Tripple 7's I think that the power cord has gotten so hot that it might have caused it to fuse to the ground. I will send a better picture.
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Tripple 7's I think that the power cord has gotten so hot that it might have caused it to fuse to the ground. I will send a better picture.
Perhaps this is really the issue at hand.Quote:
Originally posted by Thomas Mackey
Tripple 7's I think that the power cord has gotten so hot that it might have caused it to fuse to the ground. I will send a better picture.
Is the power supply the original ont that came with the laptop?
If no, then does it at least meet the required power specs as the original?
If it IS, then maybe there was a manufacturer's defect in the plug which has caused some sort of arcing between the power lead and the ground which caused it to get so hot and subsequently 'fuse' the lead.
By looking at the picture of the plug with the pin stuck in it, there does seem to be some deformity in the terminal end which could have been caused by excessive heat.
Just a thought...
Randy
This is all the orginal equipment that came with the laptop.
With that being the case, I would take a closer look at the plug then. If it was faulty manufacturing that caused it to heat up and fuse the lead to it, that would certainly address the problem as to who's fault this is. Might be worth sending it to the manufacturer with THAT added to the complaint.
What is your take on that idea, Jay?
Randy
I have taken the time to read this entire post, and as I have looked at the pictures, and information, it appears that there is indeed a manufacturers defect with this machine.
First, the plug looks like it was exposed to a high amount of heat resulting in the softening of the housing. This in turn caused the plug to pull loose as the adapter was unplugged.
Another question coming to mind is why there was so much heat generated from this machine, and what role the plug had in the obviously tight fit in the connection also.
These are two areas that should have been apparent to the technicians looking at the pictures.
Another fact is that the equipment was less than 1 year old, and in this time frame, even the smallest Resellers would rather err in the side of the customer to try to keep them happy. Any one customer could know one thousand, and is it really worth that chance?
I think most important thing is that if the technicians, and the customer both looked at the fact that they need to go to whatever lengths needed to insure that they treat each other as they would want to be treated, then there would not have been any verbal abuse, etc, or lack of appreciation on either side.
Both sides need to look at it more from a perspective of respect, and dignity to eachother, and not the monetary impacts.
Then maybe this could become a resolvable matter.
Until that happens there will be bad feelings on both sides.
Well, that's my soapbox, and I'm sticking to it...:)
Guys, I know from experience whats going on here.
I worked for a certain, pc giant, for a couple of years beofre going down the helpdesk route. Back in my tech days, I was well versed in what was and wasn't covered.
The problem Thomas is having is a pretty well known one - its quite simply product design. We knew this well back in our tech days and repeatedly denied "known issues" that were in fact design faults. Not only that, we insisted that the users "troubleshoot" these problems so as to hide the fact that these were known issues. I later worked for a company who were previously a big customer of mine at the pc giant and was horrified to hear what the true failure rate was.
Back when I started, somebody told me the best piece of advice I had in the industry. He said, you can fight the corners, or compromise and have the quiet life. In this case, the technician should have replaced the parts as a one off customer service gestrure, because, as we all know, one very unhappy customer can do lots and lots of damage.
Sure, the powers that be will say they are spending money they shouldn't, but it may create extra sales and keep customers happy, so its an investment in the future of the manufacturer.
As an electronics technician, I agree that it seems likely that a fault in the plug contacts may have caused that problem, and could be a warrantable repair. It should be examined by the manufacturer or their authorised repairer.
Whilst I agree the situation could have been handled better, I also sympathise with PcInfinityTech, having been between the owner of a product who sought a particular outcome, and a manufacturer declining responsibility.
If I were a cynic, I might also say "you expect good service backup from PCChips?"
(ECS is a PCChips company... but members of the general public have no reason to know this, or to attach any significance to it if they did.)
I received a call from Jay week ago monday asking to call him. I finally got of hold of jay thursday and he asked to send the note book in ane he will send it to ECS, he finally got someone in higher management. I sent it today Monday 4/21/03 ill keep everyone posted.
As I read through this, it reminded me of my days working at a department store.
