HP Pavilion dv2000/dv6000/dv9000 and Compaq Presario v3000/v6000 Series Notebook PCs
Hello, I recently came across a mixture of six DVxxxx series laptops that utilized an AMD Turion X2 processor and a Broadcom wireless card/chipset.
ALL six laptops exuded symptoms of:
· Laptop turns on with lights turning on as well but no display on the LCD.
· Laptop turns on with lights turning on as well but no display on the LCD and no display with an external monitor hooked up to it.
· Laptop turns on momentarily with the lights flashing briefly for roughly two seconds and then the lights and the entire laptop shuts off.
Prior to these things occurring you may encounter the following:
· Wireless no longer works.
· Wireless device is no longer listed in device manager.
· Wireless device works but sometimes drops out and then disappears completely.
If you are experiencing ANY of these symptoms, I highly recommend contacting HP right away. There is a manufacturer’s defect with what seems to be attributed to the wireless Broadcom card and the motherboard’s chipset. I haven’t confirmed this but this is what seems to be the consensus.
The good news is, even if you’re warranty with HP has expired, you will be covered as they have extended the warranty for an additional 24 months while they repair and replace these defective computers.
What amazes me is not many people know about this. I didn’t even know about this. Prior to finding out about the recall I kept seeing more and more of the same exact laptop come through the shop only to suffer from the same exact symptoms (symptoms are listed above).
I felt sick at the fact that HP seemed to have made these laptops just roughly one year and a few months and then it dies. It seemed to me like they put in a pre-made time bomb so that people would be forced to have to buy a new HP laptop after their warranty ran out.
I’m happy that HP is making good on their error and are extending the warranty for an additional 24 months.
Here is the contact information you need:
To contact HP in North America call 1-866-671-7362 from 6:00 am to 11:00 pm MST, 7 days a week.
Here is a link to a very large thread in the HP support forum. Please be aware that this thread can take a few minutes to actually load on your computer, even if you have an updated/super fast/mighty computer.
Thank you for this timely info. The wireless on my daughter’s 1.5-year-old dv6105 just died and a quick googling led to this site. I called the number and yes I will get the free repair from HP. My daughter was surprised that this was a widespread problem but took a comfort that it would be repaired without costing money.
I have expeienced the same problem, and called the number posted and recieved prompt service and free repairs.
I have had nothing but problems with my dv9210us from the beginning. I am a contractor and purchased this machine for work purposes only to suffer crazy randon error messages such as “Host Process has stopped working”, etc… (this is one out of about 10 different error messages I would receive). The machine was blue screening 3 - 4 times a day on average making it unsusable. I ended up getting another machine and decided to use the HP “lemmon” at home for personal use. Big mistake. Honestly should have just thrown the thing in the dumpster. When I found out about the above posted issues, I contacted HP support as instucted (my laptop fell within the affected make, model serial & number range of machines). I have since sent it into HP on two separate occasions and had a new HDD sent out to me for self installation as well all to no avail. The machine is just unusable. The wireless performance is just pathetic (unusable). Will be working just fine and then, poof, it’s gone, it’s back, it’s gone. Currently it still gives random error messages and reboots randomly from time to time with no apparent trigger mechanism. I am a computer engineer myself and I honestly don’t know what the heck the root cause is. HP is great at tossing HW at the problem. So far they have put a new mother board and a new HDD in the machine (and I think more parts that I don’t know of). They have also re-imaged the HDD to factory defaults twice. They just seem to not be able to fix the issue. I heard a rumor that the processors may be defective but not sure how much truth there is to it. All’s I know for sure is that there is a serious design flaw with the dv9000 series of laptops (and dv2000 and dv6000 from what I have read online). This design flaw appears to be a HS design flaw (i.e.: no evidence to suggest that it is Vista causing the problems). Anyways, last week I called HP support for about the 5th time and asked to speak to a manager or supervisor and was told that someone would call me back the next day at one of the two numbers I provided. No one called me back. I called them again the following week after the memorial day long weekend and finally got through to a “case manager” and gave him a summary of the entire drawn out history. I told him that I wanted either a full refund ,and I would send the machine back to them, or a different make and model of machine. I told them that I did not have confidence in their ability to fix the machine if I would to send it back to them for a third time. The guy on the phone was polite, but I still got nowhere with him. He told me that neither of my wants were options and that my only option was to send it back to them for a third time. He seemed to be clueless (or putting on a good act) as to the huge problem HP has with the multitude of makes and models that are exhibiting these failures. My opinion (coming from a strong background in electrical/computer engineering and high volume manufacturing) is that HP MUST, I repeat, MUST have root caused the failure by now as it has been ongoing for over a year and they must have received thousands if not tens of thousands of customer compaints. I also believe that, as is typical in big companies, they have not propogated the information to the support team (maybe intentional if they are trying to cover this up, maybe not). Either way, there seems to be no good end user experience possible here. They last guy I talked to on the phone finally got rid of me when I told him that I had a meeting to get to and he promised to replace the motherboard, the processor, and the wireless card in the machine for me and I WILL send it back to HP for a third time (4th repair attempt if you include the self HDD installation I performed). To be honest, HP has lost a customer for life with this situation. I simply don’t see how I could ever, I repeat, EVER purchase another HP product of any kind. Hope this gives some perspective to any individuals considering purchasing an HP notebook. I admit that it is possible that I have been unlucky or that I just recieved a lemon, but come on, after this many attempts to fix it unsuccessfully, there should have been an alternative solution presented to the end user.
