Computer Warranty Blues
February 13th 2007 09:28
So I’m having this really big problem with a computer of mine, it’s a Medion MD8386, purchased from an Aldi grocery store (long story). Of course by big problem I mean to say the damn thing won’t turn on for more than ten minutes, why? The power supply unit is clearly very much busted.
How would that be? It goes back, all the way to the manufacturing of the fan that is supposed to keep the damn thing from over heating. It started making an extremely loud noise, like it was constantly impacting with something else while spinning. Thankfully it came with a two-year warranty. After calling the customer service people to organize a repair the technician stated that odds were it was to do with dust, that we were free to open the case and dust it.
After I confirmed opening the case for this would not void the warranty and would be classified as maintenance I went out and bought some canned air (i.e. something that does not damage electric circuitry). I opened the case and basically went nuts, yes there was a lot of dust in there. After reassembling the whole thing I booted it up, sure thing wasn’t making a noise.
Now it gets interesting, the computer kept on overheating after that. Continuously overheating to phenomenally high temperatures. I concluded the fan had stopped working altogether. Looking at the case from behind where there was an air vent for the power supply fan to blow hot air out of I noticed it wasn’t spinning.
I don’t know what led me to believe it was dust again, I opened the case and this time also removed the power supply unit from its place so I could blow the compressed air at it directly and make sure all the dust was gone, I wasn’t about to call a technician to come in and clear out the case for over a hundred dollars on what was supposedly routine maintenance.
It turned out one of the blades on the fan had been broken off, not just broken off, completely torn off, were talking hard plastic here, it had broken off and had jammed the fan up. So I ripped it out of behind the PSU with a pair of tweezers, looking at it carefully it seems like there was something wrong when the fan was manufactured. The motor had died, probably from about a month of not being jammed.
Back to customer services, the technician told me that he’d order in the replacement part and come in to replace it, and I just had to wait for his call.
Heres where I get stupid, technician doesn’t call (or I miss the call), and I just wait. So for about a month the computers power supply fan is not operating and the thing is reaching boiling point temperatures. One day it just died on me, actually that would be about just over two weeks ago.
Now I have to call customer service and get them to replace it. No such luck, they claimed that the power supply unit was not under warranty, certainly for the damage that was incurred since it could not have been caused by poor manufacturing but some sort of external force (basically they were accusing us of sticking something into the fan while it was spinning).
I wish I had a photograph of the fan blade that had broken off, the cut off is so precise right up at the edge where it connects at the rotor, there are no marks on the blade indicating it had come into direct contact with anything while rotating either. The entire computer case is free form any marks of external battering. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but that fan was like that on arrival.
This isn’t another one of those sad stories though, thanks to Medion’s technical support they were nice enough to organize a replacement, good for them really because I was about to call consumer affairs (there’s more to the story but this is all that needs to be said). I’m still not quite sure if it is, the person on the other end of the line said it ‘should’ be covered by the warranty. Well that’s good enough for me, provided they make good on the ‘should’ aspect of it.
I understand they have a right to question the authenticity of damages, clearly this is an extraordinary case where the fan was faulty on arrival in an extremely spectacular way. Not a case of a faulty motor or excessive dust, the damn thing had broken cleanly off like some guy came up and snapped it with his bare hands before installing it on the power supply unit.
How would that be? It goes back, all the way to the manufacturing of the fan that is supposed to keep the damn thing from over heating. It started making an extremely loud noise, like it was constantly impacting with something else while spinning. Thankfully it came with a two-year warranty. After calling the customer service people to organize a repair the technician stated that odds were it was to do with dust, that we were free to open the case and dust it.
Customer Services
After I confirmed opening the case for this would not void the warranty and would be classified as maintenance I went out and bought some canned air (i.e. something that does not damage electric circuitry). I opened the case and basically went nuts, yes there was a lot of dust in there. After reassembling the whole thing I booted it up, sure thing wasn’t making a noise.
Now it gets interesting, the computer kept on overheating after that. Continuously overheating to phenomenally high temperatures. I concluded the fan had stopped working altogether. Looking at the case from behind where there was an air vent for the power supply fan to blow hot air out of I noticed it wasn’t spinning.
I don’t know what led me to believe it was dust again, I opened the case and this time also removed the power supply unit from its place so I could blow the compressed air at it directly and make sure all the dust was gone, I wasn’t about to call a technician to come in and clear out the case for over a hundred dollars on what was supposedly routine maintenance.
It turned out one of the blades on the fan had been broken off, not just broken off, completely torn off, were talking hard plastic here, it had broken off and had jammed the fan up. So I ripped it out of behind the PSU with a pair of tweezers, looking at it carefully it seems like there was something wrong when the fan was manufactured. The motor had died, probably from about a month of not being jammed.
Back to customer services, the technician told me that he’d order in the replacement part and come in to replace it, and I just had to wait for his call.
Heres where I get stupid, technician doesn’t call (or I miss the call), and I just wait. So for about a month the computers power supply fan is not operating and the thing is reaching boiling point temperatures. One day it just died on me, actually that would be about just over two weeks ago.
Now I have to call customer service and get them to replace it. No such luck, they claimed that the power supply unit was not under warranty, certainly for the damage that was incurred since it could not have been caused by poor manufacturing but some sort of external force (basically they were accusing us of sticking something into the fan while it was spinning).
I wish I had a photograph of the fan blade that had broken off, the cut off is so precise right up at the edge where it connects at the rotor, there are no marks on the blade indicating it had come into direct contact with anything while rotating either. The entire computer case is free form any marks of external battering. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but that fan was like that on arrival.
This isn’t another one of those sad stories though, thanks to Medion’s technical support they were nice enough to organize a replacement, good for them really because I was about to call consumer affairs (there’s more to the story but this is all that needs to be said). I’m still not quite sure if it is, the person on the other end of the line said it ‘should’ be covered by the warranty. Well that’s good enough for me, provided they make good on the ‘should’ aspect of it.
I understand they have a right to question the authenticity of damages, clearly this is an extraordinary case where the fan was faulty on arrival in an extremely spectacular way. Not a case of a faulty motor or excessive dust, the damn thing had broken cleanly off like some guy came up and snapped it with his bare hands before installing it on the power supply unit.
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