HP Says Cats Void Your Warranty

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HP says that this guy's computer is a bio-hazard and refused to fix his laptop because of cat hair. HP support took pictures (we've reposted one here) of the bio-hazardous components, what do you think? Certainly it isn't as bad as THIS!

Chris sent his HP Elitebook in for repair, only to learn that he had done something to void the warranty, and it wouldn't be repaired. What was his heinous offense against technology? He owns a cat, and there's fur inside the computer, causing HP to declare his computer a "biological hazard" and send it back un-repaired.
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I don't repair computers for friends or family that have pets, either. Usually, user error (not cleaning your computer) is on you.
 
I don't agree, but if his CPU got fried, due to his cat's negligence, then I have to side with HP.
 
This is the kind of ass move I would do to people when I worked at HP/Compaq repair warehouse... In all technicalities cat hair can void your warranty if its completely impacted in the HSF preventing airflow.

But I rejected warranty repairs for PC's that smelled like urine.. And generally cat urine is easily identifiable.. Hair doesnt tell the whole story.
 
Not that bad. I've seen much much worse. Still even if you don't have pets you should have a can-o-air to give your pc, laptop, etc a spray down every couple months.
 
This is why Dell offers the complete care or whatever they call their advanced warranty service. Not sure if HP has the same option.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
I don't repair computers for friends or family that have pets, either. Usually, user error (not cleaning your computer) is on you.
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Yes, but this is a laptop, and you can hardly expect people to dismantle their laptops and clean them out before sending them in for repair. That is way beyond the skills of a typical computer user.

On the other hand, I can understand how cat hair could be considered a "biological hazard"; there are a lot of people with severe allergies to cat hair, and for someone with that kind of allergy, working on a computer like this could be dangerous. However, I'm sure they could have had another technician to do the job rather than sending it back to the customer and refusing to repair it.
 
Though I don't think the level of "contamination" in this case is all that bad, I am with HP with regards to fixing PC's fouled with something nasty (in this case, pet hair). My question is whether they would repair a PC filled with that nasty dust and grunge only found in the household of a cigarette smoker. Because the nastiest PC's I've ever seen have belonged to smokers.
Now if a person is a smoker AND a cat owner....holy shit, call the CDC!!
 
I'm a cat owner and I agree with HP. I've spend thousands on my a cat for meds and shots. Cats can carry some pretty nasty stuff. Some people can also have some pretty bad reactions to cat hair and dander.
 
Buy a damn can of air and use it from the start retard.
 
Cat lover here and HP is right on this one. Many people are allergic to kittehs and frankly it's nasty letting cat hair build up in your rig. Keep your machine away from the cat. I know it has a warm and all, but if the cat can't get to it, they can't fur it.
 
Surprised so many on the [H] siding with HP eh? Must be a lot of those allergic to cat people :p
 
Just imagine how much hair was in it before the guy sent it in. This was all the stuff he couldn't get out without cracking open the case.

The guy needs to quit crying about it on consumerist, STFU and buy a new laptop.
 
don't agree /w HP at all on this and think HP has the very worst cooling solutions for their products
 
It could be worse. Over the years this crazy cat lady brought her computer in saying she had a burning smell coming from her computer. She had a dead kitten inside the desktop tower. Don't even know how something like that can happen. I don't like working on PC's from Pet owners that don't take care of their pets.
 
100% with HP on this one.

Just because you buy a laptop and own a cat is no reason you should get special treatment. A monkey can blow out the laptop with a can of air, why can't you?

Why should someone who works in a low paying position and might have severe allergies do YOUR job for you all while you want to pay ZERO dollars.

I've seen much much worse, think woman who owns cats, hamsters, AND smokes. Just imagine cracking open THAT case. If you own a cat - take responsibility for all the consequences that come with cat ownership. I don't care if fluffy has had all his shots and you've spent "thousands" on him/her... it's still an animal whos shedded fur has no place in electronics.
 
I call lameness on this one.

If that's all the hair, this is a sad attempt to refuse warranty work.

Bio-hazard?? Really? What's next? Dust? You know, a lot of people are allergic to dust........better start voiding those warranty's too. Be careful everyone, many household cleaners, toiletries, air freshener, tobacco smoke......all hazards. Next is swabbing the case for contaminants.

Lame.
 
Don't know about all this negative comments about the user. He sent in his laptop for repair. It came back, still broken with no reason why.

