2 days. Some snafu with their "system". I call them. I get more run-around.
I get a call back the next day where they say "we're shipping you a box".

I call back and say "you're not shipping me a box for the entire laptop, are you?" They say "yes, we don't allow you to just ship back the
memory".

Now is that weak or what? So I call back and really nicely talk about what I've been through just begging to please not make me ship back the entire laptop-- and now I'm in limbo expecting one last hurrah of a callback
within 2 days. Of course I'm sure that I won't get it. When I called back this last time there was also talk of voiding my warranty because I opened the machine. I told them that 2nd level support encouraged me to do so (which they did) then they backed off of that. I also said that it didn't say anywhere in my service contract that I would have to send back the entire machine... The people I deal with are pretty nice but this service and support sucks. Beware.
I'll update you with what happens. I cannot be without for my laptop for the however-long-it-takes-them-to-find-out-its-bad-memory-and-replace-it-and-ship-it-around-the-holidays amount of time. If I can't send back just the memory, I'm looking at either:

1) Buying a new laptop, backing this one up completely and sending it all in to get my memory replaced just so I have another backup machine anyway for emergencies and so that I can utilize this lame warranty
2) Just buying the memory myself and saying "screw the warranty" and cutting my losses

Either way, I have to seriously consider going with another laptop vendor next time or finding a higher end Sager clone dealer that doesn't use
Phillips support... I would hate to do either but have to really think about it now.

I hear what you're saying.. There should be some sort of system where every part of your laptop is ID'd upon purchase so that when something goes wrong with a part everyone can verify that it's indeed the part that went bad.

Maybe it's a stretch, but I think they can be pretty sure as someone who paid $4K+ for a laptop that a year and a half later I'm not trying to rip them off over a $150 memory module just because I happened to pay $300 extra for the extended warranty!

Well there it is, I learned today that they will not replace the memory unless I send the entire laptop in. (Even though we all agree that it's the memory since my once remaining stick works in either slot). This, by the way, was finally decided after I dealt with another service provider (Data Support Systems) and with Phillips 3rd party provider ServiceNet.

I am going to file suit in small claims court for the cost of my Sager Warranty purchased through PCTorque. (This is more about the principle than the money.) I have ServiceNet's address but need to call Phillips to get the proper contact information for them as I think I need to sue them. Nowhere does it say in my service contract with Phillips that I need to ship my entire laptop in or be without my laptop for weeks on end (especially if we have narrowed down the defective piece).

I'll keep you updated.