The area I worked in sold bikes, lawn mowers, chain saws, other hardware and toys - it was a bit of a mish mash section.
Anyway being the lowly worker that I was, whenever a customer phoned with a problem I would simply tell them to bring the product in so that the section manager could 'take a look' - some people didn't even phone they just showed up.
5 times out of 10 my manager would just give them a refund, or new product for toys and bikes, the other 5 and for the more expensive lawn mowers and chainsaws we would send them back to the company for repair or replacement - we didn't ring them first, we'd just send the thing with the relevant paperwork an details of the fact that we had one very unhappy customer waiting for a product they'd paid good money for.
Most of the time the big company would send a replacement product and if didn't my manager would usually give one from stock and write the faulty one off.
At the end of the day it was always about keeping the customer happy at all costs.
This was about 20 years ago and it would appear things have changed quite a bit since then.
Thomas, take heart in the fact that you've got someone to argue with.
My brother bought a desktop PC last year from a company that got good recommendations in the Sydney Morning Hearald, a well respected newspaper here in Sydney Australia.
He has some intermittent problems with his CD-RW and he rang the store and they guy said to 'keep an eye on it' and bring it in if it got worse.
About two weeks ago it stopped reading discs, he rang the store and it said the number was disconnected.
He went down there and the store was empty and a sign on the door said it had relocated to it's other store in another suburb.
He drove to the other store and it to was empty with no details. People in other stores nearby said the PC store had been closed for months.
So now he has no recourse even though his system is less than 12 months old.
Anyway that's enough non specific information for me, hope it all works out.
Thomas,
I recently read your complaints about your ECS system on the board. I to purchased a ECS desknote 928 in September of 02 and had problems. Because of the problems that I have had with mine I can tell you why your pins pulled but I can not tell you what the root cause of the problem is. Oh by the way the feet stayed on mine at least 4 months before one broke. No doubt a material and design flaw combination.
When I looked at the picture of the pulled pin I noticed that the female end of your connector had been exposed to a high heat. The temperature had to exceed the melting point of the plastic to cause that type of deformation. The heat that caused the deformation of the female member effected the male member as well. If you study the design of the male member plug you will notice that you pin has a ridge around the end of it. This ridge is put there so that the pin will not pull out. To make sure that the pin does not push in as well the pins are injection molded into the surface mounted male housing. This way the pin can resist the constant wear of pulling and pushing on day to day use. When the connection area became hot enough it caused the male member plug to become soft. When you pulled the plug the area was to soft to retain the pin and thus it pulled.
My system had the same problem of overheating. I do not know what the cause of the overheating was, but I can tell you that I noticed the heat before it caused me to loose a pin. To avoid loosing a pin I would power down and wait about an hour before pulling the plug. This allowed the sofened area to reharden and retain the pin. I did this for about a week and then my system started to act erratic. I finaly reached a point to where the computer would not stay on for more than a few seconds and then shut off. I am sure that this is what would have happened to your system as well.
I sent my system in for repair and www.acompinc.com ( ECS ) did fix the problem under warranty. The problem is with ECS not the tech that did the work. As he said they shipped it to ECS for repair, it is their warranty. But hold on while the hole gets deeper. When ECS did the warranty work on my system they replaced the main body with a new one and as far as I can tell salvaged my monitor and combined the two. Great, wrong while they were replacing the main body they must have had the computer upside down with the monitor on a rough surface. When I received the computer back it was easy to see that they had completly destroyed the cosmetic appearance of the monitor. Heavy gouges on the surface and all four corners of the monitor were heavily dinged to the point that the plastic is cracked. Yes they did fix or delayed the problem but the unprofessional handleing of my machine has left me to look at my mistakes everytime I use the computer. No one is responsible and I have written them off as Dead Beats. They will find that resolving the issue would have been easier.
Sorry for the long and repetitive views but it just had to be said.
Pics at:
http://www.cyou.com/~MCage/1.jpg
http://www.cyou.com/~MCage/2.jpg
Fascinating reading...
Interesting to see how many new users there are, though, posting to this thread.... :confused:
I, too, once worked in customer service. You try to make the customer happy as long as they have a legitimate complaint. If the customer is just plain wrong, well, I'm sorry, but that's the customer's fault.
