Acer support - does it exist?
25 01 2007I’m not a difficult person but is it too much to expect support to do its job? For a few months I’ve been struggling with my old Acer Travelmate notebook (overheating and randomly shutting down when not plugged in).
Having taken an extended warranty on the thing I finally decided to get in touch with their service center before it expires (not that I use it all that much with my wonderful new MacBook Pro). First challenge was getting hold of them, twice hanging on the line for 15 minutes trying to get through I decided to submit a support ticket via the web.
Slightly annoyed by the length of the form I need to fill in there, with the exact version number of the machine, the serial etc. — why the heck did I need to register all that information with my extended warranty number? Surely they can just ask for my Acer Advantage number and cross check that with my address details rather than have me fill in all those details again?
Finally the form is submitted… but then, no email confirmation, no support ticket ID. Four days later I get an email stating its something I need to send in the notebook for and they would pick it up the next morning. Good thing I took the time to completely back up my machine that afternoon, because as I expected they did the standard format and reinstall without prior warning (still had some software installed on it).
Today, a week later, I get the notebook back and the report says they simply cleaned the fan and reinstalled the OS. Why the heck do they reinstall the OS for a clogged up fan? Sure it fixed the problem with overheating but did they bother to check if it could now run for 10 minutes straight without being plugged in… nope of course not.
When I booted up the machine had to reconfigure Windows, first thing I did (with the battery fully charged) was disconnect the charger and just leave it on for 10 minutes. Low and behold the machine dies. How difficult was it for that support engineer to give that a test run while getting a cup of coffee?
It looks like anything outside of their routine gets the generic fix treatment, reinstall the OS and it’ll be fine - no need to do any additional tests. Needless to say I’m not very pleased and have just had to go through that painful web form again and send it in for a second round of repairs.
Good job Acer, you join the ranks of Apple in my black book of extended warranty support. You’re better off going to a third party repair center these days, I am yet to come across any support program that actually does what you pay for.
Dealing with Acer support was the last drop in my “I really want to switch but not just yet”-bucket.
Back then (some 2,5 years ago) they managed to send my fixed laptop to someone else… But I only found out when I called them asking where my laptop was. It then took them 4 weeks to get the laptop back to me! Instead of picking it up in Gent (where it was delivered to the wrong guy) and send it back to me, they sent it back to the warehouse! And then it just sat there for 2 weeks.
Acer support is probably the worst support I’ve ever come across with. Apple support is not that bad if you know where to go
anytime i hear acer these days, I remember this slashdot link: http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/01/08/0515200.shtml
hope they at least unregistered it for you, if you hadn’t already
– eokyere
2years my acer’s mainboard was broken. i had to go 4 times to brussels to check up on things because the call center did not know anything. 12 weeks before the laptop was back in my hands. the worst Support EVER.
I have had some issues with my Acer Travelmate 803 which were solved nicely with replacing it with a 8005. Something Apple seems to be uncapable of doing after they fucked up my notebook after repairing something small. I mean Acer doesn’t bump or scratch your notebook while it gets repaired.
Acer support is utterly horrendous. Not only is all of their prepackaged software the most obnoxious garbage I’ve ever used, it’s damn near impossible to get anything corrected. I’m in the middle of yet another Acer support problem right now….
My brand new Acer Aspire notebook is currently on its 4th trip to their Texas Repair facility. It has not worked more than 8 hours since it came new from the box on Christmas day(it’s now March 2). It crashes and reboots, then won’t restart at all. Once they sent me a new hard drive and had me change it myself! They don’t know how to fix it, yet won’t just send me a different computer. This is a brand new unit! Acer will never get another cent of my money.
response to Greg Cautrell:
Holy Sh*t, we have the same, EXACT problem. Is it an Aspire 5100?
Aspire 3100-1352. Spontaneously dies and restarts several times, then ultimately won’t start. Gives message… Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \Windows\System32\Config\System
The first two times I sent it back, they just reloaded the software. Then they sent me a hard drive to change myself, and then I sent it back a third time and all they did was change the hard drive again. It is now in Texas again for the fourth time. They are useless.
