wow i am glad that someone got the reason why i actually asked for a bit more info, one reason is becuase i like to hear horror stories about dsg and secondly becuase you actually might be wasting your time and money by going to court and there are plenty of people on this forum that know a lot about consumer law who could actually tell you if you had a case. also the excuse that you do not want to go into any detail in case DSG checked this website is a pretty poor one as they have no way of poving who you are unless you start using your real name, start listing and start listing things that are unique to your case .

well saying the computer has failed does not really help me, what is wrong with it, does it not turn on, does it not boot up, does it keep blue screening, will it not connect to the internet, has the optical drive failed, do the usb ports not work etc etc. How old is the machine? do you have the extended warranty? what have both you and them done to sort the problem out? and now where is the disagreement? In some situation pc world are well with in their rights to ask you to get and independent report done on the machine.

Can i actually ask what you problem is and why you are wanting to take them to court? Also as what that pc world member of staff said does not really make any sense. If I machine was miss sold to the person then they can take can simply take the machine back and get a refund. Plus i have no idea what you mean by pluggins? As if it software then there is free alternative software to all the major brands (anti virus, security programs, office appliactions, burning software etc) on the internet and all computers come with the same basic hardware so that makes no sense either, and if it is addition hardware like printers and scanner then you have to be pretty foolish not to realise that a computer can not do them without another bit of kit.

lol i was not trying to have an argument was just trying to stat microsofts line on this and what their licence agreement actually says and i have to say i do agree with it, it is kind of like triggers classic only fools and horses joke about his broom (if you dont know what i am on about YouTube - Only Fools and Horses Heroes and Villians Triggers broom skip to about 2mins 15secs in) Also like i said before 9 times out of 10 they will give you a new activation code if you are the one that is not then you are either suck with a motherboard you cant use or you have to pay for a new licence or you have to take them to court and argue it is the same pc

Well according to microsoft you can upgrade your pc as much as you want as long as you have a retail copy of windows. Else you can upgrade as much as you want as long as you do not change your motherboard and only change your processor once. At the end of the day I guess it all comes down to when it is a new pc? is it a new pc when the board is changed when the processor is changed when the hard drive is changed or what? The line has to be drawn somewhere and i guess micosoft drew it with the mobo being changed or more than one processor. If this line was not drawn then as long as you kept in the sam box you could keep upgrading and upgrading everytime a new piece of hardware is brought out and claim it is the same pc. If you don't agree with those terms than that what the retail copy of windows is for but most people have brought licence for the OEM version which is for the pc it came on and that pc only. Saying all this I have read on number of forums if you swap out your mobo and call them they will 9 times out of 10 give you a new activiation code, although the people saying that are the ones that brought the oem version on disc rather than preinstalled on a machine.

The problem is when does it become a new computer? I would personally say that once the motherboard has been changed it is a new computer and microsoft also have the same stand point. I have also taken a look in an microsoft forum and one of their own members of staff have confirmed in it that if the motherboard is upgraded on an oem machine the licence key is no longer valid, also states that if a motherboard is replaced with an the same make and model in the warranty period then a new licence is not required so that how they do it when a mobo is replaced due to it being faulty. The member of staff points out that you can replace any other component in the machine and the licence key will be fine the only time a new licence needs to be purchased is when a motherboard is upgraded

I am pretty sure that you a wrong on this issue, when you buy a pc like a packard bell you are buying a licence for an OEM copy of windows and not a retail copy. Like forest says that licence key is for that machine and that machine only. if it was a retail copy of vista then it could be uninstalled and then reinstalled on a different machine. Again like forest says if a major component is changed in a pc then microsoft say that you have to buy another licence and a mobo is a major component. If you replace you mobo becuase the old one is faulty then then i believe what they do is take bios string from the old motherboard and and flash it on to the new so that it believes it is the same board (i could be wrong on this point). As for packard bell machines the motherboards and the mobos are bound to each other and if one is replaced then you need to do something called a tattoo this basically ties the two back together and when you run a recovery on the machine it will install all the proper drivers back on although if you just install a fresh copy of vista from a disc this is not needed and you can just download the drivers from the PB website

Sorry to carry on an old thread here but what you said (quoted above) is surely a miss leading. Most customers who take out the extended waranty do not acutally have whatever coverplan as there are surely two coverplans, the standard cheap one an the more costly whatever happens. Now if you can afford the extra whatever happens is better as you are covered for "whatever happens" and it has more favourable terms like 21 days to repair your machine. The standard coverplan that most people have is alot less favourable and one example is that that dsg can take 6 weeks to repair your machine before you can request a replacement (something they never tell you in the store i am sure) and i know for me to be with out my machine for 6 weeks would be a major inconvience. I am glad it was all sorted out for you in the end margaret and is a shame about the photos

