HyderabadLaptops or HyderabadLaptops.com seems to be a division or an alias of AISS (Academy for Integrated Systems & Solutions) and deals with computer hardware. I got to know of this company while googling for laptop repair services. Generally, when writing a review of a product or a service, I tend to give an advice to my readers whether to use the product/service or not. However, in this case, I will just mention my experience with them, state my personal opinions, and leave it to the better judgement of the readers whether they want to avail their service or not. In case you do not have the time to read the entire review, just scroll over to the last article to read my personal opinion about them.
The problem with my laptop began when the display was all garbled. I initially contacted Global Technologies in Secunderabad. They fixed the problem for Rs.900 but two weeks later, the same problem surfaced. This is when I considered getting my laptop repaired with HyderabadLaptops. Their office at Nagarjuna Cirlce consists of a big room where their junior executive (Mr. Omkar) and the receptionist sit. There is a smaller cabin where a more senior executive (Mr. Rajesh) sits. Attached to both theses rooms is an even smaller space, which supposedly is their lab where I think a couple of technicians work.
After I handed over my laptop to them, they got back to me informing me that their was a problem with a BGA chipset and that I had two options, either to repair the current chipset, which would cost me Rs.1800 and comes with a 2 week warranty or to replace it with a new chipset, that would cost me Rs.4500 and comes with a 1 month warranty. I decided to have the chipset replaced as they told me that the same problem could again come up if I repaired the existing chipset. As per what they told me, the procedure of fixing the new chipset involved placing an order for the chipset from Bangalore IBM, which would take a couple of days to come through the courier, and then fixing the chipset, which would take a couple of hours. I told them that I would like to see the chipset when it arrived. But they were completely against it. As a matter of fact, they even asked me to take back my laptop. But after a lot of insisting, they agreed to show me the chipset when it arrived.
Three days later, they informed me that the chipset had arrived. I went and had a look at it. They had already removed it from the courier and showed me a small chipset. I was expecting the chipset to be in a properly sealed box as they claimed that it was new but it was only in a small plastic box covered with plastic case. It might be possible that as this is not a consumer sold part, there is no solid packaging for it. They asked me to come back in a couple of hours after they fixed it. When I went back after a couple of hours, they said that fixing the chipset was taking time and told me that it would be mostly done by next day.
I called them up the next day but they said that it would take one more day. This is when I became suspicious that something was wrong. Another day had passed, and I again called them. They then told me that the chipset which they had ordered and had shown me was not compatible with my laptop. They have placed an order for another chipset and that would take another 3-4 days. However, surprisingly, they called me up the next day itself and said that the chipset had arrived and they had fixed it. They had by now taken a total of 7 days to resolve the issue.
I went back to them to collect my laptop. I initially opened the laptop to see where the chipset was fixed. Mr. Rajesh was slightly surprised to see this and told me that he was being very considerate by letting me open my own laptop and that no other repair center would agree to it. It actually surprised me that he was reluctant to have me examine my own laptop.
The laptop booted properly and the display was fine but I noticed that the hdd cover was missing. I insisted that al though I had removed my hard disk before giving it to them, the hdd cover was in-place. But they just denied it and said that it was impossible for them to misplace it. I refused to clear the bill unless they provided the hdd cover. Finally, Mr. Rajesh asked me to go home and check for the hdd cover and promised that they would get a new one if I did not find it. So I cleared the bill and brought back my laptop.
After getting my laptop back, I began to notice a strange problem for the first time. The laptop at times shut down suddenly and wouldn’t start again until I re-plugged the charger. This especially occurred when I ran an application, and that also at a point when the application gave a warning about the display. As I have been using this application for a very long time, I suspected that the problem could be because of the new BGA chipset that they had inserted and so took it back to them.
It was this time that I really became unhappy with their services. For the first three days, they didn’t even check the status of my laptop. On the fourth day, they informed that they could not find any problem with my laptop. Just as I started to their service center to reproduce the problem, they again called me and informed me that my laptop was restarting randomly and they would get back to me with the status. After another three days, they informed me that they had placed an order for a replacement BGA chipset. Another three days passed by, and when I call them demanding about the status, they tell me that there is no problem with the BGA chipset as they have tested it with an alternate one, and it was actually over-heating of the North Bridge. They had by now taken a total of 10 days since I gave them the laptop the second time.
Meanwhile, I called up Mr. Omkar to find out the status of the hdd cover as it had been almost two weeks. He told me that they had already placed an order for it but has been delayed by the courier. A few days later when I enquired about this with Mr. Rajesh, he told me that the price of the hdd cover was very high wherever he enquired and that he was still trying to find a dealer where he could get it for a reasonable price. This conflicting status updates of Mr. Omkar and Mr. Rajesh made it almost certain to me that they did not intend to get a replacement hdd cover for me as they had promised.
I went back to collect my laptop. Just to ensure that the problem that they were talking of and the one that I was talking about were the same, I asked them for the hdd that they had used for testing. As they did not have the hdd, I just went on to boot my laptop with my hard disk. For some reason, Mr. Rajesh took offence to this and he began to tell me that I am not supposed to test my laptop in front of them. It really surprised me that now he was even having an issue with me booting up my laptop. I told him that I would go back and use my laptop, and if the restarting problem occurred frequently, would consider getting the North Bridge replaced, which he told me would cost Rs.1800.
I came back and started using the laptop. And this was when I realized something which made me lose trust in their services completely. My Wi-Fi no longer worked. No matter what I did, it just wouldn’t work and the Linux wi-fi manger told me that it was disabled in the hardware. I even re-checked the wiring of the wifi device and still it didn’t work. I did consider taking back my laptop to them but then decided against it for three reasons – i. Getting the problem fixed would mean leaving the laptop again with them for a few days, with which I had become very uncomfortable by now ii. Even if the Wi-Fi problem was fixed, it wouldn’t serve much purpose as I was now anyway using my laptop as a desktop and it became clear that with the rebooting problem, my laptop was only of temporary use till I purchased a new laptop and iii. The first time I gave my laptop for repair, a new problem of sudden restarting surfaced. The second time I gave it, my Wi-Fi stopped working. I was scared that the next time I give it, a even more grave problem might crop up which might render the laptop completely useless.
Summarizing, here are the various problems that have cropped up in my laptop after I started using HyderabadLaptop.com services over a period of three and a half weeks:
- HDD cover misplaced – There is a remote possibility that I gave them the laptop without the hdd cover in the first place. However, their promise that they would get it replaced and later faltering on it, is totally unacceptable.
- System reboots randomly – They claim that this is being caused by North Bridge and has nothing to do with the newly inserted chipset. However, it surprises me that this should have started from exactly the time when I collected my laptop from them.
- Plastic around the network and modem connectors broken – I could not conclusively tell when this problem came up as I only noticed it after I took back my laptop from them the second time. It is quite possible that this could have been broken before itself and I might not have noticed it.
- Wi-Fi not working – I was completely upset with their service and so I did not even consider taking this back to them for the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph.
So, finally, what is my opinion about HyderabadLaptops.com? They do chipset replacements which I don’t think many other service centres do. Their pricing strategy seemed al right. But their unwillingness to be completely transparent, the cropping up of multiple problems since I gave my laptop to them and the delay in fixing/identifying the problem, make the quality of their services sceptical and something which I will be reluctant to avail of in the near future.