Hardware Fault: Obtaining an Independent Report

[talksr]

Slightly different from the usual hardware related issue here....

 

 

We are trying to send a computer back as not fit for purpose.

Both the support we purchased for the system and the system its self have not done what was expected of them.

The bank we purchased the system through are asking for an independent report from an engineer who works on computers. We submitted our own but of course, as we purchased the unit, our report could be biased. Has anyone ever obtained one of these reports and if so, could you recommend anyone?

 

If you want the backstory, here is a summary...

 

 

We purchased one HP Z series system direct from HP towards the end of lockdown for WFH use - maybe you can remember, hardware was really hard to get hold of due to everyone working from home. We got a Z as it had an i9, lots of RAM and storage for running VMWare.

Within the first six months, one of the HDDs had failed causing the RAID to show a fault. We contacted HP support (we had purchased the 5 year extended support package), who were not very helpful at all.

Normally, I deal with HP for our ML line servers, and the support is excellent but for this Z series, despite it being a 'premium' product, the support was anything but. Eventually, they sent out a replacement HDD.

 

There was very little info on their support site for replacing an HDD on a software based RAID. Again, the support was poor, the support staff had no clue.

The above resulted in the system being out of action for almost a month.

 

In February this year, the system kept attempting to boot and stating that the OS was preparing automatic repair.

This would fail and any of the recovery options we tried, also failed.

We completely wiped the system, rebuilt the OS using the official HP Z Series Recovery ISO, it worked for around 24 hours, same thing.

We replaced the hard disks and once again rebuilt, same issue again.

Using CMD in recovery and DISM, I removed individually drivers installed to the system and rebooted to see if this helped. I identified that when I removed the NVidia drivers, it rebooted and booted up.

I went to Dev Man and disabled the NVidia card. This solved the issue, but meant the card would not do multiple screens.

This Z Series has no built in GPU, so it came with an NVidia card. There are zero on board slots for graphics so you cannot use on-board graphics.

We had to repeatedly chase HP to get a resolution on the matter, it took in excess of a month, no updates, then excuses that HP were having technical issues. Eventually a new graphics card was sent, it was installed, graphics card re-enabled and updated in Dev man, worked for around 24 hours, same problem yet again with Windows going into preparing automatic repair.

 

Again chased HP to say, it must be the motherboard at this stage as we have tried EVERYTHING and had zero support from HP. We even checked capacitors to ensure none were bulging or loose, couldn't see anything visually. Zero responses from HP yet again, at this point we are 1.5months down the line with a non-working system.

We had paid using a credit card, so sent one last email to HP stating if we don't get a response within 7 days, we will be doing a section 75 chargeback on the credit card. Still no response so initiated a sec 75 charge back. The bank have been equally as useless as HP. We have supplied around 60 pages of evidence of the problem, how many emails and calls were made to chase HP and we never got a resolution.

The bank are now asking for an independent report to show that the system is not as described and has the faults we allege.

[sigma]

Have you asked your local Trading Standards if they know who could provide such a service?

[snagrat]

How much was the system in the first place?

 

I know it’s not the point or right but sometime just cut your losses and move on.

 

Creating a 60 page document must have taken a while, how much time that took you won’t get back or reimbursed for.

[Davit2005]

Personally I'd be inclined to carry on. See if you can get any grounds for re-compensate for time spent on this. Jus thinking this time it is a school with a team that has knowledge of such things next time it might be a charity or an individual that might not so much or wasting money on something is not been delivered. But yes it is using up time that could be spent on other things.

 

It would be nice to say to HP that you might not look so favorable on their servers, laptops and desktops in the future but that might jus be me.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Davit2005

[talksr]

I might give Trading Standards a ring, thanks for the suggestion.

 

Thanks for the posts everyone and yes @Davit2005 you are exactly right... this is public money and could have been a charity or other organisation who wouldn't have such experienced staff.

The total cost was around £2000 with the vat hence my not giving up on this. I am sure if we had continued with HP, it would have been sorted but after in excess of a month without the system and HP not responding to emails or calls and their 'support' site being down for that entire period, we had no choice but to get something else as it was really affecting the workload.

This has cost us massively both in time and money and I will be looking to get it all recovered through the credit card company - I have made this very clear to them and also made it clear how furious I am at how we have been given the run around both by HP and now the credit card company.

 

Needless to say, I have shifted to using Dell across all of my sites as a result of this really, really poor experience. Dell offer much more flexible and personalisable warranty options depending on the end user. As and when our remaining HP systems become obsolte, they will not be replaced with HP, it will be Dell or Lenovo from now on.

Other than for server infrastructure, I won't be using HP moving forwards.