Fujitsu/P1 Support Story

Gather children and I shall tell you the tale of the bad N6210.

The Problem
Way back in July, I bought my N6210 (specs below) from P1. Upon taking it out of the box and trying to boot up, I just got a blank screen. I did a hard shutdown and rebooted and the system started fine. I just figured it was some fluke thing. Everything ran fine for a couple of hours until I got the blue screen of death a few times. So now I'm figuring maybe I have a bad build and ran the restore CDs.

After this, my system ran fine for about a month or so with the minor problem that occasionally I would close the lid of my computer (turns off the monitor) or the monitor would shut off after 20 minutes (instead of a screensaver) and then it would not turn back on. P1 tried to tell me that this was some sort of a Windows flaw or something, but I wasn't buying it. Anyway, I dealt with it for a while.

I dealt with it, that is, until the one day when the computer wouldn't even turn on. No BIOS screen or anything. I took it to a local Fujitsu repair shop and after a month of waiting (the part was backordered), they replaced the motherboard and all was well.

Then this past December things went wrong again. For one thing, it kept turning off while I was playing video games. It would just shut off. (This wasn't a heat issue, I looked into a lot of things and couldn't figure it out.) Anyway, after a few weeks of this, the monitor stopped working altogether. The screen would turn off about 15 seconds after I turned it on.


The Fix
At this point, I started emailing P1 about getting a full-refund, because I was fed up at this point. While I was trying to negotiate a refund with them, I was also searching here for what notebook I wanted to get to replace it. In the process, I was reminded of why I picked the N6210 to begin with and how much I liked it (when it worked).

So I worked with Mike Hall from Fujitsu with getting me a replacement unit. I FedEX overnighted the old system to him and he overnighted a new one to me. (The whole process took 3 days.) As far as I can tell, the system I have been sent is a "refurbished" model. It has one stuck pixel (red) smack in the middle of the screen. Also, I feel like I'm getting about half of the battery life that I used to. I suspect that they gave me a lower-capacity battery, but I can't figure out whether or not I have proof of that.

The replacement system also had 2x256MB of RAM instead of the 512 that I paid for, and a 80GB (4200RPM) HDD instead of the 60GB (7200RPM) HDD that I paid for. After talking to Mike Hall again, I ended up having them send me 1.5GB of RAM and I sent the 2x256MB of RAM back to them.

The Conclusion
That's about as far as I've gotten so far. Overall, I guess I'm pretty happy about everything. I could do without the stuck pixel and shorter battery life, I guess... But at this point, I'm getting sick of fighting with them. I should also note that Ivan and Melissa from P1 were willing to work hard to try to get me a refund before I went with a replacement machine. I'll update this thread if I have any more to add.

Feel free to post comments and/or questions.

 

honestly i would get another replacement if my N6210 had a stuck red pixel. but this is likely because they don't have these models in production anymore, even though the N6220 is identical.

i highly doubt you are getting shorter battery life, unless you got a 12 cell battery on your first machine.

your problems that you have had are most likely windows flaws so i again applaud portable one for taking care of it.

but it does sound like your system started to just go crazy after awhile, the only thing that i know of that makes machines go crazy is a power surge or some sort of power jolt that is to much for the hardware,

I.E. my roomates Ati X800xl in his desktop recently started completely going crazy, with the card installed the display had random red characgters all over it, not a driver issue not a software issue just crazy hardware that we think was cause by a wierd sounding connection (like a shock) when he plugged in the card to the power supply.

 

I would get a replacement screen, but I'm pretty sure Fujitsu requires that you have more than 1 stuck pixel.

Also, I did have the 12 cell battery, btw.

 

then you didn't get a 12 cell battery with the new one, which sucks because you paid for it last time, make them give you a 12 cell,