Acer Support, what support?
They got my Acer Ferrari 3200 in December for a video issue. got it back three weeks later after a new motherboard, lcd panel(with dead pixels) and touchpad, and the unit wouldn’t boot, kept locking up!!
Sent it back again, they replaced the hard drive, still freezing up…
Sent it a 3rd time, returned it saying my third party memory was defective, replaced the lcd panel again, and the CPU. So I bought and installed new memory, same problem
So, now three months in, I have a $2000 paper weight!!
Called them to get it returned for the 4th time, waited 57 minutes to talk to a customer service rep, he hung up when I got a little pissed because I was upset after returning it to them three times already!
Called again another 50 minutes, and they assured me it would be shipped to an from them next day shipping! Finally got my laptop back, ground shipping, yet another motherboard, and gues what, my defective third party memory installed and working!!! (shock, horror)
It seems to me that the technicians emplyed by Acer, are at best panel swappers, because that is simply all they do! They basically switch parts until they find the one that is screwed, which wouldn’t be a problem if they tested the units before they return them to the user! Instead that switch out a part, don’t test it, return it, the user tests it, and we start again until they finally hit the defective part!!
Maybe if they actually got some qualified techs, they would save shipping costs, parts costs, and have happy customers. I mean they must trash so many working parts, I know for sure from my laptop, they trashed a working hard drive and 2 working CPUs!!
Maybe the out of warranty repair cost wouldn’t be $450.00 if they could repair the fucking things properly!!
I mean you would expect a company to be able to repair their own products, but i GUESS NOT!!
I’ve had really bad problems with my acer laptop, I’ve had to send it in 5 times in the two and a half years I’ve had it 9twice for the same problem). the problem is their call centre number keeps changing and I don’t have the most recent one. I can’t seem to find it anywhere either, does anyone know the website that lists it?
I have owned a Acer Ferrari for nearly 3 years now.
I took out the Acer advantage + accidental damage just in case.
Well i finally broke my laptop after keeping it in a pristine condition! Fell down steps at University.
Basicly after there initial report 85% of the laptop is damaged.
Firstly was logged and sent in to the repair centre, only to be told i didnt have accidental coverage! And the bill in excess of £1000 was in the post.
After explaining to the advisor on the phone he said ok it is under accidental cover.
So now they tell me that they are now waiting on parts to repair the laptop!! Viable?? Crazy more like. Ok so the 5day stated turnaround is more like 14 days they said.
I had a query about my windows COA sticker which was ripped off during the impact - This is not covered.
So i now have no proof or COA for my laptop for the windows XP copy.
I am disgusted at the service i have received from Acer, they deff do not hold up to there stated promises.
I have not had the laptop back yet, but after reading your comments above, i expect it to come back in a bad state. Here is what is quoted on the front of my extended coverage policy:
“AcerAdvantage is a warranty extension program for Acer products. The goal of the AcerAdvantage program is to ensure Acer customers that they can count on dedicated and timely service in order to better use the product they purchased. Your work deserves protection and Acer is offering you the chance to continually use its products with the AcerAdvantage warranty extension program.”
I bought my Acer Aspire 1642 while working in Saudi Arabia, on 12/31/2005. Tried to register it EVER Sense, to no avail. I returned to my home-country ( USA),attemped to Register through EVERY Acer English Based site I can Find, Same Resulse, No Way. I even Sent E-Mail to Acer’s CEO, No Answer. Thank God, My Acer has never went down, Texas tells me , if I want / neer any service, I will have to Pay Full Purchase Price for Another Computer to get Anything Done. NO WAY.
With Customer Service / Product Support like this, I will Never Consider Buying Another Product.
Bought an Acer Power APFH-EC3520C Celeron D 352 from Newegg.
Out of the box it would not burn DVDs or CDs in RW format.
Acer suport claimed it was a “Vista” problem and I would have to wait for a “hotfix”, but still offered to send me the recovery DVDs (which I could not burn myself).
