Short summary of the problem:
Bought a very costly HP laptop around Sep 08
Experienced heating problems from around Dec 08.
Dealt with their customer care to get it returned or replaced in Jan – but they simply would do nothing for it.
Heating problem as got worse. It turned off due to over heating with just windows and 2 windows of Firefox and a streaming video.
Trying to understand the options I have now. So people who have had similar experience with HP customer care, PLEASE tell what can I do now.


Reading the expanded version below will give a lot more insight to my problem.

Laptop config
Config of my Laptop


HP Pavilion DV4T-1000

Vista Home Premium (64-bit)
Core(TM)2 Duo T9400 (2.53 GHz)
14.1" WXGA High-Definition HP LED Widescreen
3GB DDR2 RAM
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 9200M GS
250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive with Hard Drive Protection from Fuji
Intel(R) WiFi Link 5100AGN
High Capacity 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery




Full story :-


I got a HP laptop around end of Sep 08 for $1500+ . For three months it ran decently without giving me much trouble (mainly because I was travelling a lot and didn’t use it much – on an average 2-4 hours a day). Around Dec end, I started to experience excessive heat problems. The laptop would become too hot to use it on laps. (After few days I saw some skin rashes) So around Jan mid. I called up HP customer care.
After lot of dropped calls and call forwarding, and my successive trials for almost 3 days, they finally told me that they will register a case so a manager would call me back and see what can be done. This was Friday evening, and the time of contact I was told was Monday 3-5 PM. Nothing happened for a week. Since I got very busy with college work, I didn’t care to call again after my horrible experience in the last week.

So after 10 days (or 20, not sure) I get an email from another manager in HP telling me that since I haven’t replied to them in xx days, they are closing my case, considering it “solved”. I immediately replied back. So she finally called me up. She said, that their manager tried to contact me for 5 times a day for more than 5 days. How the hell I missed 25+ calls from, I have no clue. Also, since my mobile phone grew Anti HP, for its excessive use to call HP help line, it didn’t show me a single missed call from an unknown number.

So, I decided to talk the matter with her. I told her that I was very unhappy with the quality and make of the laptop and am facing excessive heating problem so I want to returned or replaced. Cutting long story short, she said they cannot and will not. At the max, she can get it serviced for me. Angry, I decided against it because they would just clean my laptop’s fan and return it after 20-30 days.

Since then I faced heating problems every now and then. But today, it suddenly turned off while I was watching a streaming video in Firefox. When I started it again it refused to start. The base was hot as hell. It was positioned on a table with good open space around the vents. I was only running my windows and 2 windows of Firefox. I find no reason for it to get that hot. Absolutely no application which will use its processor or memory or hard disk drive to the max. Also it was on “balanced mode” on AC supply. This means its processor usage was set to 70%.

I placed it outside in the cold at night. After 20 mins of 60 degree F , it started again.

Now I am using it to ask you guys for advice. What should I do ? The problem is with the bad HP design and also the quality of material they used. I want to return it. It is not worth passing to someone else, knowing the problems I am facing already.

I have “1-year HP Accidental Damage Protection with HP Pick Up and Return which will end in this Sep. Did anyone has any good experience with that ? Also, I replaced their copy of vista home with vista business. It also has a Linux partition. Will it affect the warranty in any way ?
Is there no “consumer court” in US where I can file a case (without paying hefty lawyer fee) ?


Other problems which I faced with this piece and also reported to them in the former case:
Too much of fan noise.
Bad battery life for the customized config. I got.
Bad screen quality in day light or open space.
Bad body build quality.
And the experience was not as fast as I had expected.

I do clean up the vent every month to make sure nothing is blocking it.


Please let me know what can I do with it.
I cannot afford another laptop having invested heavily in this one
( and with my grad college expenses )


Thanks in advance !

I am not a lawyer, but write them and be consistent will get you some result.

Changing OS does not void a warranty.

Moving this thread to HP section, as we have many "complaints" that end up with good result inputs.


Good luck.

cheers ...

Thanks qhn.

I am going to do written communication, so I have more proof.

Great idea. Just be persistent. I have seen many cases that got resolved by HP, even after a long time - quite bad and frustrating for customers :-((

cheers ...