quick legal question

[johnnyBv8]

I have a laptop (Dell D430) which occasionally shut itself down for no obvious reason, so I'd lose whatever I was working on - not often, but it's been like this for 8 months or so. I took it to a laptop repair place locally, and they phoned this afternoon to say that it now "doesn't work at all" and saying that they can get the stuff off my hard-drive but basically the laptop is goosed. I'm going to take it somewhere else, as this doesn't stack up to me, but I just wondered what their responsibility is....they've basically broken it!

[spikeyhead]

It's possible that the previous intermittent fault is now much more frequent. Just transporting it there could have shaken a dodgy joint loose.

It's also possible that they have broken it.

I suspect that determining what has happenned would cost more than a replacement laptop.

[Jasandjules]

This will be a very difficult one because you would need to be able to show that the laptop worked when they first got it (unless they admit that it started up but now doesn't).

What are they offering you? Are they unable to fix it?

[V8mate]

Why did you take it to a 'laptop repair place' rather than invoke your warranty with the original retailer? You've probably invalidated the warranty now by opening the machine during the warranty period.

[gingerpaul]

Sounds like overheating and it shutting itself down to avoid damage, probably due to fluff collecting on a heat sink. If you get it back in a semi working state try blowing some compressed air about in there and see what comes out.

[h0b0]

gingerpaul said:

Sounds like overheating and it shutting itself down to avoid damage, probably due to fluff collecting on a heat sink. If you get it back in a semi working state try blowing some compressed air about in there and see what comes out.

This was your original problem but if it is not sorted the HD gets too hot to touch. I'm afraid it's probably coincidence that it happened in the shop. Having said that I have had one HD recover after a few days being left out of the PC so try that.

[gingerpaul]

You might find that if it has overheated in the repair place then it probably won't restart straight away. It would be worth asking them to try it again tomorrow morning to see if it now works after being allowed to cool. To be honest I'd take it somewhere else anyway. If that does turn out to be the fault and didn't spot it then they shouldn't be working on your computer.

[eldar]

The famous 'I should have thought about backups yesterday thread'.

Take the HDD out, stick it in another PC and recover your data.

[davido140]

Any Dell should have a little sticker with a "service tag" number, hop onto the dell support site, there is a warranty checker doohicky there, bung in the service tag and it'l tell you what warranty (if any) is remaining on it.

You might be lucky and can send it back to dell, dont expect any data on the HDD when you get it back though, you might want the local bods to back stuff up before sending it off.