[TriLUG] hp laptop power problem

[David Burton]

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 11:05 PM, Derek Linz
<chapelhilllaptopshop at gmail.com>wrote:

> Given the model it is, it's equally likely that it's a faulty board caused
> by
> a Nvidia graphics chip. If there's a nvidia logo on the machine, there's
> nothing that can make repairing it a good idea. ...
>


What model is it?  "dv4" is a "series" of many different models from HP.

I don't have hard data to back up my impressions, but I am not convinced
that HP laptops are less reliable than others.  I'm not saying that the
squaretrade stats are necessarily wrong, but they aren't necessarily due to
differences in quality, either.  I see a lot of broken laptop computers, and
the problems that I see tend to be, in declining order of frequency:

   - Power jacks.  Some machines have power adapters with long, stiff ends
   on them that seem designed to apply leverage to delicate power jacks, but
   when a power jack goes bad I think it is 3/4 user fault.  The L-shaped ends
   on the power adapter cables from some mfgs probably help some, but the only
   mfg that really solves this is Apple, with their nifty magnetically-affixed
   compression connectors.  (The other manufacturers really should warn users
   about this vulnerability, though.)
   - Hard disk drive failures.  Since all the manufacturers use the same
   drives (i.e., whatever is cheapest), I don't see this as a distinguishing
   characteristic.  Also, some of these are due to user abuse (dropping the
   machine with the power on).  Give Lenovo credit for trying to address this
   with shock-absorbing drive caddies and accelerometer-actuated head-parking
   utilities, which probably helps, but the real solution is an SSD.
   - Trojan infections masquerading as hardware problems.
   - Temperature-related problems.  (E.g., my Toshiba Satellite began doing
   occasional random shutdowns; the problem ended after I thoroughly blew it
   out with canned air.)  These *are* design/quality issues, either due to
   inadequate cooling in the design, or poor-quality fans that fail.  However,
   my intuition says that these problems will be much less common with new
   model B940 and A4-3300M designs, simply because they use less power and
   produce less heat.  Any machine that claims 6 hours of runtime on a 6-cell
   battery is going to have a hard time overheating!
   - Other/unknown failures, such as internal power supply or CCFL backlight
   HVPS failures.  (Here's where desktops have an advantage over laptops: if
   the power supply or monitor fails, you swap it out & away you go.)  The
   LED-backlights (in all the new designs) should eliminate CCFL HVPS issues.
    Other power supply, motherboard, etc. issues may, indeed be correlated with
   manufacturer, but if so I've not noticed it.

Note that the first three bullets above are mostly unrelated to mfg quality.

The bottom line is that I would not hesitate to buy one of these HP laptops.
 Though HP & Dell got dinged in the squaretrade stats, it might just be that
they sell more machines for high school kids (who are rough on them.  What's
more, they are also the manufacturers who put their service manuals online,
which certainly helps guys like me.  Sony wants to force their customers to
use overpriced Sony service centers - ugh!

OTOH, that $350 ASUS is also attractive.  Add $30-35 to max out the RAM at
8GB, and you're still out the door for well under $400, which is downright
amazing.

Dave
www.GeeksAlive.com