Kinda of sad if HP or any company voiding a warranty over a few cat hairs. BS on that.


BTW, been in IT industry for last 20 years. Repaired all kinds of AIO/Desktops/Laptops/Servers for all major OEM (Apple/Toshiba/Dell/IMB/HP/Compaq). Both under warranty and out of warranty. In all my time (over 15k repairs) only voided warranty on 3 PCs.

Dell XPS Desktop - had an obvious dark liquid residue all inside case.
Apple Macbook Pro - battery meltdown, user had unauthorized replaced lower capicity batter with one he bought in Hong Kong from Ebay.
HP Laptop - Wine or Urine, couldn't tell since Wine is also a "hazardous" material in my opinion and I think burnt Wine does smell like Urine.

Guess I just like to make a happy customer. Seen far worse stuff than these pictures. Shame that HP went this far to void a warranty. Guess that's why I never buy HP anymore.
 
collegeboy69us said:
A monkey can blow out the laptop with a can of air, why can't you?
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But then you'd be dealing with monkey hair. Just as bad.

I don't know. On one hand, I can see how it would affect the warranty and void it. But, for such a common thing, you'd think that it would be obvious that problem would exist.
 
I say HP is in the wrong. In my world, cleaning a PC is included in the definition of "repair". In that regard, pet dander is standard issue gunk in a PC.

There's been countless times where I get someone bitching about their computer locking up/crashing/restarting randomly and all I have to do is pop the top and pull the dust bunny off the CPU heatsink.

If they didn't want to warranty cat hair on a HSF then they should ship the computer with filters at the inlets.
 
Dont know if it's just me but from that pic they're seems to be perhaps10-15 hairs in that bunch on the heatpipe... and am not seeing any others...If hp is refusing warranty for so little hair that is ridiculous. Now smoking "gunk" is much nastier and im sure much much worse for the hardware...

I remember few years back i had no pets whatsoever, however i spent 1 week with my laptops vacationing at a friends who had 1 cat. While the laptop probably only spent 20 hrs at most running that week and that i "blew" it out every 3-4 weeks using compressed hair. When it the laptop died(about 2 yrs after the vacation) i opened it up to try and detect what had went wrong(maybe even bake the mb..) and theyre was still some cat hair<s inside the chasis seldom but a few of them were stuck in theyre... So in my experience unless someone breaks the whole chassis apart chances are any laptop that comes in contact with fured pets will retain some...
 
coynatha said:
I say HP is in the wrong. In my world, cleaning a PC is included in the definition of "repair". In that regard, pet dander is standard issue gunk in a PC.

There's been countless times where I get someone bitching about their computer locking up/crashing/restarting randomly and all I have to do is pop the top and pull the dust bunny off the CPU heatsink.

If they didn't want to warranty cat hair on a HSF then they should ship the computer with filters at the inlets.
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Am going to agree with the above. Now where have I seen that the cat hair was the cause for the repair, just that the computer was sent in for non-descript repair and return due to biohazard. If your that violently allergic to cat hair or dander, your in the wrong line of work. I am also in the IT field for the past 15 years and have seen my fair share of dust bunnies that consisted of dog hair, cat hair, human hair, smoker bunnies and the like. This is just lazyness upon HPs part.
 
How about this? If you let cat hair, dust bunnies, dog hair, or just general nastiness clog up your computer equipment so bad that it becomes a warranty issue in the first place -- you can just go fuck off. This is not anti-cats, this is anti lazy asses.
 
This is just lazyness upon HPs part.
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No this is laziness of the owner. HP is not your mom, clean up after yourself.

The image does not look bad, but if you really have worked on laptops from pet homes, you know that the keyboard is twice as bad, and there is hair everywhere inside.

Laptops are not designed to withstand cat use, they are for humans. You don't get warranty service on your civic because you took it off-roading.
 
collegeboy69us said:
100% with HP on this one.

Just because you buy a laptop and own a cat is no reason you should get special treatment. A monkey can blow out the laptop with a can of air, why can't you?

Why should someone who works in a low paying position and might have severe allergies do YOUR job for you all while you want to pay ZERO dollars.

I've seen much much worse, think woman who owns cats, hamsters, AND smokes. Just imagine cracking open THAT case. If you own a cat - take responsibility for all the consequences that come with cat ownership. I don't care if fluffy has had all his shots and you've spent "thousands" on him/her... it's still an animal whos shedded fur has no place in electronics.
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I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. And so are all the other pro HP comments in here. Are you people saying that if you have a pet you're not allowed to own a computer?

