Computer Help

[GoMeanGreen1999]

5 weeks ago I bought a new Acer laptop from Office Max. Since buying the computer, it has been a complete disaster. I have had to completely reload software twice and tonight it is doing the same errors it did the last two times. I am past the date to get my money back from Office max, and so I am out of ideas on what to do - does anyone have any?

[greenminer]

Do you have a warranty? This sounds like a hardware/software defect that deserves an exchange...in the least.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

I believe ACER's warranty is one year from purchase, but I am not totally sure about that. I guess I would just have to send it back to them and tell them to either fix it or replace it?

[Guest JohnDenver]

Do you have a warranty? This sounds like a hardware/software defect that deserves an exchange...in the least.

I second that. If you didn't buy their stupid store warranty, you can always have the ACER replace it.

What error are you seeing BTW?

[stebo]

I struggled with an Acer for about 6 months before I sold it and got a Gateway. What I notced were lots of touchpad problems. Is that what you are having? If so - disable the touchpad and buy a wireless mouse. I also had problems with the sound... I never could get the sound to go up high enough to actually hear anything very well. Again, add external speakers. Finally, it would hop around between signals for internet instead of just locking onto one. I had to disable the Wifi and hook it straight into the wall with a cable. Yeah, I was ready to get rid of that thing after 6 months. Weirdly enough, my previous laptop (before the screwy one) had been an Acer and it was perfect. I read somewhere that Acer doesn't really make anything, they just buy from different sources in Asia. They are kinda the Dell of Indonesia and Asia. The 14" screen laptops come from a good source and the 15.4" screen laptops seem to have a problem. They are also making 8.8" screen netbooks that run on XP and supposedly those are as solid as can be... Is your problem any of the ones listed above and do you have one of the 15.4" screen ones? Just curious...

[LongJim]

It is less than 1 year old, so I would definitely contact Acer and see what they could do for you. I would go right back to OfficeMax and ask them for an exchange, myself. If that PC is only 5 weeks old, you should be able to NICELY lean on them a bit and get them to do it. Not knowing more about your PC's issues, I can't help much, but from what you're describing, I would inititally suspect a bad HDD. It's not that uncommon to have a flaky hard drive put in a brand new PC. I put a new HDD in a client's laptop a couple of months ago new out of the box, and it was bad. Had to return it for another one. If you're in the FW area, I can take a look at it for you. Shoot me a PM if you want.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

It is less than 1 year old, so I would definitely contact Acer and see what they could do for you. I would go right back to OfficeMax and ask them for an exchange, myself. If that PC is only 5 weeks old, you should be able to NICELY lean on them a bit and get them to do it. Not knowing more about your PC's issues, I can't help much, but from what you're describing, I would inititally suspect a bad HDD. It's not that uncommon to have a flaky hard drive put in a brand new PC. I put a new HDD in a client's laptop a couple of months ago new out of the box, and it was bad. Had to return it for another one. If you're in the FW area, I can take a look at it for you. Shoot me a PM if you want.

Well this morning I went to Office Max and they told me that since I did not have the styrophome that came with the box when I bought it, they would not be willing to take the computer back, so I called ACER and they told me that based on the past history of it over the last two weeks, as well as the error messages that I am now getting, that it sounds like a "motherboard" issue and wanted me to send it to them. They are located in Temple, so they said it would take 7 - 10 business days for them to either fix it, or send me a brand new computer.

Thanks for all of the help issues. I have a friend who put a new hard drive in my Dell (the one I replaced the ACER with) and he is going to put XP back on it since I got the disks from Dell this past week and I will just use that computer until ACER sends me whatever they are going to send. Still incredibly frustrating as I have probably lost 4-5 days of work trying to get this working.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

I struggled with an Acer for about 6 months before I sold it and got a Gateway. What I notced were lots of touchpad problems. Is that what you are having? If so - disable the touchpad and buy a wireless mouse. I also had problems with the sound... I never could get the sound to go up high enough to actually hear anything very well. Again, add external speakers. Finally, it would hop around between signals for internet instead of just locking onto one. I had to disable the Wifi and hook it straight into the wall with a cable. Yeah, I was ready to get rid of that thing after 6 months. Weirdly enough, my previous laptop (before the screwy one) had been an Acer and it was perfect. I read somewhere that Acer doesn't really make anything, they just buy from different sources in Asia. They are kinda the Dell of Indonesia and Asia. The 14" screen laptops come from a good source and the 15.4" screen laptops seem to have a problem. They are also making 8.8" screen netbooks that run on XP and supposedly those are as solid as can be... Is your problem any of the ones listed above and do you have one of the 15.4" screen ones? Just curious...

