Gateways EMachines E4231 PC with Vista Nightmare

[waylander]

Greetings,

Placed an order last friday 29/8/08 for a Gateways EMachines E4231 PC with Vista, had the order placed for a saturday delivery with a couple of smaller items and was supprised to find it wasnt delivered. Did alot of chasing around customer services on the Monday after to finally get it delivered on the tuesday.

Finally got the computer last night, upon getting the computer out of the box the computer gave an initial power on signal, turned the fan once and then shut down. Not being overly impressed and figuring that the power system was shot, replaced the power system.
With the new power system in place the computer when switched on proceeded to run through its powering up sequence. When alo-and behold nothing was being read from the hard drive and power wasn't being supplied to the keyboard, or mouse.
Having a spare comp in the house I exchanged Hardrives only to find the new hardrive was also shot!
Ended up scrapping the computer for spare parts (processor, fans, wiring, case etc, having written off the hardrive, power supply and motherboard. To top off the nightmare, the official windows hologram sticker on the back was torn, having been obviosly taken off of a different computer and placed on the back of this machine!
Reading the supplied documents the computer is a reconditioned unit, that isnt actually mentioned under the item description!
After having good service from Aria for a year now, it is suprising and worrying that a system like this traveled through their hands. Sadly Aria have lost my custom over this travesty.

Regards
Waylander.
Item number 32113

[jonwoad]

Sorry to hear about the problems you're having. The best advice I can give at the moment would be to call/email customer services (http://www.aria.co.uk/contact.asp) and explain your issues to them.

[jonwoad]

additional: when you say it is torn, in what way is it torn? all the vista stickers I have seen have a circular shape missing with the silver strips showing

[waylander]

If I have to go through the same rigmarole that i had to on Monday. Then i'd rather write the entire ordeal off and save myself the stress. :twisted:

[jonwoad]

I can assure you that we do get very few of those machines back so it looks like it was just an unfortunate occurance of one slipping through the net. Any chance you can take a picture of the licence label with the code blanked out?

[waylander]

It had two silver strips showing through a jagged torn area, sugesting that it had been torn off the computer, carefully but not carefully enough. No professional would touch the system as the damage to the sticker is severe enough to void the authentiicity of it.

[jonwoad]

thats the same as every vista label i've ever seen, and i've seen a lot... think its to do with the way they are made.

[waylander]

I'll get a picture sent when i get back home, will send it directly.

[jonwoad]

Thanks, my email is jonathanw(at)aria.co.uk. By the way I dont work in Customer Services but I do work in returns.

[tystar]

if the sticker looks anything like this then its correct.

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff185/tystar75/coa.gif

This is done to make it harder to copy and bootleggers to replicate for illegal copies.

[waylander]

Yeah just had 2 metal strips instead of the one, the holes being jagged asthough somthing was ripped off it maybe. Any particular reason why they are done like this? I know the Windows xp ones are solid stickers.

[jonwoad]

as tystar said its to combat piracy but its completely normal and the problem you seem to be having is unfortunately a rogue machine as all the other 4231s I've seen have been fine :)