He sent his laptop in for repair. He wasn't asking for special treatment. He was asking HP to honor the warranty on a very expensive business laptop. Pet hair is no more a bio-hazard than dust. In fact, dust is for more a bio-hazard than pet hair. If the tech has an allergy then have another one work on it.

He needs to fight this because I'm pretty sure it doesn't specifically state that pet hair voids your warranty. And of you have a pet, pet hair is going to get sucked into the fan no matter what you do. I know for a fact HP is just using it as an excuse to try and screw him out of his warranty. I'm sure they would have no problem working on it if hey was paying for it.

This crap doesn't surprise me though. Up until recently I worked for HP as a field engineer. I know how that division works that sent his laptop back to him. I don't know how many laptops I had to go out on that had been sent to them and came back with the same problem and sometimes new ones. Not only do they pull bullshit like this, they do half assed work. Also, I worked on a hell of a lot of laptops that had pet hair in them and never would have given the customer crap about it.

When it comes down to it, this is just absurd.
 
Mr34727 said:
No this is laziness of the owner. HP is not your mom, clean up after yourself.

The image does not look bad, but if you really have worked on laptops from pet homes, you know that the keyboard is twice as bad, and there is hair everywhere inside.

Laptops are not designed to withstand cat use, they are for humans. You don't get warranty service on your civic because you took it off-roading.
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Oh, so customers are supposed to open their computers these days? Explain to me how this is laziness on the customers part. You don't know this person's tech level. They very may not have any idea that there might be pet hair in there. And if he did he might not have any idea how to clean it out. And you aren't going to clean out unless you remove the fan.

Cat use? Like his cat is using the laptop? You people are being obtuse.
 
without saying it's right or wrong, I'm going to guess someone in middle management got 1 unfixed laptop closer to hitting a bonus by approving this rejection.
 
Mr34727 said:
The image does not look bad, but if you really have worked on laptops from pet homes, you know that the keyboard is twice as bad, and there is hair everywhere inside.
.
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I concur, even more so common were the *smokers* that had their pc's turn that dingy smoke stained color. I once saw a system that actually have a buildup of ash and fluids (guy used to put ash tray right on top of his pc), it had fallen onto the system and seeped through the fan. He didn't clean it, so it just started collecting particles in the air, growing into this mass of horrible stench. His system was overheating badly and he couldn't figure out why. So damn nasty.

Used to happen to vacuums all the time as well, it's ok to use your vacuum to clean pet hair, you just have to perform a little cleaning and maintenance.

As for biohazards, I worked at a large repair facility back in the early 00's and it wasn't uncommon to receive Microwaves that weren't functioning, only to open them and find hundreds of cockroaches! Immediately we triple plastic sealed them and sent them back to the store of origination with a big biohazard label as well as a pamphlet on how to rid you home of infestations.

Some people are just sick. I won't even get into the "in home repair" scenarios.
 
After working on several Dells and HP's with inadequate cooling, I'm not surprised if the cat hair did kill it. Hell i've seen some that just upgrading the memory, or the hard drive caused the whole lowest priced possible cooling solutions they use fail. Not to mention the dells that came with video cards that would over heat if you actually used them.

I have to side with the customer on this since from the photo's there is just not enough there to it of caused real damage if they weren't being cheap on the parts in the first place.
 
Monkey34 said:
Bio-hazard?? Really? What's next? Dust? You know, a lot of people are allergic to dust........better start voiding those warranty's too. Be careful everyone, many household cleaners, toiletries, air freshener, tobacco smoke......all hazards. Next is swabbing the case for contaminants.

Lame.
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Yeah, I am surprised that HP would of even sent a bio-hazardous item back to the owner, they should of called in a bio disposal team to have the item destroyed and have the work area cleaned up.
 
If it's under warranty, and the fan doesn't hold up, no matter why they need to deal with it.

And that is NOT a lot of hair/dust. I clean out laptops and desktops that look a lot worse than that every day.
 
Worked in a computer shop a while back and someone brought a laptop in that "didn't work any more." Turned out he'd left it open under his bed and his cat pissed all over it. The smell was so bad we sealed it in several plastic bags and refused to work on it.
 
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