Your Vote for the Worst Laptop Ever Made

[cdbrehm]

My vote goes squarely for the HP DV6000 Series laptops. I see more of these laptops in my shop than I care to admit--I practically have nightmares about them

NVidia may be more to blame for this than HP, as it is their lemon-of-all-lemons graphics chip that causes most of the issues. But there are also Southbridge issues with this laptops, Wifi card problems, DC jack problems, etc. It's really the DV series period--the DV2000 series, DV6000's, and DV9000's. Lousy thermal management.

There are certain models of Toshiba laptops made say 4 or 5 years ago that have desktop, not laptop, processors. They heat up like crazy, causing the solder to go bad on the DC jacks. They will not even turn on without the battery being charged a good 10%. I've had customers bring me these laptops for their second DC jack repair in as many years.

 

[14049752]

I was going to say DV9000. The whole line is terrible, but the 9000 had all of those problems AND the problem of the hinges breaking.

 

[cdbrehm]

Yes, I forgot to mention the hinges on that big 17" LCD. Or rather the LCD brackets. Once one of them breaks, the other bracket/hinge gets torq'ed almost instantly, and then the brass anchors holding the plastic LCD cover break and pop out, requiring not only a replacement of the broken brackets but of the entire back LCD cover.

 

[tech0007]

Hp's DV series-heating issues,Hinges,
Dell's are hit and miss,either get a good one or a bad one

my 2 pennies

 

[JosephLeo]

Any Fujitsu laptop. Those things are horrible....

 

[edmar]

HP laptops. Not just the DV series (2000,6000,9000)

 

[iptech]

HP DV series and anything made by Uniwill.

 

[4ycr]

hp DV series for me as well

 

[Lefty]

Another vote for the HP DV series. Terrible, terrible design.

You'd think they would be built better, considering how much they cost.

 

[shamrin]

Worst: HP DV9000
Dishonourable mention: HP DV6000
Also ran: HP TX series

 

[meanderer]

HP DV series has to be the worst nightmare to take apart and service. The frequency of GPU failure is just stupid. Well we can see it as a good thing for (moderately) easy reflow income. But really, it's just sad at the consumer standpoint.

 

[arrow_runner]

I have to vote for the Gateway MA3-MA7 series laptops. (15.4" screen) There's probably an MA1 and MA2, but I don't think I've seen them.

Sure, HP messed up with the DV series, but that was only ONE generation of laptops.

The MA(X) type of laptop from Gateway was made for SEVERAL years (I've seen some with IDE hard drives and Celeron Ms and some with SATA/Dual Core CPUs) and they both have two HUGE flaws.

The left hing can lockup. When it does, it breaks the lower casing of the laptop and it can also damage the backing and bezel for the LCD. I know the DV9000 had a similar issue, but again, this problem affects several generations of Gateway laptops.

The other flaw is the DC Jack. I see this laptop come in for jack replacement more than any other single type of laptop. When this one does come in, I need to make a new connection to the center pin because the copper sleeve broke out from the motherboard.

The other BIG problem is that it's impossible to get new parts from Gateway, especially since they were sold to two different entities, and the one that did the support for Gateway went bankrupt later.

AFAIK, this design was only dropped in the last year or two.

 

[gazza]

All laptops are beautiful. lol

 

[dnt810]

Funny all the bad reviews on HP's dv series here... I have a HP dv8000, the thing's been stolen and recovered since i bought it and it still works like a top... no issues whatsoever, and its built pretty rugged IMO. I use it as a work computer, but its really not portable enough for field work... too heavy.

The only time I've opened it was after I recovered it from the police... I upgraded the hard drives and RAM.

My wife uses a HP dv7-3065dx Again, no issues, but it's certainly not built as rugged. It's really for home use as an entertainment or internet browsing tool. Not an issue for us as she uses it almost like a desktop.

IMO it comes down to the user, if you're gonna be rough with your laptop, you have to do your homework and buy one that's going to hold up to the pounding. If you don't - well that's what keeps us techs in business.

Regards,
-Don

 

[Tech23]

E-machines usually makes crap products.

Yes I've had problems with the dv series too.

 

[joydivision]

The old Toshiba's were such a joke I just don't recomend them any more. For me though its the Dell 1520 series. I am not sure if its because they were cheap so abused but see so many of them with failed hard drives, broken hinges, the DC jacks fail after three years, the AC fails usualy within a year.

I had one and it actually caught fire because the cabke to the LCD screen was damaged.

 

[iisjman07]

Macintosh Powerbook 150, I've always had a specific hatred in my heart for them:

 

[geekhelp4u]

Its a flat out nVidia problem that plagues the HP DV Series. Same graphics card on the Dell Latitude D630 machines so it is a toss up between these two!

 

[jscx93]

HP DV6000, 9000, 2000. Compaq V6000 F700 .. etc all of these just SUCK and definitely get my vote on worst computer ever award.

The op has it dead on with Nvidia and the southbridge nightmares. I suffer from them too.

I will not repair another DV and I try to steer away as many people as possible from fixing them, it always ends in a headache. I don't even sell HP anymore or carry any HP products in my store (I have had issues with seriously almost all of them, even the new ones have had HDD recalls already!)

The newer Toshiba's have been having problems with poorly designed DC jack holsters that break, and the newer Dells (the walmart/beast buy specials) have already had hinge problems and are built with the cheapest plastics known to man.

I would vote Nvidia for plaguing the entire computer world with their crappy chipsets and the extremely hot GPUs

 

[cdbrehm]

HP DV6000, 9000, 2000. Compaq V6000 F700 .. etc all of these just SUCK and definitely get my vote on worst computer ever award.

The op has it dead on with Nvidia and the southbridge nightmares. I suffer from them too.

I will not repair another DV and I try to steer away as many people as possible from fixing them, it always ends in a headache. I don't even sell HP anymore or carry any HP products in my store (I have had issues with seriously almost all of them, even the new ones have had HDD recalls already!)

The newer Toshiba's have been having problems with poorly designed DC jack holsters that break, and the newer Dells (the walmart/beast buy specials) have already had hinge problems and are built with the cheapest plastics known to man.

I would vote Nvidia for plaguing the entire computer world with their crappy chipsets and the extremely hot GPUs

Just today I had a customer bring over yet another an HP DV6000. What made this customer different is that he had tried to repair the laptop himself. Original issue was that he'd be working on his laptop, then all the sudden it would lose power. So--against all better judgement--he disassembles it himself, reapplies thermal compound, puts it back together, and now it will not power on period. No juice at all.

The moral of the story here being: the only thing worse than an HP DV series laptop is an HP DV series laptop a customer has tried to fix himself