Fujitsu: Great Laptops, Horrible Depot Support

[Jason Dunn]

Nearly a year ago, I purchased a Fujitsu P5010D. It rocks. I have a half-finished review somewhere that I should just publish. ;-) Over the past few months though, things haven't been going so great with the laptop. It started out with four dead pixels in close proximity to each other, all near the center of the screen. The strange part was that they were white and still visible when the power was turned off (which I don't think is normal for dead pixels). Over the course of several months, I came to realize that there was debris and dust getting under the screen - I initially thought it was on the surface, but after a thorough clean job that wasn't the case.<br /><br />So I called up Fujitsu and explained the problem. They indicated that I'd need to take it to a local warranty depot, and from owning my second Fujitsu notebook, I knew it was a company named Decision One. The problem is that their depot hours are from 8 to 10 AM and 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM. Small window of opportunity to get it there, especially when they're a 30 minute drive away from me. My first attempt met with failure - the guy who was working there was new and didn't know how to take the laptop and process it for a warranty issue. He said to come back later when the other two technicians were there, so I returned an hour later only to receive the same story again. Frustrated, I left<!>. A week later I managed to make it there 10 minutes before the depot time ended, only to find the doors locked and lights out - another strike out for me. I knew I only had one month left on the warranty, and that I needed to get the laptop in for repair ASAP. I called Fujitsu and discovered (by accident) that there was another warranty depot I could take it to. Excited, I drove down that day and dropped off my laptop at AB Microtech.<br /><br /><b><span>That Was Then, This Is Now...</span></b><br />It's now been over three weeks since I did that, and I still don't have my laptop back. When I showed them the problem, their tech said he could just try to clean out the dust. I could tell that they had no clean room, and knowing that I only had one month left on the warranty, I didn't want to risk having more dust come back (since the real problem was the broken seal on the LCD screen). I told them I wanted a new LCD panel or at the very least the assembly replaced and a new seal. They agreed and I left. One week later I called to check on things, and they told me that they tried for several days to clean it, and only the day before I called they ordered the LCD part. They had no explanation for why they didn't do what I asked in the first place. I called back a week later, and now they told me that Fujitsu had asked them to send them the laptop, so they did.<br /><br />Yesterday I called to check on the status, and they were unable to tell me anything more than "Fujitsu has it". I called Fujitsu's tech support line to learn where my laptop was, only to discover there was no RMA associated with the serial number on my laptop, and that no parts or warranty work could be performed without an RMA. I called AB Microtech back again and they couldn't explain what Fujitsu was telling me, but they were able to provide me with an RMA number. I called Fujistu back and they told me the RMA number wasn't the correct type for their system, and they had no record of it. 8O<br /><br /><span><b>So Who Has My Laptop Exactly?</b></span><br />They told me that it might be an RMA from the Fujitsu office in Ontario, so I called them and managed to find someone who confirmed that my laptop was at their facility. Hooray! I left a voice mail for Ameer Khan, the person I was supposed to contact, and waited for him to call me back. He did just that within a few hours, but the results of our conversation were less than positive. The bottom line from Emir was that because he's never seen another P5010D with a dust problem like this, someone must have opened mine and broken the seal. He didn't come out and accuse me of doing this, but he said "someone" enough times that he thinks I'm guilty by association if nothing else. He said they would try to clean it and re-seal it, but that they would replace no parts. I told him that if this wasn't an issue they had seen before, then logically is must be a faulty part, but he didn't agree. :roll:<br /><br />So now I sit here, more than three weeks without my laptop, waiting to get it back and knowing that, more than likely, within a few months it will develop the same dust problem again. I hope I'm wrong, but I've had enough experience with dusty Pocket PCs to know that once dust gets in there, it will keep coming back until something drastic changes. There's a slight chance that they'll see the dead pixels and replace the LCD panel, but I'm not hopeful based on the lack of customer support I've seen from them so far. Fujitsu's 1-800 tech people are great, and the laptop is amazing, but dealing with their warranty depot/repair people has been a nightmare. If you're considering getting a Fujitsu notebook, consider yourself warned. :?:<br /><br /><span><b>July 15th Update</b></span><br />Yesterday morning I received a phone call from AB Microtech telling me that my laptop was back in their possession. :D And late yesterday, after teaching my college class for the third straight week without my laptop, I finally had it back. The repair paperwork was a little vague - it said that Fujitsu had cleaned the dust out from under the screen, but didn't indicate if they had replaced any parts, found a physically broken seal, etc. So while it's nearly perfect now - no more dust or strange stuck pixels - I'm left wondering if this will happen again.