Like a lady who wanted a refund because her slices of cheese from the deli were sticking together and she couldn't make a sandwich. :rolleyes:
True story!
For good or ill, because of what I've read in this post, I would never purchase a computer from this company or vender.
Even if what Thomas said was exaggerated (I have no reason to believe it was), I just wouldn't take the chance. It's simply human nature to be cautious, and especially when there's so many other computer companies from which to choose - the joys of competition (at least for non-Microsoft companies).
I think the moral of the story here is that customer service is paramount. If that means taking a loss to keep a customer satisfied, then so be it. The long term losses from a dissatisfied customer who makes noise (thank you Thomas), is far more damaging. I really think many in the computer industry don't believe this or fail to take it seriously.
Many others have read this post (758 last count) without responding, and I'm sure a sizable proportion feel as I do - better safe than sorry. They will tell their friends (don't buy from XYZ), who in turn will tell their friends, and so on; these things often can snowball.
In short, I think this post has been extremely useful, and I would like to see more like it. If nothing else, perhaps more companies will take customer service seriously as a result of negative, public feedback. Laptop purchasers of the world unite!:D
Thanks again Thomas!
Well there are 2 sides to every story,
I sympathise with thomas and the Raw deal he has had, I also sympathise with Jay the customer service guy.
But it seems very obvious that the responsibility to resolve this issue lies with the manufacturer.
Anyway with regard to the previous poster JKB. I agree that this type of situation should be brought to the attention of anyone considering buying a laptop, desktop etc... in order for the companies involved to really see what the other side have to say. The other side being the people who keep them in business.
I used to work for ntl, a cable telecomms company in the main, but who had started branching into the Internet service Provider market. When I started with them they were just starting to really take off in a big way. Anyway due to some bad service on an individual level one customer set up his own website humourously based on ntl's ntlworld service. He called it ntHELLworld.
After a year or so many despondant customers signed up and participated in this site's forums. It also attracted some despondant employees, who were the piggies in the middle (just like Jay).
What eventually happened was that this guy ended up being employed by ntl to target the issues raised in the forums, they also bought or at least funded the running of ntHELLworld.
So perhaps there is a lesson to be learned there.
There again the pessimistic side of me says it was bought out in order to shut them up!!!
BTW 6 months after buying out ntl had to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection!!! tee-hee
Tech
I said I would reply back to the post once I got my notebook back from ECS and PCInfinity.
So far the notebook is running fine. I will keep you posted if they indeed fixed the overheathing problem. I have lost almost three months of warranty. Received notebook on 6/18/03 and have been using it quite a bit.
They replaced the power cord which was deformed by the heat, however they didnot replace the battery power cord which was also deformed due to the heat.
Bought a new battery cord for $5.00, but shipping was $15.00, so a total of $20.00
One of the four USB ports is not working.
ECS has to improve on their customer support, it really sucks. Had written a reply last night, but I got interrupted and lost what I was writing. By the viewing of this post I can see people are taking a look at ECS. Over 800 views and 30 replies.
They don't even list a phone number so you can call them if you have a problem.
I give ECS 4 thumbs down. Still won't buy any ECS products, buyer beware.
I would like to thank everyone who responded and gave there support. If it wasn't for you I would not have gotten my notebook repaired.
Now for Jay, Jay was tough convincing him that I had a problem. Jay swallowed his pride and finallly wen't to bat for me and got the job done. The customer is always right attitude will go a long way. I will continue to buy form PCInfinity for the simple reason I know jay is going to go the extra mile to get things done. I feel I have at least a working relationship with him and I beleave Jay is an honest person.
I give Jay and PCInfinity 3.5 thumbs up.
Thank you Jay for your efforts.
Tom
Just an update,
The feet on my lap top broken off once again this happened about tweeks after I got the note book back. The plastic gets hot then brittle and then they crack and thus break off.
Computer is running ok so far, keeping an eye on the over heating and the power converter.
Jay, you never said what they found out what was causing the plugs to melt.
Tom