This is about hour six on the phone with tech support. I'm up to about 12 full recharge cycles, 18 reboots, four attempts to update my bios, three attempts to update my HP drivers, three remote repair sessions... So far they have all tried to use the same techniques, which somehow lead to me calling back at another time (and getting someone new, so the first guy is off the hook). Thats why for this step you only have to buy an HP product. Endless fun will surely ensue.
Otherwise this is a great laptop. The screen is clear and the colour is good. It has a decent graphics card, especially compared to the other computers available for the same price. Its pretty fast, if you ignore the obvious Microsoft brand bloatware.
And do you want to know the solution that everything comes down to? Well clearly if I reformat my notebook it will make everything right again. Lets just throw out the baby with the bath water and maybe the tub will be clean.
Anyway after tearing a strip off of the floor supervisor "Sumuin" and being assured that if I happen to call back to his floor that I can talk to him, I had to hang up and call back in two hours. I told him to expect my call in exactly 120 minutes and zero seconds. I'm POSITIVE he wont be there, but maybe I'll just call back and talk to a new agent. The advantage to these giant call centres is that theres always someone new to yell at. Its like on of those inflatable clowns that just keeps standing up again so you can punch him in his nose.
I should note for those who are following my steps, at this point you do not want to return to the punching bag injury step. Try kicking, or take a deep breath before unloading on that 75 pound black vinyl agent. I wonder if I can get a back injury from kicking too hard...
So finally call six got me as far as giving all my details before he put me on hold and I ended up at another agent. This agent got an earful and finally promised to send me the battery.
If you want confirmation that I'm not unique you should google "hp worst tech support." In EVERY case of HP problems the first step is to erase all the contents of your laptop and then run all the trouble shooters.
If you'd like to hear my 6th phone call word-for-word click here