Have to agree with Renzokuken for once (should make him happy ). The machine is faulty and therefore you are well with in your rights to claim your money back or get a replacement. There is no way this much should have been booked in for an uplift and the person in the call centre should never of done so, just becuase the store manager is refusing the refund does not mean they should have booked it in. Seriously if you have a video of the present being opened just show it to the store will save you a lot of time and hassle in the long run. Whatever you do i would not let the machine go away for repair as chance it will get sent back unrepaired and then the 30day policy the store have probably would have expiered and you have even more fun and games trying to get what you want.

as everyone has said we need to know more, ie are you connecting wirelessly, wired (ethernet) or wired (modem) Just some quick pointers, if your connecting wired with a modem best of luck to you as I do not believe this machine has a modem port. If connecting wirelessly have you actually turned on the wireless card in the machine? you can tell as the casing has some indicator lights on it in the bottom right hand corner and the second light from the left you be your wireless indicator, if it is not lit you have not turned it on. To turn it on hold down the FN key in the bottom left hand sind of the keyboard and then press the f11 on the top row of the keyboard to turn it on. Hope that helps.

Hello, firstly can I advise you that you start up your own thread as it is then much easier to keep track of what of your issue. As for your problem can I ask how old your machine is? as if it is under 6 months then you do not need to get an engineers report done at all as it is up to DSG to prove that is does not have a manufactures fault not for you to prove that it does.

I am not bias againist your advise at all as long as what you tell the consumer or the poster what the whole deal is, you can not deny telling the op to buy a new copy of windows is good advise, i know that you also said you can go to the manufacturer and get recovery disks but thats where you should have stopped, even suggesting buying a new os is just stupid, it would work but it is stupid. and if you got sacked for toeing the company line that DSGi are worse than i thought as i would think after making a loss for the first time in 24 years they would want people who toe the company line and try and get customers to follow there policy when they are entilted to more (and i am not specificially talking about this case). Your job is not at all risk by posting on here as it is annoyomous, firstly DSGi would have to get the forum to break data protection act laws to get your ip address and the DSGi would have to get your isp to break data protection laws to get your address and if that is not all they would not have grounds to sack you as being a member of a forum and offering advise is hardly gross misconduct or bringing the company name into disrepute.

Strange becuase my OEM product key that is on the bottom of my laptop works perfectly fine with my standard windows vista disk, yeah i do not get the bundled software or the drives that comes on the manufacturers recovery disks but that is hardly what you all a problem, and i am sure when i reinstalled vista on a dell machine using the product key on the bottom the machine using a standard vista disk it worked fine, but maybe that is just me. The reason why people sometimes disagree with your advise is becuase you simply toe the company line and while in some instants that is fine in others it completly ignores the customers rights. In this case i believe the customer has very little rights and therefore can either buy a new copy of vista (wouldn't do that myself), get hold of vista disk (would do this myself but then again i will probably find this easier than the average customer) or go straight to the manufacturer and pay the 20 odd quid that it is for recovery disks and than pray that the machine does not need tattooing but i believe a compaq/hp tattoo only needs doing on motherboard replacements

Why would the price of windows disk be £50 or £70, when you buy these disks you are not paying for the disk you paying for the licence and customer has already brought the licence when they brought the machine and therefore do does not have to buy a new one, they simply have to get a hold of windows disk and use there licence key on the machine. I know this can be a problem for some people but if you know where to look or know anyone with a disk then it is easy enough.

i could be completly wrong on this as i am not from a legal background at all and i am bit surprised that someone with a lot more knowledge than me has not commented yet but does a company not have upto 28 to credit a refund back to a customer? might have got the amount of days wrong there but i thought it was around a month.

