HP censured over faulty laptops

 

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By Reuters and Barry Collins

Posted on 19 Mar 2010 at 10:42

China's quality control watchdog claims HP sold faulty laptops and ignored consumer protection regulations.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement that after consumer complaints, it had found several models were affected by defective video cards and displays.

The faulty video cards caused overheating, crashes and blank screens on some HP Pavilion DV2000 and Compaq Presario v3000 laptops. Six models including the HP 541 also had problems with their screens, the findings added. The statement did not say how many computers were affected overall.

It's not clear whether the problems are related to the faulty Nvidia GPUs that affected several laptop manufacturers in 2008, including HP and Dell, which had similar problems with overheating.

HP said on Friday it was aware of the watchdog's report. "HP acknowledges the findings of the AQSIQ. We are working on a detailed action plan to ensure all points are addressed and will publicly outline this plan soon," it said, adding its customer care program would look into its customers' needs.

The Chinese watchdog's report said that in its handling of the complaints, HP also ignored rules to protect customers with "three guarantees" of a refund, replacement or repair.

Some 170 people have filed complaints over faulty HP laptops, with their lawyer saying the problems dated back as far as 2007. The group that filed the initial complaint wanted the Government to investigate and order HP to recall all faulty laptops in China, but the watchdog's report fell short of that.