I figured that was “bull” and RMAd it to Newegg under their 30 day exchange.
The exchanged PC was returned promptly with no shipping charges and had no problems.
Glad I didn’t send it back to them.
Never again Acer for me. The laptop I bought (Aspire) was very good for its price but it wasn’t propery built and I soon had to count the errors. Less than a year old it has already been twice to the repair center for faults existing when I purchased it. The 5-day turn around for Advantage customres is not to be trusted.
Though their computers are decent are strongly say _NEVER AGAIN ACER_ beacuse of their lousy customer support.
We wanted to upgrade the memory in our Acer 302xi Tablet. Acer claims 2 memory slots. Only one slot is available at the memory panel and support does not know the location of the 2nd slot. They also do not know the part number for their 512MB parts. I did get the part number from their pre sales people. To find out where the 2nd memory slot they gave me a pay per minute support phone number. The pay per minute support put me on a 10 minute hold to find out where it is and came back that it is on the motherboard and the keybord with its supports must be removed to get to it. The keyboard replacement instruction on the web are not very explanatory. Called back the pay support for a little help. After another 10 minute hold the response was we can not tell you how to remove the keyboard since we will be liable. We carefully removed the keyboard which is connected to the motherboard with a flex cable. The web instruction says to disconnect the cable from the motherboard. During this action as careful as we were the little plastic cable support piece which snaps into the motherboard connector lost one of its tiny snap ears. Calling every possible number at Acer and their partners could not produce a way to buy the plastic piece or get a part number so we could buy the whole connector.
The response was that we needed to buy a new motherboard. I thought I made progress when someone at support gave me a case number and said he will contact Acer engineering and to call back after at least 24 hrs. I gave them a couple of days and called back with my case number. After the 30+ wait support came on asking the standard S/N question. When I gave the case number the support person said OK what do you needas if nothing was entered in the case information. Surprised I said I am looking for the connector part number so I can purchase it to get the retainer piece of plastic. Did your engineering respond to the inquiry? His answer was engineering does not know the connector part number and you need to buy a new motherboard. I responded that my motherboard was in excellent condition and if I purchased another board I may have the same problem trying to reconnect the keyboard as the delicate plasic piece may break again. This seemed to upset him as he said “you are not listening to me. You need to buy a new motherboard. He was talking to me as if I was dumb that I did not understand his instructions to buy a new motherboard. I asked again if Acer engineering responded to my inquiry and he said “yes, they do not know the part number.” I asked who manufactures the motherboard and he said “Acer”. We ended the insulting, on the support side, conversation. As a final note I emailed the request to find the connector part number to Acer support. After 4 days I received a response that the web was not set up to handle my request and to call the Acer support telephone number.
Our company has bought several tablet computers from Acer. After this experience ??????
Does anyone know the connector the used to connect the keyboards to the main motherboard?
I had experience with Acer quite a few years ago and swore I would never try them again, but I guess I’ve been pretty lucky. We’ve had 6laptops and haven’t had any problems with them (except for the idiot end user that spywares them to death).
Unfortunately, Dell is the company that I never want to deal with again–anyone had to contact their support lately in Banglore? If it’s not a problem that’s covered in their “call script” they have NO clue. That said, I’ve never used Acer’s phone support–where do their call centers usually dump to? Local support?
I don’t have anything against acer products, in particular, but their support is almost nonexistent. I’ve been struggling with getting one of their 22 inch wide screen monitors to work with the DVI connection but have had no luck . It was suggested somewhere that I might need an updated driver for it (XP shows it only as a “plug & play” monitor). However, the area of Acer’s web sites where you are supposed to be able to download drivers NEVER works. So, I am now done with Acer products. I’m sick and tired of this problem and will not buy an Acer product aver again.
Acer does not use Quality Control or customer service/support! Their products break before the warranty expires and then they don’t honor the warranty.
just another person who has had to deal with acer support, and been ripped off.
it was a travelmate 4200 with vista in my case… half of the features didnt work when i got it, it spent 2 months getting nothing fixed at acer… and im $1500 out of pocket on a useless piece of shit…
NEVER EVER BUY ACER. ever. ever.
