HP Says Cats Void Your Warranty

A lot of cat haters here... weird.
Dirty PC's are a cause of death for computers regardless of the existence of cats or fur.
In CNC manufacturing there is this organic drill fluid that aerosols as its used...called Bloom.
In the States its generally considered inert or safe by state health inspectors.
But its deadly to any computer components that suck air.
DeathBloom01_resize.jpg

DeathBloom02_resize.jpg
 
My two cents:

I agree with HP on this. If you have an environment that isn't clean enough to allow a computer to discharge its heat properly, then you're at fault for putting the equipment at risk in a situation the computer wasn't designed to operate.

I've cleaned out a few computers that were horribly dirty on the inside. One system I didn't even bother to clean. The system was overheating due to the shear amount of cat hair lodge in the fans, on the motherboard, etc.

But here's my take: If your computer has so much cat fur build up on the inside that WHITHIN the warranty period IT FAILS.....you have too many fucking cats!
 
I thought all current chips will throttle down when they get too hot? I don't see how even a 100% dead fan could do actual damage.

Seems to me like someone at the repair depot just had a bad day and wanted to piss on someone.
 
gunbust3r said:
I thought all current chips will throttle down when they get too hot? I don't see how even a 100% dead fan could do actual damage.

Seems to me like someone at the repair depot just had a bad day and wanted to piss on someone.
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Which would be an even bigger biohazard.
 
DogChainX said:
I agree with HP on this. If you have an environment that isn't clean enough to allow a computer to discharge its heat properly, then you're at fault for putting the equipment at risk in a situation the computer wasn't designed to operate.
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I have to fundamentally disagree with you on this. You're basically saying that >50% of North American homes are not clean enough for a laptop due to pet ownership. Seriously that number is staggering.

All HP needs to do is put some user-cleanable filters on the laptop's vents and provide documentation on cleaning them. As it stands the laptop failed in what any sane person would call completely normal conditions.
 
lord_emperor said:
I have to fundamentally disagree with you on this. You're basically saying that >50% of North American homes are not clean enough for a laptop due to pet ownership. Seriously that number is staggering.

All HP needs to do is put some user-cleanable filters on the laptop's vents and provide documentation on cleaning them. As it stands the laptop failed in what any sane person would call completely normal conditions.
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Not all people who own cats have an unclean house. Take some responsibility and clean up after your pet(s). Just don't clean cat hair all over the place....

All people need to do is keep their cat groomed, and their house clean. :rolleyes:
 
DogChainX said:
Not all people who own cats have an unclean house. Take some responsibility and clean up after your pet(s). Just don't clean cat hair all over the place....

All people need to do is keep their cat groomed, and their house clean. :rolleyes:
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There's a certain amount, or lack there of, of housecleaning in this situation that is at fault. I'm mildly allergic to cats, I can often detect the presence of a cat in a house as my chin will start to itch. But I've been to plenty of houses where there are cats and that doesn't happen. I just don't believe that a person that keeps his environment clean, even with pets, would have that amount of cat hair in his machine. I don't have any pets, I know that they offer a challenge when it comes to hair but I just don't see why it should be that bad if a person does as you stated.
 
All you people who side with HP on this are morons. If they designed their shit properly they wouldn't have to deal with this problem. As it stands, you can't open your laptop to clean anything without voiding your warranty anyway.

The image in the story is also barely offensive. Granted people should at least try to clean up there stuff before they send it in, but in some cases you just cannot.
 
docmal said:
All you people who side with HP on this are morons
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But I've had laptops for YEARS that never got anywhere like this. I opened up tablet PC about 8 months about that I had had for almost 6 years that I was reconditioning to give away, at that age warranty wasn't an issue, at it was perfectly clean, some dust buildup on the fan blades but NOTHING like this. I don't own pets but this machines HAD to have been in areas that were not really all that clean. Not saying that HP should have honored the warranty but this guy simply isn't doing he part either.
 
