Best Buy Ruined My Hard Drive Connector!

[Cyberdragon]

The laptop was originally sent in because I tried to reseat the Wifi chip (due to being dicky, yet eliminating driver issues) while mad at it and used excessive force on one of the antennas (which was stuck) and snapped it off. It was also getting oddly hot (the whole MB) and it might have needed the fans cleaned out or something.

But They said, "It won't boot, it's too expensive to fix!"Sure enough "no boot device"...yet no signs of physical damage...hmmm...

Then I wonder how much you spent nicking my HDD connector and replacing it with the wrong one so it won't connect anymore!   It screws in just fine but it won't plug in, the connector on the hard drive just sits above the board connector, as in the board connector sits to low down! No matter what I do it won't plug in! It's not broken though, it fits perfectly in the slot of the framework it's supposed to go in and has no signs of damage, but it looks like it's the wrong connector meant for laptops with different drive bays.

So here's what I think went down, the fucking bear handed dudes went to take out the drive to get out the MB to clean and being brutes, snapped the board connector. They were then like "oh shit, do we have one in stock jim?" "Uhh, this one might work, wack it in" By the time they reassembled the machine, the found out it was the wrong connector. But, instead of being good techs and putting in the right one, they just said "it's broken".

Granted, there was no warranty anyway because I was tinkering with it. But the point is, if they caused the damage, it's there responsibility to fix it, but only charge for the original damage. Not just give up and expect you to buy a new machine!

I'll try to get some good photos of it and maybe Rossman can feature this on a short video. Unfortunately I don't have more info as it was one of my relatives that sent it in, so I don't have first hand experience what went down.

[tsman]

Does Best Buy even do PCB repair and have the spare parts + equipment? My admittedly brief experience with them was that any fault like that just gets pushed to the laptop manufacturer's authorised service company.

What laptop is this anyway?

[Halcyon]

Granted, there was no warranty anyway because I was tinkering with it. But the point is, if they caused the damage, it's there responsibility to fix it, but only charge for the original damage. Not just give up and expect you to buy a new machine!

Warranty doesn't just automatically expire just because you've opened something. But warranty aside, if they've damaged it, they are liable to having it repaired or replaced.

I don't know what your consumer laws are like there, but here, they need to have the appropriate skill and experience to fix something (same applies to trades people too). If they make the problem worse or don't do what was required of them to an acceptable quality, they are liable for any remediation (regardless of who actually performs the repair).

[Cyberdragon]

It's an HP.

*GASP*

Kaniving fuckers stole the NIC connector too!

This was a diliberate act of sabotage! I sent it with the broken NIC already removed! There were no problems with any connectors! And even if they found some bad OEM joints, they should have either reflowed them or used the proper connectors!

I'm sending photos soon and DMing Rossman over this to do a video! They owe me a new MB! Unforntunatly it was a long time ago it was "serviced" so I'm probably SOL. But they need to get chewed out over this! This is Apple level fraud!

[maginnovision]

What the fuck is this? You sent it in and apparently verified some issue but have no first hand experience. You broke an antenna connector but you didn't know why it was hot. Then you sent it to best buy? I don't know what happened but it sounds like you screwed something up and sent it off to blame someone else. How is it you thought you had the skills to open it up and "tinker" but can't even check some fans. Two thumbs down for your whole story.

[Cyberdragon]

No board repair was neccessary, that's the real fucked up part! The repairs needed were as follows:

-new wifi antenna
-new wifi NIC
-fan and heatsink cleaning/replacemet

Nowehere in that is soldering required! And even if there was shipping damage, the screen would be long busted before the connectors. Especially the one that was not connected at the time!

[Cyberdragon]

What the fuck is this? You sent it in and apparently verified some issue but have no first hand experience. You broke an antenna connector but you didn't know why it was hot. Then you sent it to best buy? I don't know what happened but it sounds like you screwed something up and sent it off to blame someone else. How is it you thought you had the skills to open it up and "tinker" but can't even check some fans. Two thumbs down for your whole story.

You can't get the fans out they're stuck to the heatsink. The heatsink won't come off either, it appears to be glued on with thermal compound. Plus, it doesn't take an expert to see a fault where there was none (the hard drive not fitting), and a previously undamaged connector totally missing!

This isn't about being dumb and breaking something. This is about supposed professionalls going and making it worse.

EDIT: So blame HP for gluing the heatsink on so someone with "no experience" (two years of CISCO), can't even remove the damn fans. And I yanked the stuck connector because I was pissed off at it (anger clouds judgement).
 
EDIT2: The fans appear to be clean, but I don't know what RPM they're supposed to be as they seemed slow while it was boiling (dirt can get in the bearings on some fans, could also be electronic issues). It could also be something else overheating on the MB (no heat warnings, but the whole MB was finger burning hot).

[CNe7532294]

I never go to best buy nor do I buy HP consumer laptops. After throwing in $1300 to both of them only for it to lemon itself due to the graphics and hinge problems that was all the rage back in 2009. It was all poor design and poor service. In the end only got $400 from the civil suit against Nvidia. 

Best buy was just terrible service with very limited selections. HP's consumer division is even worse. Never really acknoledged how hot its laptops got to the point where the hinge parts would melt and often break. Nvidia's chipset didn't help either. Constant "run-arounds" on their forums and phone. The only thing they really acknowledged was a broken battery pack and thats it. Those in the UK had a much better time than those of us stateside given their consumer protection laws. Even then they had problems too.

Anyways I have never looked back and I am very happy. I either shop newegg for all my computer stuff or buy direct going to the business series of laptops of any company (IBM preferred). Knowing those were made to last. If I ever go back to HP, I'd go business. Their consumer line is a ripoff. Sad legacy to such a great brand name. That division is just in it to screw the consumers.

Long story short, stick to Keysight or even Agilent if you're interested in anything worth value in tech. HP as it is today is just a name now.

[Cyberdragon]

So it was a POS in the first place and I should scrap it for whatever useful parts it has?

You got it.

Or maybe I'll just nick the i5 out of it and send the rest to Rossmann for analysis (laughing at it), and as another piece to screw onto the door.