HP 7260US LCD not working (HP says) because memory was upgraded.

HP customer service has to be one of the shittiest. Their techs are encouraged to find reasons to not cover warranty work like finding imaginary spills on the motherboard. I have tried to deal with them before and their overly aggressive stance at saving every nickel at the expense of the customer will lead me to never purchase or recommend an HP or compaq product.

That said HP does encourage memory upgrade to the lower slot under the notebook. This upgrade (not the one under the keyboard) does not void the warranty.

Never the less if it was your upgraded memory chip that was causing the problem (i.e. they removed it and the machine worked) then technically they are correct as they will not cover non-HP equipment.

You should ask for the diagnosis, then if it is not the memory chip and you had put it in the underside slot then go to their website and get the manual for memory chip upgrade to show that opening the machine this way does not void the warranty.

If you do not fall into the "not covered" categories I listed then I would fight them and if you are in California you can take them to small claims court.

Also I had a similar problem with a Compaq N400c and they were holding my notebook hostage until I paid for nonwarranty work on an imagined spill on a dead keyboard, I gave in and used my credit card then disputed the charges and had it reversed when I received the notebook saying it was a warranty cost dispute and said they did not even return my old keyboard to investigate the imaginied spill, thats what won my credit card company over to my side, plust it was the first time I had used this dispute feature so I was not an abuser, and I saved myself $300 in the process.

To hell with HP and Compaq.

Another saga in the world of HP users

If you do anything to your note book sadly enough it gives them the right to void the warranty.. If your laptop is working on external monitor its not due to RAM upgrade its related to Backlight and inverter or the video card more likely.. (depending on the model)..Shine a light on the screen and see if the video is working in the background.. If it isnt these are known for video card failure due to warping and overheating.. (If this is the twin to Compaq X1000 and 15.4 widescreen). Weve repaired a ton of these and the video cards are 235.00 shipped from HP.. I built a cage for the card to help cool and eliminate warping thus stopping the re-occurance in the future. Sorry you bought one this will be well noted on the fail list in the near future.. Buzz us if you need help and try not to buy HP down the road..
www.ikenfixit.com

Try searching on this consumer run web site for alternative HP support phone numbers for the ZD7000 -- http://www.zd7000forums.com/

Sounds like you're getting some pretty lame support and the suggestions on the other forum should point you in the right direction to getting this resolved.

Check this out.

These are the conusmer help guides for the ZT3000 for items that by action alone does not void the warranty.

HP CS is notoriously incompetent and poorly trained which means they make things up as they go then believe them as fact for every customer service call after that.

Now technically by this CS reasoning just changing the battery by someone not certified by HP voids the warranty.

We all know how silly that is.

Things that by action alone do not void the warranty of the ZT3000.

-Changing Battery
-Changing Hard Drive
-Changing Blue Tooth Module
-Changing Wifi Card
-Changing memory in the underside of the notebook.

That said if any of these changes were with non HP white lable parts and they were the source or contributed to the problem then the warranty is voided. I can see by this line of thought that if they took out you non-HP white label memory stick as part of the Diagnosis then that voids the warranty but what in hell would make a technician think to pull out the memory stick on a notebook that works on external display but the LCD display does not and it has its own dedicated video card with on board memory.

Wait a minute........I know........when HP hires the cheapest person they can find and give him a screwdriver and say.....hey you are the new computer technician guru. They are taught to inspect computers for non HP white label parts and of course imaginary spills. I would be testing alot of other things first before thinking it was a memory stick problem. It might be, just never heard of one causing the symptoms you describe so at the very least its not that common.

The lesson learned here has been learned by countless others. Remove all upgrades and restore as close to OEM before return. HP is notorious for downgrading as well like replacing 60GB 5400 drives with 4200rpm drives. Replacing 512MB memory sticks with 256MB sticks, and replacing 64MB video cards with 32MB cards. They also swipe non HP white label parts like Hitachi 60GB 7200 Hard Drives and replace with the original configuration 40GB 42000 hard drives when the real work was replacement of the video card. They also as a matter of routine reimage hard drives to original configuration unless you put stickies and notes all over the notebook not to do that. I hope you did good backups of you data and saved all the CD's and Product Key activation numbers for all the software you installed. They are also notorious for marring the notebook as the technicians seem to like to bang it around and not use soft surfaces like towels and carpet, I think there work tables are made with sandpaper.

Check out Trixits HP Milpitas CS horror story at this link
Trixits Horror Story

HP seems to have two CS divisions. One for the big guy that pays for all the bells and whistles and has a big business account that gets good customer service and the notebooks are even sent to a different service station, and then the shoestring budget CS for the lowly person that buys one notebook without paying anything extra for CS and gets the run around due to the poorly trained CS agents that are only taught to be polite and ask the same questions over and over that come up on their teleprompter but never seem to get recorded into the system because the next CS agent you get punted to does the same thing, asking the exact same questions over again.

As stated above the most likely culprits.
-Bad back light, you can use an intense flashlight and shine it on the screen. If you see even just the faintest image then its a bad backlite. This can be bad with an HP since its near impossible to find just the back lite. I have only seen the entire LCD panel for sell for newer model HP's so I am not certain if you can change just this part now a days.
-Bad LCD inverter-this is a very small and long skinny circuit board located on the lower back of HP LCD's and is a replaceable part, and can be found on ebay, and are interchangeable between same manufacture for that model (and many others but have to be careful) so they are easier to find and you are not just stuck with HP. It is hard for the consumer to diagnose this one, probably easiest to do a parts swap.
-Loose video card to LCD panel cable. Quite common actually in HP notebooks as it gets loosened up with all that banging around and sometimes the cable is under tension, due to be exact size, from cover opening and closing. This is an easy fix, just take the top cover/bezel off by the LCD and find the cable and reseate it. Much less often (actually I have never heard of it happening but don't want to say it never happens) is the cable became loose on the other end. Same fix but you have to remove the top cover on the back of the LCD.
-Could be bad Video card. Less likely since external display works but don't rule it out. This is another one thats hard for the consumer to diagnose.
-This line uses a different video card than the one on the X1000/ZT3000/NX7000 series and I have not heard of it as having the notorious video card problem as that series of notebooks but who knows? Until its properly diagnosed and inspected I would not rule it out, just less likely than whats mentioned above.

If you are under warranty then fight this one. Try the other HP CS sites as suggested. Ask to talk to supervisors and tech support. Ask for an escalation. Point out HP's own documentation on whats acceptable and also point out that the same reasoning of changing the memory chip can be used in changing the battery.

Well here is the link I promised you way up there at the beginning of this post!
ZT 3000 consumer allowed changes
HP allowed memory change Help Support

GOOD LUCK!

You put the memory in the computer at the store? I would have figured that the original memory wouldn't need to be installed upon purchase...I've never heard of this, however, I do learn something new everyday. Did you contact CS and TS and let them know that this is the memory you installed the day of your purchase?
Honestly, it sounds to me as if it is video card failure. I know others have said this. I apologize for echoing what's already been spoken.