<br /><br />After a careful cleaning of the screen, if I look at it from an angle, I can see several small particles under the screen along with a larger spot that I initially thought was on top of the screen, but seems to be under it. My one-year warranty expires on August 11th, so I have a few weeks to see if the dust will return. I really hope it doesn't, because based on my experience with Fujitsu, their repair process takes far too long.<br /><br />I can't help but think that if Fujitsu really cared about quality as much as they say they do, they would have replaced the whole upper assembly - something is clearly wrong with it, yet I have no indication that they did anything other than clean out the dust. As much as I like my P5010D, this is the last Fujitsu notebook I'm going to purchase - I can't risk going through another round of warranty hell.<br /><br /><span><b>August 10th Update</b></span><br />My worse fears for this "repair" have come true - roughly tough weeks after getting the laptop back, dust started to appear under the screen in the lower right portion of the central zone. It was light in colour so I thought I could ignore it, but on August 4th a large (4-5 pixels wide) white piece of debris appeared under the screen in the upper left, and I couldn't ignore it any longer. I called back Fujitsu tech support in the US, told tech named Kevin my story (including the fact that Ameer Khan basically accused me of opening up the screen and getting dust in it), and much to his credit, he said he'd pass me on to second level support who would be calling me within four hours, or the next day at the latest. I waited two days, then called back and was patched through live to tech support - at the same time they gave me instructions on how to update my warranty expiration to the correct date of August 11th, 2004 instead of July 31st...and you can figure out why that was important. ;-)<br /><br />I spoke to Toby in second level support, and Toby informed me that my case was passed on to Brent Barkhouse, a manager. I waited several more days and called back again on Monday the 9th, only two days until my warranty expired. I spoke to several helpful people, and I was informed by a call back a few hours later that Brent was away on vacation and that if I wished, I could send the laptop back to Fujitsu USA at no cost, and they'd do the repair. Since I'm planning on leaving for a one-week vacation at the end of this week, and I wanted to have the laptop with me, I informed the techs that I'd be in touch with Brent when I returned. I have an RMA number that's good for 30 days, so in a worst case scenario when I return from my vacation I'll ship the laptop down to the US where hopefully my problem will be fixed.<br /><br />I'm not pleased that the laptop has developed the dust problem again, but I blame that on Ameer Khan's insistence that no parts needed replacing, and it just needed cleaning. That clearly was not the case, and now I'm once again going to be inconvenienced by not having my laptop. I start teaching my college class again on September 2nd, so I'll have a small window of opportunity with which to get the laptop repaired. And I can only hope that this time, Fujitsu listens to me and fixes this problem once and for all - I'm not going to get a third chance now that my warranty will run out tomorrow... :?<br /><br /><span><b>September 25th Update</b></span><br />I'm pleased to report that this story has a happy ending. Fujitsu returned my laptop after a cleaning and a replacement of the outer screen, and after three weeks it's still dust free. They also extended my warranty by an extra three months for added security against this problem. While they weren't able to explain how the dust got under the screen, they were confident that the problem was not permanently fixed. That seems to be the case, but I won't be 100% convinced until another month has gone by and the laptop is dust-free.<br /><br />In the end, I'm happy that Fujitsu stepped up and fixed my problem once and for all, and the extended warranty was a gracious touch. The weak link in the chain is their local warranty depot support, which I dearly hope is less dysfunctional in other cities. Would I buy a Fujitsu laptop again? It would depend on how unique their offering was - I've owned two Fujitsu laptops, and both have required warranty support, so my confidence in their product quality isn't exactly bubbling over. Still, some of their products (such as the P5000 and P7000 series) offer benefits no other OEM can match - so I won't rule them out in the future.

