Will Black Tie Protection cover a modded laptop?

I'm planning to give my laptop a custom paint job. Obviously, I have to take it apart in order to do the job correctly. What I'm concerned about, however, is will my Service Plan still cover the costs.

I have the Standard Black Tie Protection plan. I want to be sure that, after I've painted the laptop and everything, if something was to happen, Best Buy won't try to say that I caused it from painting it. Has anyone else ever had a similar situation? Did they still cover the costs?

I already had one problem with them. I took it up to the local store because my DC Jack had gone bad. The guy turned me away and said that they couldn't do anything but replace the motherboard (which is obviously wrong). I ended up paying 40 bucks to replace the DC Jack myself.

I want to be sure that I won't run into other problems. I might call Best Buy's 1-800 number.

Anyways, back on topic, does anyone know?

 

in one simple word.... NOPE. any modifications, or aparent customer tampering to a consumer laptop instantly voids any and all warranty.

even removing the panel or motherboard kills the warranty and they tend to really look for any excuse to void it as it is.

 

So even though I paid them $250 extra, they will tell me that I cannot get it fixed because I painted it?

That's messed up.

 

if you pulled the motherboard and replaced the DC jack I would say there is a 90% chance they have already

BB and the rest of the retail warranties are a joke since they can pretty much pass anything off as a voided warranty .... look at the mass of fine print

the only time iv'e seen that work is manufacturer warranty on some business class units.. we have a graphics designer here who ordered extra chasis parts and had them fully custom painted and logo'd, then with our NBD support on it they actually SENT a tech out to move the guts from the origional into the modded chasis for no charge the next morning..... go figure

 

That sucks. Needless to say, I won't be buying manufacturer service plans again. The guy who sold it to me was telling me everything that I wanted to hear. lol, I guess they do that. Im really hoping nothing happens to it.

About the DC Jack, the thing is, after I called Best Buy directly (because I knew that a DC Jack repair didn't require replacing the entire motherboard), the guy said they not only should BB have done the repair, but that it was also covered by the manufacturer's warranty.

So, not only have I voided my manufacturer's warranty a few months early, but my BB plan is also possibly voided. That sucks.

 

welcome to salesmen followng their script and upselling like good boys and girls, its a lesson learned. Part of why I will never buy a consumer laptop again. I like GOOD support

 

Yeah. This was the experience that took away my beliefs that stores would uphold their word. Surprisingly, Walmart (who I also bought an extended warranty from around the same time) has been nothing but good.

Twice, my motherboard has died in my desktop because of a USB shortage or something like that. They came out and fixed it both times. No questions asked. Despite all of the horrible things I've read about Walmart, I've got nothing but good things to say about what they've done for my desktop.


Question: What do you mean by a consumer laptop? Aren't all laptops consumer laptops?

 

Agreed Walmart is good for returns.

nope Dell, Lenovo and HP have business class machines taylored to power users, businesses and others. I'll give you an example look in my sig there is a pretty darn pricey HP Elitebook down there with a 10 bit IPS screen, a Pro grade GPU, and a crapload of RAM and goodies.

the Probooks, Elitebooks etc for a pretty minimal cost can have 4 year warranties with accidental protection and next business day waranty, the tech s literally at your home, school or work that day or the next in many areas. there is no dealing with idiot support ppl on the phone or 2 week repairs. they are also MUCH better built and more durable with better cooling. again an example I have a hot running i7 940XM and a FirePro m7820 ( radeon 5870 ) in there and I can run both at 100% for 4 hours on a video render and never have my temps crack 75c.

you do pay extra for them but f you need the options and the reliability ........ they make other laptops look like toys

 

I never knew that you could buy Business class computers for personal use. I thought you had to own a...business. lol.

I'll check that out the next time I'm in the market for a new computer/laptop, which may or may not be soon. Thanks for the advice.

 

anytime, it seems most people never knew these beasts existed. theyre not advertised much nor do your stores carry them as they cant make money off the average sucker as the mfgr handles it all.

we tend to see them much more in Europe and Canada as they are seen and pushed by some of our better resellers and IT personel

 

The problem with business laptops is that they aren't shiny, nor do they look pretty (to the typical shopper at BestBuy, et al). Most shoppers don't know crap about computers, and will buy whatever is presented on the showroom floor, never knowing that there are computers out there that could make theirs look like toys. Hence why most people don't buy them, or don't know about their ability to buy them.

I've owned a Toshiba Satellite for the past two years and I was happy with it. However, the DC connector inside broke off the motherboard, turning it into useless junk. I wasn't able to do a lot of multitasking on it, or play even slightly older games (newest game I played on it that ran well was one made in 2006), or run more than one virtual machine without running out of memory. I didn't care too much since I only paid $430 for it new. This time around, I plan to be doing tons of work and play on my laptop, so I went to the business side and poured money into it. So far, I've thrown $2100 at it (~$1750 for the laptop, 2yr TPP warranty, laptop lock; $300 for an SSD, ~$50 for additional 8GB of RAM), and I might buy some more stuff for it (HDD dock, maybe a UPS if my college's power supply is dirty). Hopefully, this machine will last me for years and years to come, and I won't worry about breaking it. But normal people would probably look at me and think I'm crazy for spending over $2000 for a laptop (unless they're Mac fans ), but I think it's worth it for a very nice business laptop.

 

I'd be more than willing to spend over $2000 on a business class laptop if I had the $2000 to spend. lol.

 

What? I bought mine for $1500, and it's a powerhouse; normal business line laptops can be had for around $700-$1200, such as Dell Latitudes, HP Probooks, Lenovo Thinkpad X220/T420/T520.

 

I thought you were saying that you spent over $2000 on your laptop. I assumed you were talking about with the extra upgrades and whatnot. :/

Next time I have 1000 bucks to spend (which I don't see in the near future), I'm gonna check out the business class laptops.

 

Well, my case is a bit of an extreme example. $2000 was for the laptop, extra 8GB RAM and SSD. You can still find a good business laptop at lower prices. Dell Outlet, for example, has great deals on first-gen Core i series Latitudes; or if you want new you could look at lower Latitudes or the Vostro series. HP Probooks can be had for reasonable prices as well, at around $600-700.

 

Ah. That makes sense.

Right now, I'm pretty happy with the one I have. I do plan on upgrading to a 3.0 Quad Core and 8gb ram. but I don't have any money to do that at the moment.

When I am ready to get a new laptop, I'll check that out. Thanks for the info.