Don't Worry, Know the Warranty

As on my previous posts, I have mentioned that I have two MSI Motherboards that failed.  These are 2 out of 10.  Thinking that the boards are no longer covered with warranty, since PC Express claims that there is only one year warranty for MSI motherboards, I tried to see what was really wrong with these boards.  There were no signs of burn marks, damaged components or anything.  I lost hope and thought that there will be two PCs in our shop with no motherboards.  One day I mentioned the problem to one of my officemate, who happens to also have a computer shop.  He told me that most of the motherboards have at least two years of warranty.  He suggested to look for the official distributor and call them to double check if the one year warranty that PC Express claims is valid.  So I did looked up in the internet and found in MSI's website that their official distributor in the Philippines is NetEssentials and their office is found in 8th steet along Boni Serrano which was quite near our office.  According to them the warranty of MSI boards is 2 years.  To my surprise, I jumped for joy!  My Mobos are still covered!  The following day I hurriedly brought the two boards to NetEssentials.  They did the necessary inspections like the one I did before, looked for any burn marks, damaged components, and the sticker with the serial numbers.  After been visual inspected, they gave me a slip and said that I can follow-up the status of the boards after 3 working days.  It took 1 week before the boards were replaced with new ones.  They said that the problem was the on-board graphics.  Although its been a week, it is better to have them back than not having them fixed or replaced at all.

This has been a lesson to me, that before having your device or any other electronic appliance or gadget repaired by yourself or an outside technician, know first if it is still covered with warranty.  Some brands let their products carry an international warranty.  This means that if you bought it from someplace else like Singapore, Hong Kong, or even in the US of A.

One of my experience regarding the warranty is repairing my 2nd Generation iPod.  After failure to repair it I delegated it to the Mac Center in Megamall.  After having it shipped to Singapore I found out that it was still under warranty with only a few days left for the warranty to expire.  They could have replaced it with a new one if it not I have opened it.

Recently, my boss asked me if I can fix his HP Netbook since it won't boot up.  My advice is to contact HP first and know if it is still under warranty and have them fixed it instead of me.  After one day he endorsed it to HP and they repaired it since it is still covered with warranty.  Unfortunately, HP will have to format the hard disk and reinstall the system including the OS.  Bummer.

So if you have a defective gadget, Do not worry, know the warranty!

I'm Officially a Symbian User

I am writing this to declare that my O2 XDA II Mini is officially dead.  It died when my wife accidentally dropped it in the toilet bowl.  I attempted to revive it but after a couple of disassembly-assembly and a bit of visual inspection(Just to see if I have a darn talent in fixing such kind of devices) it no longer showed signs of life, so I declared it as totally unusable.  Well, this is bad news for my wife since she was the one who inherited it.  Anyway, since I currently have 2 cellphones that I am using, now I have to choose which one of them should I give her, my Nokia E90 or my HTC Touch Viva.

Beforehand, before it was flushed-up, I already have a clue that the O2 wouldn't last that long so I have already decided that I will give her my HTC Touch Viva and will live with a Symbian based E90.  Although I am having second thoughts since the Viva is very much useful to me especially the dictionary and the MS Office programs.  But anyway, I still gave it to her.  I thought to myself that the HTC Viva is too much for me.  The applications that was installed in the Viva were no longer used for the past couple of months except for the dictionary and the MS Excel.  So I just let it go.

The E90 have a battery problem, aside for the fact that it doesn't last for a day the battery itself is already bloated.  So I went out to buy a replacement battery and also unlocked the E90 since it was tied up with Globe. I am a die hard Sun Cellular user.

I installed some apps from the Ovi store and upgraded the firmware hoping that it will boost-up in speed since it only had a 300MHz processor.  The Ovi app store is not that appealing compared to the iTunes App store.  I have limited choices and didn't even found a dictionary application.  Good thing that I have downloaded a software from this Indian guy named Vikrant and have it installed.  What I don't like about it is that it's quite heavy in the pocket.  That is why I also bought a special belt-clip for it.  But on the bright side I already got used to this phone and have enjoyed using it ever since.  I type faster especially when texting.  Slowly I am liking the feel of the Symbian S60 software.  Although opening applications takes quite some time but I am able to manage.  Besides, the reason I choose this is to simplify things and it did.