[David Horn]

I feel sorry for you Jason, I really do! My iPAQ had pretty much precisely the same problem so I sent it in to be cleaned. When they got it, they said that it wasn't dust, it was dirt, and that I must have put it there myself.

Pay us the the £200 for looking at it and we'll send it back.

I stropped, and raved, and eventually called the local trading standards office. They got my iPAQ sent back from Holland with a new screen.

In America the consumer has next to no rights (in the UK we get a guaranteed 1 year warranty, and technically 6 years) but in Canada it might be different. If you have a trading standards office, or citizens advice office, I'd suggest giving them a ring. What Fujitsu are doing could very well be illegal - at least it would be in the UK.

Let us know when you get your laptop back - I was thinking today of buying a Fujitsu, but you've changed my mind now. May well be worth giving this link to the tech you spoke to, point out to him how he's just lost the company $2000. A decent warranty service is something I prize highly in a product.

As a footnote, I now use an Asus. ;)

[Janak Parekh]

David makes some good points. Another suggestion, Jason, would be to email the president of Fujitsu Canada (or perhaps Fujitsu USA). You might even want to point out that you run high-traffic websites and your message will spread about their absolutely lousy service. I've heard various situations where that's caused amazingly fast service...

--janak

[Jason Dunn]

Thanks guys. I certainly haven't given up or anything - I'm just waiting for them to get me back my laptop so I can see what solution they ended up implementing. The battle is far from over. 8)

[bobbo]

Try a notebook from the company that invented them - Toshiba. You won't regret it!

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

IBM for me! =P

I'll also add that these things are very location specific. I've had great service from Fujitsu when I owned one.

[Jason Kravitz]

sounds like a rough ride - sorry to hear things were so difficult...

on a side note. I've had my Dell I8600 for a few months now and my screen is a bit gummed up. In the past I cleaned it with a very soft rag and water but it always left smudges wherever I cleaned.

Anyone out there have a good method of cleaning laptop screens?

I bought some PecPads to clean my camera image sensor - they are extremely soft clcoths with little residue on them - I was going to try to wipe the screen with these but was wondering if I should use water or some solvent...

[Andy Manea]

I bought a Fujistu Siemens laptop before Christmas two years ago. When I got home, that piece of sh.. only turned on once, then never again. I wanted to return it, but I had purchased it in a telecommunications store and they told me I had to contact FS. I did, and THEY told me the store was responsible, went back to the store, they told me FS was responsible. It went back and forth and back an forth and I saw myself running out of time (in Germany, you can return things within the first 2 weeks if the companies feel like taking the goods back, otherwise you have to have the item sent in for repair at least three times before - by law - they have to give you back your money. At least that's how it was 2 years ago.) Remember, that was during the Christmas - New Year time when the stores are closed for 4 days ... plus the weekends.

In the end I got so mad, I started a fight in the store and said I would not leave without my money. Of course I made sure I was loud, to scare off potential customers :wink: In the end I got my money back and left the store with the resolution to never EVER buy anything from that company again!! And I mean the store AND Fujitsu Siemens. No thanks.

[foldedspace]

You might contact Ivan at Portable One (http://www.laptopsinc.com). They tend to be real responsive to questions and have an in apparently with Fujitsu. Plus they are great about answering questions.

[Gordo]

Just added Fujitsu to the don't buy list. HP and Acer have been the choices in the past, but Toshiba will likely be the next candidate.

Good Luck with repairs!

[Filip Norrgard]

I hope that you'll get the laptop fixed and back the soonest so that you'll be able to finish that review! :wink:

[Crocuta]

Yeah, it's not just Fujitsu. I hadn't bought a prebuilt computer for over a decade before moving back to the US. I built them them myself and often said I'd never do otherwise. But when you turn your whole life upside down and have to buy a house, cars, furniture, electronics.... in other words, everything all at once... it just seemed like to much time to invest, so I picked up a couple of HP computers for me and my wife. Big mistake!!!

The specs were alright, but they've been nothing but trouble. They came with so much crap on them (literally dozens of stupid little programs running processes in the background) that I had to wipe the hard drives and install everything from scratch. I timed both and they took almost three times the time to boot up before the rebuild as after.

