For Laptop Owner's Only

Need to ask you a question about laptops!
At Sam's Club today and they had a refurbished
HP Pavilion, dv7-3188cl, Intel Core i5-430M processor, 6GB ram and all the other goodies.
I can pay $475.00
out the door and use it for 90 days but the 1st 30 days I have option of buying extended warranty for 2yrs @$30 or 3yrs for $40
Is this a good buy? I am online with it now and so far everything is working ok. Just need someone with more experience with laptops than I am.
Product # wp586ua#aba

Ran sfc /scannow and everything was good.

What other tests can I or should I do to make sure this laptop is worth the money?
Add today at Frey's $699.00 for same model!

ps. I have a desktop that was refurbished from Costco and not a lick of problems for the 3 years I've owned it.

SFC checked the software
I would check the ram
Download memtest86 and test RAM
www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.html

After your test the ram, take one good stick and test all the slots. You want to be sure no problems.
Test the hard drive, too
Test Hard Drive www.carrona.org/hddiag.html or this test http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

"For Laptop Owner's Only
Need to ask you a question about laptops!
At Sam's Club today and they had a refurbished
HP Pavilion, dv7-3188cl, Intel Core i5-430M processor, 6GB ram and all the other goodies.
I can pay $475.00
out the door and use it for 90 days but the 1st 30 days I have option of buying extended warranty for 2yrs @$30 or 3yrs for $40
Is this a good buy? I am online with it now and so far everything is working ok. Just need someone with more experience with laptops than I am.
Product # wp586ua#aba

Ran sfc /scannow and everything was good.

What other tests can I or should I do to make sure this laptop is worth the money?
Add today at Frey's $699.00 for same model!

ps. I have a desktop that was refurbished from Costco and not a lick of problems for the 3 years I've owned it."


I would say it's a very good deal and for $40 for 3 years that as well seems a smart idea !

Although I'm not a fan of HP, you can't go wrong at that price but get the warranty.

Ken

Also, you can't go wrong with a full-ish keyboard on a laptop. It is irritating for me to not have a 10-key.

All in all, it's a great deal, and that three year warranty is a great price.

+7 You won't find a better deal. Get the warranty.

I had two HP desktops. One develped a bad DVD writer. HP mailed me a replacement with a prepaid return box for the old one. OVERNIGHTED it so I had it the second day after talking to the tech. They also told me if that didn't fix it they would send me a prepaid shipping box for the desktop. They figured the board was bad if the new DVD/CD player didn't resolve the issue.

Bad modem on the second one had it the second day. No return necessary.
Also Sam's/Walmart has good tech support for extended warranty. They were based in Canada when I used them.

HP may get bad mouthed for bloat ware etc. but customer service has always been A+ for me.

My 2 cents.

In addition to memtest and the hard drive test suggested by Rich, I would also run Prime95 for an overnight.

I also start removing the unwanted software and trialware as soon as I get it out of the box. That alone tests a lot of normal operations. When you start loading your own programs you will be testing the DVD drive.

I also start going through the Device Manager item by item, noting the component manufacturer and model number and current driver. I can google the component to see if others are having any issues, get a bookmark on the manufacturer's website driver section, and have the list of components handy.

Also check the operation of video by testing the graphics using W7's 3D games set at the highest levels, play with the Desktop Personalization settings and backgrounds, run WEI, and run any video intensive progs you have.

It was only after my daughter owned her laptop for a while (which we also found for $450 at the time) that we discovered that the on-board sound chip on her Persario did not have the capability to have a "Stereo Mix" device, regardless of driver. So you might take some time to look at all those Hardware and Sound Settings and see that all is there that you expect to be there.

Other than that, just play with it!