Jamie….I sympathize with ya. My dv2610 has been at HP being fixed for the past month, since May 2nd actually, and before that, they had it two weeks in April, and then sent it back after reimaging the HDD, still was screwed, so they tried telling me it was the RAM, and sent me 1 512MB card (while the computer has 2 mind you), well did that, and guess what??? nothing….so now they have it again, and the estimated delivery this time is June 11th. yes, they will have had for 6 weeks!! this is a bit ridiculous as far as I am concerned, I am glad it was still under warranty, this is my 6th HP/Compaq (of which 2 have been refurbished) and have never had any problems, but I will think long and hard before buying another one at this point.
Ryan….I would love to have a look at that link to the HP forum concerning this issue, do you have the addy?
thanks
I just found out about this - after I sent the laptop in under a retailer’s extended warranty to Cyber Test. My original problem was that my dv9005 just cracked open. I opened it, heard a series of pops, and the seam along the monitor split open. Today, after sending it off to be fixed, I found out it had been sent off to HP because of the above recall. I have no idea when I’ll get it back, but thanks for all the info. While what I’ve read here concerns me, at least I feel like I have a few answers.
These symptoms have occurred on a friend’s Pavillion TX1000, e.g. the wireless LED staying red and Vista no longer seeing the wireless card. Contacted HP who refused to address under extended warranty. She recommended that we wait several weeks to see if the TX series is included under the extended warranty. I made very clear that if this is the msg she wants to give to the owner, then I guarantee that her next laptop will not be HP. And it won’t. It’ll be a Mac.
Same trouble with a dv9000 series, for the second time. The replacement parts seem no better than the original garbage. It is such a shame the laptop is nice on the outside but with such spotty performance from the hardware, well not much of a bargin. Not to mention the horrible telephone connections to the country where the tech support is farmend out. Overall a terribly disappointing product with even more disappointing service.
Oh, not to mention the CEO’s representative is condecending. Accusing me of breaking the machine to get it fixed? Does this make sense to anyone?
Michael Means
My hp dv600s wireless card went out a month ago and now there’s nothing on the screen yet my laptops still on. When I send it in will I still have all my documents and pictures on it? Is there a way to keep them? I really don’t want to lose them
I am very disappointed in the product as well. I have a dv6255ea (model for Europe). Intel 5500 and 2 harddrives.
LCD Display stopped functioning. Monitor port gave bad picture on external monitor.
BIOS update to F.2C seemed to solve the problem but one day later, the display stopped again. There is some faint light at the lcd display, so i am convinced there is a problem in the VGA chip on the motherboard. (inverter is ok)
Only sometimes the product will boot in Safe Mode Vista on the external monitor.
I’m now fed up with it. A shame for HP. I have the product for 18 months, so no warranty. The machine has cost € 1600,- (about 2000 $).
Well I just spent a wasted day with HP Tech Support trying to restore wireless functionality that stopped funtioning on an 8 week old Pavilion dv6436nr Notebook PC. I was assured that this is a very unusual problem and we’d need to walk through a series of diagnostic steps including installing a new BIOS and restoring the factory settings.
During the 3rd Chat Session of the day, I made mention that this problem appears to be quite common according to many Notebook Forum blogs. Then I get a magical notice from HP indicating their extended warranty and acknowledging problems with wireless and overheating with 6000 series notebooks…
Same issue as Mike Heffernan. TX 1000 Wireless light staying on Red. Wireless device has disappeared out of Device Manager. Windows Vista and BIOS cannot see the hardware. Nothing seems to want to recover it.
HP better cover this….
HOPELESS pieces of dung. NEVER BUY HP LAPTOPS AGAIN! My machine was a dv9000 bought it back in oct 06 with an AMD processor and nvidia card.
Let me give you the run down, first your wireless card dies… you read the forums… decide to not go through the hassle… buys a wireless card for it… works for a while…then your display gets distorted… then your the possessed ic boards starts to continuously reboot itself.
Then you go the hp support spends 3 hours explaining what is going….. they give you a box to send it in… you send it in 2-3 weeks later you get the machine back.
BUT WAIT! It came back in EXACT SAME CONDITION! How in the world does a company let a “repaired product” out their door without testing it first? Then you spend another 2 hours talking to the hp representative and after another 2-3 weeks you get the computer back.
You spend 2 days installing everything you need again and in the mist of running a resource intensive program it keeps quitting saying “memory allocation error.” What good is a laptop that can’t run programs and runs so hot that you feel like your hands are lying on top of a stove and your pants might melt with the laptop well… sitting on top of your lap!
If you currently have a dv6000 or dv9000 and has not had any problems yet I recommend you backing up your data every week, a quick search on the internet reveals the widespread lemon problem. HP machines may look better than a dell or a lot of other competitors, but what they give you inside is cow dung. They never checked if the system and its components are compatible with each other, they never test to see if everything works together. Never again HP will you take my hard earned money never again.