I do not think that you can blame the workshop for doing there job in this case, yes the machine might have gone away with broken keys but they would not be doing their job properly if they did not test out all the other components in the machine while it was at the workshop, i have had 2 laptops by 2 different companies and both of them have had to go back to their respective comapny workshops at some point and on both workshops have run stress tests on the machiens to make sure that everything else is working correctly and if it was not then i would expect them to be fixed. (with or without telling me) In your case i imagine that they did this on your machine and found out that the hard drive had problems and was ready to fail in the near future and therefore was replaced, if you would have got the machine back and the hard drive would have failed a week later you still would have lost your data, you still would not have the recovery disks and you would be inconvenienced by the fact you would have to send the machine back to the workshop again. As for the recovery disks that you are meant to have, well by law all manufacturers have to provide away of restoring the operating system and like just about all manufactures this would be in the form of a hidden partion on your hard drive that can be accessed and start up but also they provide a way of making your own recovery disks and i know from my own new hp (they own compaq) machine that the first thing it tells you to do in the documentation is to make the disc as if you do not and you do need them you may be charged. It also tells you when you boot up the machine for first time and it is also on a few other bits of paper that comes with the machine so they can not really make it much more clear that these discs are important. Your data, well that is never covered by any warranty and i know this is harsh but you should have been backing the data up if it was really that important to you. At the end of the day a hard drive is a mechanical item and i imagine yours spins at around 5000rpm it is going to fail at some point, yes it should not fail in the first year but they do i have a couple that have failed in the first few months it does happen. Losing your data is only a mistake that you make once. I could easily be wrong on this but by law i do not think that pcwold/techguys/compaq have done anything wrong. So my advice to you now is either ring compaq (i think you have to go straight to compaq rather than the techguys) and buy the recovery discs or get an operating system disc (i imagine it was vista) and install it and when asked for the product key it should be on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop.

Unfortunately that call centre is not full of people who are technically trained and the time when TAs and Techs were extremely knowledgable people that use to know about any technical question have now long gone. As you will know (as i imagine you were one) since capita has taken over the staff turn over rate has been extremly high, especially at the top level and therefore they have to promote people to the higher levels that simple do not know anywhere near as much as they should. That call centre espeically went down hill when they brought in the bonus scheme that rewarded the staff for taking as many calls as possible rather then actaully getting a problem solved and therefore lying to customers to get them off the phone is a way they can make a bit more money, couple that with hardly any knowledge (in the main, i imagine there are still some good people there) means that customers get terrible service but capita dont care as they meet there calls per month target and therefore dont get any fines of dsgi

I never said that the instore tech should have been the one carrying out the diag becuse the customer should never have been refered back to the store in the first place. What you said about the call centre is not actually true either as the call centre staff do not have a list of possible faults they diagnose the problems from their knowledge and the only thing they have to help them is write ups for all the machines (these are avaliable to anyone on the techguys website) hence it is very hit and miss how good the quality of the service you get. Also when store call the call centre they get through to TAs who i believe are the third level of support after CPAs and TTAs and therefore should (and i mean should there are still some bad TAs out there) be better than the average agent the customer speaks to. Also just becuase you have be building pc since you are 13 it does not mean that you know anything about doing diags on a machine, i can build pcs and i have a degree in computers science but doing diags is another skills altogether. Yes it helps if you have technical knowledge in the first place but to be skilled at diags takes some training and pratice.

optical drives are the easiest thing in the world to diag, just put a bootable cd in there restart the computer and press the option to boot from the optical drive, if it boots that the drive is fine and there will a software problem with in windows and therefore will not be sent away and if does not boot the drive will be changed simple as that. But i do not think the optical drive is the main concern with this machice and when they finally get round to replacing the screen then they can check this problem out too.

Well that in its self is proof that the training in the call centre is really starting to drop as i believe that they are never meant to refer customer to a store with a pc or laptop. The only time the call centre is meant to refer to store is for items that are not repaired but simply replaced. Apart from that the call centre should either be booking up uplifts or sending out engineers. If the hinges are misaligned then it could again be the cause of the problem as it could be putting stress on one area of the screen. My advice to you is still call the call centre and get the machine uplifted and make sure that you have written a note to go with it explaining it all and take pictures for your own evidence. Else you could get an independant report done and then get it booked in. Either way you are still going to have to speak to the call centre and get the machine booked in, just hope that you actually get agent that knows what they are doing.

and in saying all of that you have basically said why i would never buy anything of value from DSGi. The staff are so poorly trained it is unbelievable. The only ones that have any knowledge are those that actually took it too the job in the first place. You are basically admitting that you and other memebers of DSGi staff are lying to their customers, maybe not all staff know they are lying becuse they have not had the training but people like you that do know the laws when it comes to things like this are the ones that should be punished. At the end of the day if a customer came up to you 13 months after purchasing a machine that had gone wrong and you did not toe the company line and said that there is something called the SoGA and i advise that you look it up and contact head office then DSGi can not sack you as you have done nothing wrong what so ever and if they did punish you anyway shape or form then that is what tribunals are for. Just becuase you work for the company it does not mean that you have to be as unethical as they are and treat customers as bad as they are. At the end of the day the amount of refunds outside the first 12 months has no impact on you what so ever as the money would not come directly out of the shops bottom line as they would have to go DSGi head office to get compensation. So by not helping the customer you are being as bad as DSGi

