PC World Health Check

[rovert]

I am just wondering if anyone else has been as foolish as me in entrusting their computer to PC World. Having had a few problems of late and, as it was free by virtue of my 12 month maintenance agreement, I thought a spring clean might be appropriate. How wrong can you be?

A previous healthcheck led to only minor inconvenience in that a couple of programs were disabled from the start up menu and a call to the store guided me to restore things to their previous state. However, on this occasion, PC World excelled themselves. On switching on after bringing the pc home it appeared to start up normally although I noted that the icon for Norton Internet Security did not appear in the taskbar. I could not connect to the internet by either IE or Firefox. Further investigation revealed that a total of 8 programs had been disabled from the start up menu. Six of these related to Norton but in addition "HIDSERV" and "SYSTEMTRAY" were disabled. Even with my limited knowledge of computing I know that System Tray is fairly crucial to pc running.

The call to the store to query their actions is another story in itself. It appears that there is only 1 telephone number to the whole of PC World which is, of course, an 0870 number presumably to maximise income from those in queues and ploughing their way through the various menu layers. Eventually, after a wait in one of the aforementioned queues, I got customer services who after some persuasion connected me to the store. This turned out to be a total waste of time as I was basically told to return the pc to the store the following day to have the errors rectified. No explanation or apology was forthcoming. I decided against another visit to the store and restored the start up menu myself using "msconfig".

I had on my pc both Ad-Aware and Spybot which I normally run weekly. As a week had gone by since the healthcheck I decided to run the programs. However, although the shortcut icons were there, Windows was unable to locate the programs. I can only assume that they were removed during the healthcheck perhaps as part of the unnecessary files process! Clearly PC World staff have something to learn here.

I am posting this as a cautionary tale to anyone considering using PC World for similar services.

[TheBlueRaja]

Can i ask - out of curiosity - how much did you pay?

Least you didnt buy a Time machine ,and had to call them all they would do is format format format,Sounds like you had a run in with the infamous warrenty hard sell.If its any consolation I got suckered by Dixons(same group) on my first pc

[paulyoung666]

Originally Posted by TheBlueRaja

Can i ask - out of curiosity - how much did you pay?

2nd line ' it was free ' , anyway , i guess you wont be going back to them

[rovert]

Like I said the Healthcheck itself was free because of the warranty which I think was £50+ for the year. Don't think I will be taking out another.

Went through the "format" game with them last October. Wonder if they have heard of System Restore?

[Monster Jedi]

Originally Posted by rovert

Like I said the Healthcheck itself was free because of the warranty which I think was £50+ for the year. Don't think I will be taking out another.

Went through the "format" game with them last October. Wonder if they have heard of System Restore?

A System Restore?. That's a joke .You can't beat a full fresh clean Hard Format and a new install . The System Restore nots worth the HD Space it takes up

[Bifta]

Originally Posted by Monster Jedi

The System Restore nots worth the HD Space it takes up

Of course it is, on a few occasions I've used system restore to get my machines back into a workable state when a reformat would have been out of the question.

[tabatha]

http://www.saynoto0870.com/company_search.php
Hi...The above link will give you a freefone num for PC World...
I have found them ok to find out whats on the market...Then buy elsewhere...A neighbour has the extended warranty...after 3 months they still cannot tell her why her dial-up connection to AOL...yuk...times out after 15 mins....

[AndrewJ]

I always disable system restore one of the first things I do after a format, and as current this laptop has been on Xp running nice and slow poddling along for about 6month now without a format.

Why the need to format so much?

[nffc]

Originally Posted by AndrewJames

I always disable system restore one of the first things I do after a format, and as current this laptop has been on Xp running nice and slow poddling along for about 6month now without a format.

Why the need to format so much?

This has been running fine for about 16 months since last format.

[AndrewJ]

Nice to hear, I know a few people who have used PCWorld for warranty, I also have heard some wonderful stories about there upgrade facility, including harddrive upgrades, when a customer wanted a 2nd Harddrive installed into a E-machines system, when he got it home he heard a clunk... after his son opened the machine up the PCworld trained proffesional staff, had selotaped the 2nd handdrive onto the side of the tower. And needless to say with the trip home etc it had shook loose.

Put me off for life.

[nffc]

That's just plain ridiculous. Sellotape?

I could (and have) done a better job.

I use old macarno if theres no spare drive bay

[nffc]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

I use old macarno if theres no spare drive bay

At least that's relatively secure though, unlike sellotape.

sellotape is s**t anyway especially when it gets hot, or wet for that matter.

Originally Posted by nffc

At least that's relatively secure though, unlike sellotape.

sellotape is s**t anyway especially when it gets hot, or wet for that matter.

I was showing my ingenuity not that im a bodge it and leg it type