1/5

posted Mar-03-2010

Worse. Tech support. Ever. Sent in my 9880 to get an inoperative keyboard repair out of warranty. They replaced the keyboard and returned it but when I received it only the keys in the middle of the new keyboard worked, the keys on the left and right were inoperative. They asked me to send it back at *my* expensive to get repaired again. I Demanded that they pay for shipping since they screwed up the repair or, alternately, a refund of repairs and shipping -- $249 for a keyboard, labor, and shipping both ways. Still no response so I filed a BBB complaint.

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1/5

posted Jan-27-2009

Sumary: PCMicroworks' slick website and friendly initial salesmanship does not make up poor after-sales support nor its unwillingness or inability to meet its warranty obligations.

Detailed description:
Current problems below, short history first.

Ordered an XR5 Dec 9 2007, didn't receive until 6 weeks later, on Jan 23 2008.
Unit was ordered with 2 video cards but shipped with only one. Didn't receive second video card until June 11th, 2008, 6 months after initial order. All inquires about the delays had to be initiated by me, I was never sent any, "Your order has been delayed (again) due to xxx" emails from PCMicroworks. Basically, I'd email and ask the status, they promise it next week, 2 weeks would pass without news, I'd have to email and ask again, same response, rinse and repeat for 6 months.
Installed video card drivers didn't work. Took one month and multilple shipping back and forth to fix.
Multiple bios errors on intial system. Took 2 months to resolve bios issues, some bios issues remain unresoved.

Current problem:

One of the 3 hard drives failed. Contacted PCMicroworks in early December 2008 requesting a new had drive and shipping instructions for returning the faulty one. Two months later, 27 Jan 2009, I still have not received a response.

I have sent multiple emails and left multiple messages on their support "hot" line answering service, which they do not answer.

They did not send disks of the OEM version of Microsoft Office Small Business. After I reloaded the OS after replacing the failed hard drive (at my expense since I have not received a response to my request for a replacement hard drive, which is covered under the "Diamond" 3 year warranty) I needed to reinstall Office. Since there was no disk from PCMicroworks, I downloaded it from Microsoft.com. When I tried to activate it with the product key PCMicroworks provided the key was invalid. I contacted Microsoft and they said the OEM has to fix and support OEM versions. I sent PCMicroworks multiple emails and left multiple messages on their support hotline about this problem without response.

Purchased a 3 year "Diamond" warranty with original order to cover these issues.

Finally, in early December 2008 I ordered and paid for 3 upgrades; a new Intel CPU and 2 new nVidia 9800m GTX video cards, with the discount provided under their "Diamond" warranty. I did not receive them. I emailed PCMicroworks multiple times (notice a trend here?) and left multiple messages on their support and sales answering machines without response. After 6 weeks I finally had to contact my credit card company and dispute the charge. I received a refund from my credit card company but still no response from PCMicroworks. If I receive no response from them about the Office software problem I'll be disputing the Office software and "Diamond" warranty portions of the original order as well.

I'd reccomend shopping elsewhere for your power laptop needs. PCMicroworks doesn't make their own laptops, they simply rebrand Clevo, a Taiwanese notebook OEM manufacturer. The same rebranded Clevo's are available from other Clevo rebranders such as Sager, Hypersonic, Powernotebooks, et. al.

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