Stebo, I think it is a 15.4 monitor one. However, I what I bought from OM was one that was headed out in that they were not making them anymore. I wonder what size the new one's are. What is crazy is that everyone I know raves about the ACER machines, so the last laptop I had was a DELL, but so many people liked ACER, I went with it. Oh well, the customer service I got today from ACER was very good.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

Computer comes back from Acer after they say that there is "nothing wrong with the machine."

[stebo]

Did they fix it?

Acer is kind of like Dell for Asia. They don't really make anything - they just assemble things. So - depending on what they were able to get on clearance, the quality of the product is sporadic. There are people that swear by ACER but they will also tell you to stay away from certain models. Really, ACER is to Europe/UK/Asia what Dell is the U.S. The problem is that they do things on the cheap but cheap is not always bad. Their quality control is terrible so there are a lot of lemons out there. Their touch pads have a terrible track record - no matter the model - most people just disable them and use a mouse. I loved my 14" screen Acer, it was really, really good. It was only a 2 gig machine but handled Vista like a charm. When I replaced it with the 15.4 bad boy from Best Buy, I had it optimized, added more memory - the whole shebang and I still had problems with it. I could never hear the dang speakers and the Signal UP couldn't pick up a signal sitting on top of a router. I dumped it and went with the Gateway and have found a great computer in the Gateway laptop.

Like I said in the earlier post, they don't really make anything - which is ok - but always check the model number reviews on the web before you buy an Acer - some of them are just assembled with junky clearance parts.

So when they sent it back did it work?

[Rudy]

Not to make you feel bad about it, but next time you should go with a Toshiba or HP. Get it from Office Depot or Best Buy, and those extended warranties are actually pretty handy.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

Did they fix it?

Acer is kind of like Dell for Asia. They don't really make anything - they just assemble things. So - depending on what they were able to get on clearance, the quality of the product is sporadic. There are people that swear by ACER but they will also tell you to stay away from certain models. Really, ACER is to Europe/UK/Asia what Dell is the U.S. The problem is that they do things on the cheap but cheap is not always bad. Their quality control is terrible so there are a lot of lemons out there. Their touch pads have a terrible track record - no matter the model - most people just disable them and use a mouse. I loved my 14" screen Acer, it was really, really good. It was only a 2 gig machine but handled Vista like a charm. When I replaced it with the 15.4 bad boy from Best Buy, I had it optimized, added more memory - the whole shebang and I still had problems with it. I could never hear the dang speakers and the Signal UP couldn't pick up a signal sitting on top of a router. I dumped it and went with the Gateway and have found a great computer in the Gateway laptop.

Like I said in the earlier post, they don't really make anything - which is ok - but always check the model number reviews on the web before you buy an Acer - some of them are just assembled with junky clearance parts.

So when they sent it back did it work?

Well I don't know if they fixed it or not, because when I talked to their Level 2 Tech boys down in Temple, they said they "didn't bother" reading my notes about what it was doing, didn't "fire it up" to see what it was doing, but rather just reloaded everything back onto the machine (which I had done 3 times in the last 4 weeks) and test ran the machine, then overnighted it back to me. They said they couldn't find anything wrong with it. I explained to them that they wouldn't have found anything wrong with it until you added a virus protection or some type of Office programs. They told me that I should reload everything I wanted on the machine and see if it did the same thing it had done the PREVIOUS 3 TIMES I HAD DONE THAT. I ask them what would happen IF the same thing happened again, and they explained I was being "speculative" without actually reloading everything. There aren't words to describe the WHIP that the conversation was with the guy.

The other part of this story is that the day I left Office Max, when they refused to give me a refund because I didn't have the "original" box it came in, I filed a complaint against that store with Office Max Corporate. Yesturday, the manager of that store called to ask me why I did that, and after explaining to him the situation, he agreed to take the computer back. So, when ACER told me what they had, and then I remembered what you said about the machines with 15.4" monitors, I returned it to Office Max as soon as FedEx returned it. I spent a little more money and bought a Sony.

Maybe ACER will realize they should have looked into the problem more when they get that machine returned back from Office Max. ACER's tech support stops at level 2, and seems to go along with what you said about piecing their machines together, as they were not much help.

Edited November 8, 2008 by GoMeanGreen1999