Like i have said before my advice to you and anyone that has got a pc from pcw is is to call the number on the receipt which is the techguys call centre and get the machine up lifted. PCW stores themselfs are generally terrible at after sales and do not normally know their own procedures. The instore techhuys are different to the ones where broken machines are taken. The instore ones tend to only run recoveries, do basic data backup and probably some upgrades. All broken laptops that are uplifted go to a single workshop in mansfield (unless they are busy and some go to third party workshops) Alternatively like has already pointed out you can get an independant report done which should back up what you have said and then ring up the call centre on the receipt and then get it booked in. I really do not see a problem with getting this machice fixed if everything you are saying is correct. You just have to know your rights and you should do as has been pointed out by more knowledgable people than me and you have to go to the right people and that is not pcw or toshiba, go direct to the techguys call centre. Also when you manage to get it booked in make sure that you have taken your own pictures of it for proof of the condition it went away in and also write a note basically saying what you said in your orginal post and place it between the screen and the keyboard as when it is booked in the agent gets a very limited space (1 line) to write down the porblems of the machice and therefore if the engineer saw the machine straight off he might just assume it was acc dam see it has no acc dam cover and send it back

I have personally never liked acers. I have always said that they are great machines until they go wrong and then they sting you for the repairs. I know too many people that have acer machines break just after warranties have ran out.

As far as the customer is concered the machine has nothing to do with toshiba and they should never have been put in the position where they had to go back to the manufacturere. As already pointed out the customer has contract with DSGi not toshiba therefore there only port of contact should be DSGi. If it later turns out to be a manufacturers fault well DSGi have a contract with toshiba so it should be them informing them getting in contact with toshiba hope you were not calling my advise duff as we basically wrote the same thing.

All seems a bit strange to me, even if the tech guys think the machine is broken due to accidental damage then they will still normally get the machine picked up and accessed by someone at the workshop. Laptop screen are not that fragile to be honest and if what you are saying about the laptop ie the hinge being very stiff and thoshiba engineering refusing to say what the problem is then it sounds like they might have something to hide. It has been known on many occasions for laptop screens to crack due to over tightening of the hinges, if i was you i would check to see if there is any small cracks on the casing around the hinges as that can sometimes be an indicator of the hinges being too tight. I have to say i can understand pc worlds saying they will not repair any fault until they know that the screen was a manufacturers fault as if you honest listed those faults it does sound like the machine was dropped (and i am not saying that was happen just saying that what someone from another point of view might see) as for the issues of the overheating and the optical drive well just becuase it the optical drive has stopped working does not mean there is a physical fault it so that needs to be looked at more closely as that could be something very simple. The over heating i would not worry too much about as some laptops do get unbelievably hot but they will turn themselfs off before any damage is caused. Personally if i was you firstly i would go to toshiba and ask for the full report that you have paid for, if they refuse then i would get my money back as they have not provided the services you have paid for and i would also get in writing that the engineer is refusing to divulge the information on the screen becuase one might see that as admitting there was a defect with the machine. Then once i had gotten that i would call the techguys call centre directly and cut out pcworld as they normally want nothing to do with customers once they have got your money. If you then get a good agent and explain the situation i am sure the machine would be picked up and accessed by someone more qualified than the instore people. At the end of the day if the machine was dropped and that casued the screen to crack then would more damage to the outer casing of the laptop so it quite easy to prove. If you do manage to get it picked up then make sure that you take a lot of detailed photos of the machine before it goes away so if it comes back with more cracks to the case or screen etc then you have a leg to stand on later. If they refuse after all this then i would be thinking an idependent report would be required and when they agree with you, which they should then you get the privilege of pcw paying for it and they should also pay for the toshiba report as you should have never been put in the situation by pcw where you had to go to the manufacturer I am sure someone who knows more about the law can correct me if i have said anything that incorrect. At the end of the day the machine should never have gone back to toshiba as it nothing to do with them, your contract was with DSGi and I have never known a machine not to be accessed by them even if they think it is acc dam (and i mean at the proper workshop not the instore people). So i do not see you have a problem getting your money back for the report toshiba did