I bought two laptops from Best Buy about 3 years ago and purchased the extended warranty with them. Recently I have been having problems with one of them and have taken it to Geek Squad to check out.
Before I go any further, let me give you a quick background about my technical knowledge. I am the guy that family, friends and everyone at work calls when they have computer problems. They don't call the IT department or tech support, they call me because I have the answers faster and usually apply the proper fix the first time around (jeeper can vouch for me). Because I am "the computer guy", I don't have anybody to go to myself. By no means am I proclaiming myself a computer expert, but my only other options are going to the internet for help. I know there are plenty of people out there that can help and/or offer advice. I have built my own computers, installed OS's including about 6 or 7 different flavors of Linux. I have taken two years of Electronics Engineering at a local college and am self taught in a lot of other areas relating to computers/technology. I have setup networks, built websites, coded programs, and more.
With that said, on with the story...
The laptop will freeze up for no reason, without warning and becomes completely unresponsive to everything. Sometimes it takes 10 - 15 minutes to freeze, other times it only takes 30 seconds after its booted to freeze. It does it in Windows AND Linux.
Prior to taking it to Best Buy, I exhausted all possibilities including scanning for viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, and registry problems. Because I have two of the exact same laptop, I tried to eliminate some other possibilities and believe I have traced the problem to the motherboard. I swapped the hard drive, memory, monitor, wifi card, modem card, and CPU from my second laptop to the first laptop and it still froze up (I replaced each of these items separately). The fan & heat sink on the CPU is dust free and operational. The reason I think it's the motherboard is because it's the only item I haven't swapped out yet. Here's my dilemma though, I can't tell Best Buy that or it will void my warranty.
So I drop the laptop off to Best Buy to show them the problem. While they are running their stupid scanner from the USB drive, it freezes up on them. I thought it was great for them to see it while I was there. The "Agent" didn't believe me that the computer became completely unresponsive, they try CTL + ALT + DEL with no response, the ESC key didn't do anything, absolutely nothing worked, except for pressing the power button to shut it off. So they tell me I am going to have to leave it for them to run a more in-depth look into the computer. Sure I say, and leave. Without telling them what I had done, I hinted that I thought it was a hardware problem and they said checking the hardware was included in their tests. They told me to call back a day later and they will let me know whats going on. So I call back a day later and they haven't looked at it yet, they told me to give them another day. So I call back the next day and they told me yes, they have looked at it and found nothing wrong with it. So I asked them what they had done and he proceeded to tell me about all the tests they run and how grueling it is for a computer to go through all these tests. I asked if they did any hardware testing and he said yes so I asked him what exactly they tested and what equipment they used. So he starts telling me, making is sound like he spent all day and night testing this thing, that he checked all the capacitors and ran tests on all of the chips. I could tell he was trying to feed me crap so I told him about my EE schooling and then asked him how he tested the capacitors and he admitted it was a spot check for popped capacitors and that he had used nothing more than some software to check the hardware. He ended the conversation saying there was nothing wrong with my laptop and that I needed to come pick it up.
When I went to pick it up, I asked him how he can say there is nothing wrong with it when one of their "Agents" witnessed the problem. He said he didn't know, but all of their tests ran fine and showed no problems. He said he can send it in for further testing but it will require $100 dollars since they couldn't find any problems. I asked him what he wanted me to do once I got home, booted it, and had it freeze again. He told me to call the 1-800 best buy number and report the problem to them.
So I got home, booted the laptop and within 1 minute it froze again. I called the 1-800 best buy number and they were shocked that the "Agent" told me to call them. They instructed me to take it back to the store.
This is where I am right now. I haven't taken it back yet, I don't think I should have to pay $100 for them to diagnose and fix my computer. That's what I bought the extended warranty for.
For the past couple weeks, I have been playing around with it in safe mode and it will not freeze up at all. Why is this? Remember, it freezes in linux, the only common things between the two systems is the hardware. The only thing that hasn't been changed is the motherboard. What items that relate to the mother board don't boot in safe mode? It does have audio and video integrated. I am stumped and have no faith in the idiots at Geek Squad. I am stuck and don't know what to do next, I want to eliminate all possibilities before I take it back to them.