My wife's CPU died within a month of buying hers and it took a couple of weeks to get it back. Of course, even though it had nothing to do with the hard drive, they wiped it anyway, so I had to build her system all over again. While doing that (the first time), I needed to install the chipset drivers into XP so it would recognize all of the devices. You could download chipset drivers but they included drivers for four different chipsets (1 Intel, 2 VIA and 1 NVidia) with no way to tell which one you had. Do you think you could just look in the booklets that came with it, or on the motherboard, or on the Net, to find out which chipset it was? No, you had to call and go through 45 minutes with an Indian tech support guy who seemed for all the world like it was the biggest secret in the world and like he'd lose his job if he answered that one simple question.

After less than a year, mine is on its last legs, failing to start about every fifth time, but so far just retrying it has worked. I know that one day it will just die completely and I'll be up the creek. Luckily, the warranty is just about up on mine so when that happens, I'll just rip the guts out and put in some decent parts. The cases are nice, and they both have a really nice 6-in-1 flash media reader built-in, so it'll be nice once I get all of the HP internals out of there.

In the meantime, I would heartily recommend anyone looking for a desktop PC to look past HP. I know that two isn't a statistically valid sample, but in my gut I find it hard to believe that two out of two going bad is just coincidence. And if you do get one and have problems, be prepared for some grief.

Still, even after all these complaints, nothing they've done is as bad as what Jason's going through with Fujitsu. I once looked seriously at a lifebook, but I'm gun shy about support now. That'll never happen. In contrast, the Dell notebook they bought me from the college had a problem and they got it fixed in about 2 days including the day I reported it. It needed a new motherboard which doesn't speak so well for quality control,, but at least they dealt with it quickly and efficiently. They've also been very good when I've called about minor questions getting things working and all. I'd feel comfortable buying a laptop from Dell again, though for my desktops, it definitely back to home built.

[Jason Kravitz]

I was hesitant about buying a Dell laptop. They also install a lot of crap on their systems although I never use a factory OS install anyway so that didn't matter...

My biggest fear was that in the past, Dell has used less than optimal (from a gamer/ perfomance perspective) parts in desktops and laptops and it seemed they were overpriced when I bought my Sager laptop (which had great specs but was heavy and had a horrible battery)

I was thinking of buying a niche brand like Vodoo (not alienware because the sager and alienware are pretty much the same thing but the sager costs $1000 less) but ended up getting a Dell

I could get good specs (128mb ATI 9600 turbo pro graphics card, 7200rpm hard drive etc) with a widescreen display that is also much lighter and thanks to Pentium M my battery lasts a really long time. Plus the price was very competitive.

I have been happy so far although I have not had a to send it back yet so who knows - I might be sending in a horror story myself some day :)

[Suhit Gupta]

It is interesting reading your tale of woe and I really hope things work out for you. However, the reason why I say your story is interesting is because I have basically had the exact same experience with my Sony TV. I bought a Sony Wega 32" over 3 years ago from Circuit City and over a year ago it started having trouble with reception (fuzzy snowy reception after midnight and all during weekends, plus intermittent bad picture quality throughout the day). Luckily had had purchased the extended warranty. So I called Time Warner Cable thinking it was a cable problem but over the course of a couple of months, they replaced almost every single part of cabling and equipment in my apartment and the problem continued. After removing every other variable, they narrowed it down to the TV. So I called Circuit City.

They sent over a tech who did not speak any English and basically blamed the problem on the Empire State Building. Argh. They then sent over a second tech who took the TV to his shop. They saw the problem in my apartment and claimed that the problem did not exist in their shop. When I went over, I saw the same problem and they claimed that the problem was with their cable line and not the TV. Argh.

At this point I called Sony and they said that Sony had no reason to help me and that I was to call Circuit City.

I called Circuit City again and they sent over a third tech, and claimed that this was my last chance and after this tech they would consider the problem to be in my mind (wonderful). The third tech came (note that when I say different techs, these are different authorized personnel arounf NYC), again saw the problem, and ordered parts to fix the problem. 2 weeks later, they installed it and that did not fix it. So they took the TV to the shop to order more parts. 3 weeks later, they returned it but that didn't solve the problem either.