I don't think we have the full story here. Having replaced failed fan's in HP laptops similar to this - the pictures posted and in the PDF do not show the most important surface that could have affected the thermal performance of this PC. With that being said just looking at the fan this PC was used in a smoking environment as well, mix this with the car hair and I would have put on gloves/mask/goggles and made it a billable repair. If such safety equipment was not available for the job then yeah bio-hazard and bu-bye. I think HP is bang on here.

Personal feelings on this is your warranty is outright invalid of you use electronics in a smoking environment. Sorry smokers - your gross and electronics like that crap as much as your lungs do. Go buy an extended warranty that covers that crap or just suck it up and buy a new one.

As for the car hair - if it ever gets on your clothes - it's in your PC. If you wash your clothes then you gonna have to clean your PC some how and that should be factoring into your purchasing decisions. Don't like that? Then ditch the PC or the animal. (As a cat lover I hope you keep your animal.)
 
There is zero reason HP should clean computers for free under warranty because people crap them up with cat hair. Good for HP. If they had to use "biohazard" to deny him then that works. If he wants to pay someone to clean it then fine.
 
Guys, you can't justify this no matter what you want to. Would it be under warranty if he dropped it, or put it in the sink? Same thing. Something "happened" to this computer, it did not just fail. It had cat hair all it the heatsink and fan which was not there when he bought it. Case closed. Too bad you love animals more than people.
 
delahaya said:
Guys, you can't justify this no matter what you want to. Would it be under warranty if he dropped it, or put it in the sink? Same thing. Something "happened" to this computer, it did not just fail. It had cat hair all it the heatsink and fan which was not there when he bought it. Case closed. Too bad you love animals more than people.
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Seriously cat owners, does this much cat hair get inside ALL of you devices like this if do just the minimum house cleaning? This amount of cat hair in a device just doesn't seem right to me in an environment where people at do basic housecleaning.
 
My sister killed a computer with Cat hair once but it was literally choked with cat fur, that's hardly anything at all. It looks like the owner kept their computer very clean in comparison to many I've seen in the past. I agree that dirty components can kill a computer and the owner should be liable but those pictures don't show enough hair, dirt or anything else to qualify as the cause of this problem.
 
heatlesssun said:
Seriously cat owners, does this much cat hair get inside ALL of you devices like this if do just the minimum house cleaning? This amount of cat hair in a device just doesn't seem right to me in an environment where people at do basic housecleaning.
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Yes, actually it does. My girlfriend keep our place almost obsessively clear, but the intake filters on our PCs are full of cat hair within days. My girlfriend is also allergic to cats, so she is motivated in this area.

Note how my PCs have intake filters, a design element that laptop manufacturers should implement. Thanks to them the insides stay relatively clean.

Lastly, I've taken apart my share of laptops and I have never seen one with an easily accessed CPU cooler for cleaning, I have always had to tear at least one "warranty void if removed" sticker.

So again I think the lack of intake filtering, lack of user-serviceable cooling system, lack of documentation for cleaning and loss of warranty support is sheer negligence from any manufacturer.
 
lord_emperor said:
Yes, actually it does. My girlfriend keep our place almost obsessively clear, but the intake filters on our PCs are full of cat hair within days. My girlfriend is also allergic to cats, so she is motivated in this area.

Note how my PCs have intake filters, a design element that laptop manufacturers should implement. Thanks to them the insides stay relatively clean.

Lastly, I've taken apart my share of laptops and I have never seen one with an easily accessed CPU cooler for cleaning, I have always had to tear at least one "warranty void if removed" sticker.

So again I think the lack of intake filtering, lack of user-serviceable cooling system, lack of documentation for cleaning and loss of warranty support is sheer negligence from any manufacturer.
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Guess you have not worked on any Alienware laptops my M15x, 2 screws and you can service every major component, and the fan's have grill covers easy to clean.
 
Zero82z said:
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.
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No, but what you can do is clean your hosue and the area around your computer, i have had cats all my life and not too long ago,3 of them and not once has my computer had cat hair in them.
 
Every single one of you people that act like you can't be arsed to touch something nasty, much less cat hair, might as well kill yourselves now. You really don't want to know what is in the air you breath everyday. Regular household dust primarily consists of mites and human skin.

This is 100% bullshit. For more reasons than one at that.

First, if said customer had taken his laptop apart and cleaned it and that POS fan still broke (it would have anyway) they would refuse warranted repair for breaking the case seal.

What you are essentially saying is that no one with a house pet or who smokes can ever own a computer that they expect to be covered under warranty repair.

I swear, everyday this site is populated by more and more grown children with about as much sense as a toilet flapper.:(

Here is a tip... Every computer REQUIRES a monthly cleaning. Regardless if you have pets or smoke or not. Every one. For HP not to offer this service but still seal the case and then bitch when it comes in with hair in it is pure bullshit.

You can make up all the excuses that you want. The truth is still "because you're a wuss." I hope none of you ever pee in a public restroom or eat in a restaurant. You might catch some infectious disease other than "chronic laziness."
 
BallerX said:
Every single one of you people that act like you can't be arsed to touch something nasty, much less cat hair, might as well kill yourselves now. You really don't want to know what is in the air you breath everyday. Regular household dust primarily consists of mites and human skin.

This is 100% bullshit. For more reasons than one at that.

First, if said customer had taken his laptop apart and cleaned it and that POS fan still broke (it would have anyway) they would refuse warranted repair for breaking the case seal.

What you are essentially saying is that no one with a house pet or who smokes can ever own a computer that they expect to be covered under warranty repair.

I swear, everyday this site is populated by more and more grown children with about as much sense as a toilet flapper.:(

Here is a tip... Every computer REQUIRES a monthly cleaning. Regardless if you have pets or smoke or not. Every one. For HP not to offer this service but still seal the case and then bitch when it comes in with hair in it is pure bullshit.

You can make up all the excuses that you want. The truth is still "because you're a wuss." I hope none of you ever pee in a public restroom or eat in a restaurant. You might catch some infectious disease other than "chronic laziness."
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What I'm essentially saying is that all cats should be put to death. :rolleyes:

Every computer REQUIRES a monthly cleaning? :rolleyes:

Reread what you just typed out...because its YOU that seems to want to bitch about YOUR cleanliness.

I have kids who get their diaper changed a couple times a day. Do I bitch and moan to Onkyo because my Onkyo receiver has a 2-inch layer of baby powder in it, or do I make sure the baby powder isn't anywhere near my electronics?

Accept some damn responsibility...
 
I have an outdoor cat, that I let in when it's cold out, so she spends the night inside maybe a 3rd of the year.

I have cat fur in my computer, and I have to clean stuff obsessively because my house is the dustiest house on planet earth.

Anyone who says they own cats and don't ever have any cat fur in their electronics is either lying to us, or to themselves.

My sytem I just built and the cat has never even been in the same house with, had some cat hair in it this morning because it fell off my shirt I assume.

You have a cat, your electronics have cat hair in them, to some degree.
 
HP has got to have the most horribly customer service i have ever experienced, and there technicians, well i will just say that i got told by the service technicians manager Kevin that " If i left my laptop plugged in for more than 1 hour that it would cause excessive heat and that electricity would scrape the motherboard"

WTF did he just say. I laughed and totally just gave up on the situation and will never again be buying HP products for myself or customers and will not recommended them. I had called HP's tech department to see what they could do about the overheating issue that a laptop was experience DV6 series, and that was the response that i had got and that it was a user error. So listen to HP and don't leave your laptop's plugged in for more than an hour because according to HP electricity is going to scrape your motherboard.
 
most household dust is dead skin cells...every computer with dust on it should be sent back because it's a biological hazard
 
We bought our parents an HP PC a couple years ago and got the 3-year warranty so that I don't have to serve as tech support for my parents who are halfway across the country. It was a great deal and worth it b/c HP tech support has rescued them a few times. So I think their tech support is good from what my father says. Hopefully it will continue to do so. I know after the 3 years are up, they'll be calling me whenever something funky happens to their PC. :eek:
 
Thats nothing. I've seen dogs piss in computers until it corroded enough to have someone bring it in, with a few years of crystalized urine inside. I've pulled enough cat/dog hair out of pc's to wonder if it was killed. I've found dead animals in computers, mice, rats, lizards, snakes. You name it. I've even removed roaches from mice and seen a laser printer colonized by carpenter ants.
 
Aseras said:
Thats nothing. I've seen dogs piss in computers until it corroded enough to have someone bring it in, with a few years of crystalized urine inside. I've pulled enough cat/dog hair out of pc's to wonder if it was killed. I've found dead animals in computers, mice, rats, lizards, snakes. You name it. I've even removed roaches from mice and seen a laser printer colonized by carpenter ants.
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Great, now I'm going to puke up my last meal. :(
 
Thats why you always have filters and NEVER leave your computer on the floor for regular use. All kinds of crap will end up in there. I have mine 4' off the ground in a hole in the wall behind (kinda) my moniter.
 
i think some of you guys who are siding with HP are missing an important point here.

getting cat hair inside a computer if you own a cat is a fact of life.
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And cleaning up after your cats should be a fact of life for the owner. Regular maintenance should be understood. You don't get a 100k mile warranty on a car, never change the oil, then get a new car at 50k. You have to maintain the item for warranty to be valid.
 
Ascario said:
Funny you claim workers complain and whine, yet consumer do the very same thing. Some aren't even clever enough to check if their computers are plugged in to whine about faulty material. I won't say you're wrong about the whining workers, but consumers are just as bad.
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Well I have one thing to say about your post. And you should print this and post it where you can read it everyday while at work.

"The person who buys your product is paying your salary, you owe them the best support or product you can possibly provide. Anything less is unacceptable."

Consumers pay for the right to bitch and whine when they spend there money to buy the product.

Workers complaining or whining about there job usually are seeking new employment often. There are a few things I learned very early on, one of them was never bad mouth the person who signs your paycheck. That could be your boss or the people who support you by purchasing your services/products.
 
Aseras said:
Thats nothing. I've seen dogs piss in computers until it corroded enough to have someone bring it in, with a few years of crystalized urine inside. I've pulled enough cat/dog hair out of pc's to wonder if it was killed. I've found dead animals in computers, mice, rats, lizards, snakes. You name it. I've even removed roaches from mice and seen a laser printer colonized by carpenter ants.
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This is [H]
Awesome!
 
woodscomp said:
"The person who buys your product is paying your salary, you owe them the best support or product you can possibly provide. Anything less is unacceptable."

Consumers pay for the right to bitch and whine when they spend there money to buy the product.
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Yes, customers pay our salaries, but not ALL of them. Some customers end up COSTING a business. So yes, customers deserve to be treated well but only up to the point where the customer isn't costing more than they are worth. Yeah, it sucks but that's the real world.
 
Speedo68 said:
Both under warranty and out of warranty. In all my time (over 15k repairs) only voided warranty on 3 PCs.
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When I was a notebook tech I voided the warranties on that many machines a month easy. Hell I saw more machines with soda spills in them per month. I'm susprised someone can quote a number that low.

Jospeh said:
Am I missing something? I only see a couple strands of cat hair on the heatsink.
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Need to look at the pdf. I looked at it on my cell phone and from what I saw it looked dirty(around the ports it really showed) but not that bad. Without the tech notes I would have made some notes about the cat hair but chances are would have just cleaned it out. Right now we don't have the full story though. From the pics it didn't look that bad, just dirty(inside and out). Usually it takes more then that to cause problems but if it did cause the issues I can see HP voiding the warranty. The thing did look pretty nasty.

That being said I have seen much much worst.
 
Yea, but a Bio-Hazard?

Just take an air compressor and blow it out.
 
woodscomp said:
Well I have one thing to say about your post. And you should print this and post it where you can read it everyday while at work.

"The person who buys your product is paying your salary, you owe them the best support or product you can possibly provide. Anything less is unacceptable."
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I think I will...and put it right next to my "Hang In There" cat poster. :D
 
really that's not as bad as people who smoke near their computers, caked on smoke, pretty nasty. I wouldn't want to clean it.
 
Haven't read all the posts on this. But as a sole trader IT repair/tech guy I'm happy for HP and other such companies to act like assholes with customers over such trivial matters.

Just means more work for me.

Some of the crap I've cleaned out of folks PCs is staggering but its easy work to get paid good money for.
 
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