Before I go any further, let me give you a quick background about my technical knowledge. I am the guy that family, friends and everyone at work calls when they have computer problems. They don't call the IT department or tech support, they call me because I have the answers faster and usually apply the proper fix the first time around (jeeper can vouch for me). Because I am "the computer guy", I don't have anybody to go to myself. By no means am I proclaiming myself a computer expert, but my only other options are going to the internet for help. I know there are plenty of people out there that can help and/or offer advice. I have built my own computers, installed OS's including about 6 or 7 different flavors of Linux. I have taken two years of Electronics Engineering at a local college and am self taught in a lot of other areas relating to computers/technology. I have setup networks, built websites, coded programs, and more.
With that said, on with the story...
The laptop will freeze up for no reason, without warning and becomes completely unresponsive to everything. Sometimes it takes 10 - 15 minutes to freeze, other times it only takes 30 seconds after its booted to freeze. It does it in Windows AND Linux.
Prior to taking it to Best Buy, I exhausted all possibilities including scanning for viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, and registry problems. Because I have two of the exact same laptop, I tried to eliminate some other possibilities and believe I have traced the problem to the motherboard. I swapped the hard drive, memory, monitor, wifi card, modem card, and CPU from my second laptop to the first laptop and it still froze up (I replaced each of these items separately). The fan & heat sink on the CPU is dust free and operational. The reason I think it's the motherboard is because it's the only item I haven't swapped out yet. Here's my dilemma though, I can't tell Best Buy that or it will void my warranty.
So I drop the laptop off to Best Buy to show them the problem. While they are running their stupid scanner from the USB drive, it freezes up on them. I thought it was great for them to see it while I was there. The "Agent" didn't believe me that the computer became completely unresponsive, they try CTL + ALT + DEL with no response, the ESC key didn't do anything, absolutely nothing worked, except for pressing the power button to shut it off. So they tell me I am going to have to leave it for them to run a more in-depth look into the computer. Sure I say, and leave. Without telling them what I had done, I hinted that I thought it was a hardware problem and they said checking the hardware was included in their tests. They told me to call back a day later and they will let me know whats going on. So I call back a day later and they haven't looked at it yet, they told me to give them another day. So I call back the next day and they told me yes, they have looked at it and found nothing wrong with it. So I asked them what they had done and he proceeded to tell me about all the tests they run and how grueling it is for a computer to go through all these tests. I asked if they did any hardware testing and he said yes so I asked him what exactly they tested and what equipment they used. So he starts telling me, making is sound like he spent all day and night testing this thing, that he checked all the capacitors and ran tests on all of the chips. I could tell he was trying to feed me crap so I told him about my EE schooling and then asked him how he tested the capacitors and he admitted it was a spot check for popped capacitors and that he had used nothing more than some software to check the hardware. He ended the conversation saying there was nothing wrong with my laptop and that I needed to come pick it up.
When I went to pick it up, I asked him how he can say there is nothing wrong with it when one of their "Agents" witnessed the problem. He said he didn't know, but all of their tests ran fine and showed no problems. He said he can send it in for further testing but it will require $100 dollars since they couldn't find any problems. I asked him what he wanted me to do once I got home, booted it, and had it freeze again. He told me to call the 1-800 best buy number and report the problem to them.
So I got home, booted the laptop and within 1 minute it froze again. I called the 1-800 best buy number and they were shocked that the "Agent" told me to call them. They instructed me to take it back to the store.
This is where I am right now. I haven't taken it back yet, I don't think I should have to pay $100 for them to diagnose and fix my computer. That's what I bought the extended warranty for.
For the past couple weeks, I have been playing around with it in safe mode and it will not freeze up at all. Why is this? Remember, it freezes in linux, the only common things between the two systems is the hardware. The only thing that hasn't been changed is the motherboard. What items that relate to the mother board don't boot in safe mode? It does have audio and video integrated. I am stumped and have no faith in the idiots at Geek Squad. I am stuck and don't know what to do next, I want to eliminate all possibilities before I take it back to them.