At this point my warranty had conveniently expired and I am left with a TV that doesn't work well. In desperation I wrote to the Sony President/CEO (yes, stupid move but I was desperate) and the next day I got a call from his people who then escalated the problem within Sony support but Sony support refused to do anything since I did not buy the TV from Sony. So all in all, I was screwed. Note that this tale spans over 1.5 years and I had invested a fair bit of money when I bought this unit so this was a very depressing situation. Jason, I really hope you have better luck than I did.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

That's why I say.. Sony sucks. =P

[Crocuta]

At this point my warranty had conveniently expired and I am left with a TV that doesn't work well.

Wow, Suhit, I feel your pain. I've bought a lot of Sony equipment and one of the reasons why is that I've never needed repair on a Sony product ever. But this really gives me pause. Sooner or later, something is going to break and if this is what I can expect, I may have to look further next time I buy.

[Jason Dunn]

The sad truth is that in our world of "out stock prices have to keep climbing no matter what", quality has taken second tier to quantity and fat profit margins. I'm a huge fan of capitalism and free market economies, but most companies don't seem to care about retaining their customers any more, they're only going after new customers and burning their old ones. :roll:

[Jason Dunn]

Try a notebook from the company that invented them - Toshiba. You won't regret it!

If they had anything like the P5010D, I probably would have, but they don't. Their laptop designs are nice, but they don't have many options when it comes to smaller laptops.

[Jason Dunn]

I now have my laptop back - check out the original post for the update.

[Fitch]

You might contact Ivan at Portable One (http://www.laptopsinc.com). They tend to be real responsive to questions and have an in apparently with Fujitsu. Plus they are great about answering questions.

Wow, small world, I bought my g/f's laptop from Ivan. REALLY nice guy, very knowledgable, great prices. I bought the 3-year extended warranty, PLUS, I bought with American Express Blue which extends it another year.

Luckily, my local repair shop is on the same street as my house. OK, granted, it's like 10 miles down that street, but still pretty local. They close early, but are open all day.
Fujitsu has covered a messed up power connection (bad soldering connection) a at-cost replacement of the busted front LCD (that little black & white indicator on the front) for like $6, and now the headphone jack has gone loose, too, and fujitsu has agreed to cover that as well.

Jason's problem sounds like BAD repair shops to me. They didn't do what you asked them, they didn't do what they TOLD you they did, and they almost voided your warranty by opening your screen seal!

I'd complain about their terrible repair shops. Terrible hours and helpless staff are probably not how they meant to get good Fujitsu certification.

The Fujitsu was a great value and it's a great laptop with no performance problems. I especially love the mini-Firewire, s-video, and S/PDIF output. Their warranty is only as good as the competant people who they 'certify' to be repair folks, unfortunately, and I think this is where the problem lay.

This story is not nearly as bad as Suhit's Sony story, at least they tried to fix it (but didn't replace it, which SUCKS)

[Zack Mahdavi]

Congrats Jason for finally getting the thing fixed.. you really shouldn't have had to go through that debacle in the first place. After reading about your experience, I don't think I'll buy a Fujitsu laptop in the near future. Too bad, because some of their laptops are really thin.

[Filip Norrgard]

While they weren't able to explain how the dust got under the screen, they were confident that the problem was not permanently fixed. That seems to be the case, but I won't be 100% convinced until another month has gone by and the laptop is dust-free.
Huh?! 8O

So they could only fix the problem but not prevent it from happening again? Hmm... time to add Fujitsu Siemens laptops to my gray list (aka. "try to avoid buying this"-list) if they can fix such a trivial issue. :roll:

[Jason Dunn]

Huh?! 8O

That was a typo that has been fixed - Futjisu believes they've permanently fixed the problem, but only time will tell...

[Filip Norrgard]

That was a typo that has been fixed - Futjisu believes they've permanently fixed the problem, but only time will tell...
:oops: Ok... :lol: The text makes more sense now... ;)

[Crocuta]

Hey, I'm really glad you finally got your laptop back (and hopefully fixed). In my book this is too little, too late for Fujitsu and they're still on my blacklist. I once looked seriously at the Lifebooks, but ultimately went with a company I had a bit more faith in. This just confirms it. Never say never, I suppose, but I haven't bought a Fujitsu product so far in my life, so it doesn't seem too hard to continue that trend.