Slashdot Mirror
HP Dishonors Warranty If You Load Linux
darkonc points us to a writeup on linux.com about a very Linux-unfriendly policy at HP. A woman bought a Compaq laptop and loaded Ubuntu on it. Some time later, still well inside the 1-year hardware warranty, the keyboard started acting up. An HP support rep told her, "Sorry, we do not honor our hardware warranty when you run Linux." Gateway and Dell refused to comment to the reporter on what they would do in a similar situation. (Linux.com and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.)
dell is ALSO guilty:
r um=1004&thread=22581483
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?fo
no WONDER why they had 'no comment'.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
As somebody who worked at various helpdesks for a few years as a phone monkey, this is SOP with any company. You can't run through the troubleshooting scripts unless the software on the PC is exactly or very close to the initial load. Helpdesk people are not trained to solve problems, just go through the appropriate steps. So, if you want your warranty honored, suck it up and install Windows. You would have known this if you had read the fine print when you bought the damn thing. If you want a Linux notebook, then buy a Linux notebook. Talk about a sense of entitlement...
I don't respond to AC's.
FTFA
" "When she called Compaq -- the unit comes with a one-year warranty on the hardware -- they asked what operating system she was running. When she told them Linux, they said, "Sorry, we do not honor our hardware warranty when you run Linux." In order to get warranty service, she was told, she would have to remove Linux and reinstall the original OS."
HP didn't refuse warranty coverage, they told he she needed to remove Linux and reinstall the original OS to get warranty service.
That is completely reasonable. The script readers doing the trouble shooting at HP wouldn't be able to trouble shoot a system that didn't have the OS on it that HP originally installed.
Back in the old days, some monitors would fail to sync to some refresh rates, and the display would collapse to a dot in the centre of the screen, which would burn a hole in the phosphor (or worse).
I don't think monitors like that have been sold for the last 20 years or so, but the warning has never been removed from the manual.
This has nothing to do with Linux. I once owned a Toshiba that came with Win98 installed. I had installed Win2000 on the computer as a dual boot with the win98. Later I was having some hardware issues that fell under warranty. On the phone, the technician told me that I had to have the original Win98 on the computer. I explained that I had it but I dual boot into win2000. That wasn't good enough. It had to have the original configuration only. I hung up and called back and lied about only having win98 installed.
From their point of view, they need to have the software in a known state so that they can troubleshoot the hardware. They don't want to go to the expense of sending out a technician (I had an on-site warranty) if the problem turned out to not be hardware related and they needed to know that the technician will be familiar with the OS so they can do their troubleshooting as well.
I know it's fun to jump on the "everyone is against Linux" bandwagon but this just isn't the case in this situation.
www.joshferguson.org
Having done full time tech support as my primary job through my undergrad and as part time during grad school, I can tell you this is true in call center tech support. I've worked for shops having the onsite service contract for an area with HP, but this basically is just go install replacement parts for customers to afraid to open the case. I have worked phone support for Gateway, Dell, and MS.
From my experience I would say that a Gateway tech would probably tell you the same line since the are under a strict time deadline at most of thier centers unless its changed a lot since I worked for them. Dell's environment for the techs isn't nearly as bad, so you would probably not get it nearly as often there, and to MS's credit they had no time limits; all they cared about was getting the customer's issue fixed even if you were on one call all day. MS also mandated much better training for the techs than Gateway and Dell did, although Dell was a better than Gateway on this by a little bit.
Technically the policies for any of the com panies I did phone support for would not support this BS. All the tech has to do to bypass any driver issues, OS issues, or other nonsense would be to test the keyboard in the BIOS, or boot from the Windows CD that came with the system and get to a command prompt that was to test it. Worst case should be that they require the customer to reinstall windows and then test it, and replace the keyboard as needed at that point.
Again I only worked onsite for HP, and it has been years since I did tech support for a living, but this is at least speaking from someone who has a lot of experience in the area.
I would think that under the Magnusson-Moss Warranty act that her machine is still warranted by law.
The act says that you can't tie people to only certain products. It's why having your car's brakes fixed at a small shop doesn't void the vehicle's warranty. If you look at Linux as just a part then she should have recourse.
I'd take them to small claims.
It seems to be covered here
"Tie-In Sales" Provisions Generally, tie-in sales provisions are not allowed. Such a provision would require a purchaser of the warranted product to buy an item or service from a particular company to use with the warranted product in order to be eligible to receive a remedy under the warranty. The following are examples of prohibited tie-in sales provisions.
Seems to me that saying use Windows or no warranty is a violation.
Standard disclaimer = IANAL
I had to send my HP laptop in for warranty repair once. They told me the hard drive would be formatted, which I refused. After a few minutes of me basically telling them, "look, the AC socket is physically broken and it has nothing to do with software", they agreed that I could send in the computer without the hard drive.
I suggest that anyone having hardware issues with a computer running Linux do the same: explain to the tech support people that the issue has nothing to do with software, and that you've diagnosed the specific hardware failure. Make sure they let you send in the computer for repair without the hard drive included, so you won't have them hassling you about what OS you run.
My bicyles
I sent my notebook in to HP earlier this year because the keyboard was acting up. I reported that the behavior was the same in Windows and Linux. They replaced the keyboard and a couple of other things with no problem. . .
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton