[lug] The tide's turning perhaps... :-)

[D. Stimits]

chris wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 29, 2002 at 02:05:36PM -0600, svq wrote:
> 
>>"D. Stimits" wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Many places won't honor their warranty if the o/s is not installed from
>>
>     ^^^^
> 
> (not all)

And especially not systems you put together yourself.

> 
> 
> 
>>>their disks. Of course the owner could probably re-install windows from
>>>the store disks if returning it. It is funny that many of these
>>>retailers will not even honor the warranty if another version of windows
>>>is installed...even the same type of windows installed from a CD not of
>>>their own can remove all service aid in the warranty.
>>>
>>>D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi.com
>>>
>>
>>So if I were to buy a new laptop, it would be useless to buy the extended
>>warrenty if I were planning to install Linux as soon as I got it?
> 
> 
> i've never had a warranty like this.  i've never bought a computer in
> colorado though.  just ask before you buy, is my advice.  i know that
> ibm for example will certainly fix a bad HD no matter what is on it, in
> one of their laptops.  (happened to a friend of mine).

See Dell Computer, and Michael Deck's comments below. I don't know of 
any Colorado mom & pop stores that do this. Probably if you buy from 
CompUSA or similar chain stores, it would be worth checking out ahead of 
time.

> 
> from personal experience, apple certainly doesn't care, though the tech
> on the other end of the warranty line was a little surprised when i told
> him "none" for what version of MacOS i was running on that powerbook.
> they still shipped me a new power brick/cord when mine went out.
> 
> what this really shows up is that it might make more sense for a tech-savvy
> person to "build their own"--i've never bought a new *part* from any retailer
> that didn't have a >=1 year warranty, regardless of use, intended and actual.
> and i can tell what's wrong with my computer (memtest86, bonnie,
> dnetc+lm_sensors, kernel messages, etc), so when there's bad memory i just
> send it back.  it helps to find vendors that either don't have time/energy
> to contest your findings or that believe in your expertise...but i buy all
> my low-cost stuff from whoever's on top of pricewatch and have done a few
> returns-for-new-same-part without trouble.

"build your own" is always a nice way to go so far as not getting linux 
rejected. Only problem I ever had with this is from SuperMicro saying 
their APIC worked fine under NT, so it must be a Linux problem (it 
wasn't), and they wouldn't talk further about it.

D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi.com