I bought an Acer Aspire 3690 this June of ‘07. It came preloaded with Windows Vista Home Basic. I didn’t receive a restore disk and just noticed. It is now October ‘07 and I contacted them via email support. So we’ll see how that goes. I’m also very upset with the driver download section they offer for my laptop. There are several things left out that I really need. There’s no monitor support at all, so when you try to load another OS, the monitor ends up coming out really dark and there’s no way to adjust it. So, other than whatever they had installed when I first got it (which I don’t know what the program is called) there is NO way to adjust monitor brightness, contrast, or color. I haven’t found anything to help with that problem on their site for downloads.
I also find it pretty laughable that they expect me to run Windows Vista with Norton Security. I guess I’m supposed to not run ANYTHING else because I get nothing but lag. Guess I’ve got to go to crucial.com and get a memory upgrade. Good news on that though. It’s only like $70 for a 2GB upgrade on it. So that’s not too bad. Not too happy with the processor speed either. Only 1.6GHz. Maybe I can try upgrading that too, but it’s such a damn hassle. I think I paid way too much for such crappy support, no restore disk, and shitty driver downloads. Argh. *sadness* I sold my truck to buy this thing.
Update:::
I ordered their factory restore disks for $30 and everything works on my Acer just fine now. Their support was actually really nice and I didn’t get foreign people on the Tech Line. Now I just need some RAM and I should be fine. I’m a tad happier with them now.
Greg Cautrell (01:19:53) :
My brand new Acer Aspire notebook is currently on its 4th trip to their Texas Repair facility. It has not worked more than 8 hours since it came new from the box on Christmas day(it’s now March 2). It crashes and reboots, then won’t restart at all. Once they sent me a new hard drive and had me change it myself! They don’t know how to fix it, yet won’t just send me a different computer. This is a brand new unit! Acer will never get another cent of my money.
2007
Vernard (02:52:09) :
response to Greg Cautrell:
Holy Sh*t, we have the same, EXACT problem. Is it an Aspire 5100?
I have an Aspire 5100 and i have exactly the same problems with you guys. I bought it in January 06 and i send it for repair in June. They replaced 4 hardware devices!! The second time i sent it for repair, was 1st November and they repaleced my hard drive. When i received it, i send it immediately back was it wasn’t working at all and they replaced my motherboard. When i received it, it worked for 2 days and then a “blue screen of death” appeared. Now is the 4th time i am sending it to Texas and i am thinking of buying sth else, like HO, or SONY.
N E V E R A G A I N A C E R
T H E Y A R E T H E W O R S T J U N K
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=17907&page=110
And I do have Advantage warranty.
I bought an Acer T690 desktop from COMPUSA and when I opened it, it came with NO USER MANUAL and NO RECOVERY CD’S. After contacting CompUSA they told me that Acer does not supply these and to contact them. I contacted Acer through their email since their phone number is non-existant and again and again and again….STILL NO RECOVER CD’S.
I have now been on hold with acer support in Texas for 30 minutes. I bought an Acer Aspire 5720 2 weeks ago December 27 , 2007. The HD DVD did not work. Now after downloading a new video driver software I am still trying to get it to work on a HD screen. Acer does not respond to its mail support and paces you on hold for ever.
The laptop is nice though
One more: my acer Aspire keeps giving blue screens. After it came back from “repair” in Texas Windows was reinstalled but I still had all the problems I had before. When I asked Acer on the phone if they would do a real repair if I would send it in again their answer was: “probably not”. Acer Customer service is terrible.
I purchased an Acer Aspire 5100 notebook for my daughter on May 15 2007 for college. By April of 2008 the left mouse pad button had become stuck and did not work. I called Acer and they had me ship it to their Texas repair center. when I received it back about 2 weeks later the mouse pad had been replaced but the laptop would not boot, I got a media error so I called them right away and told them the problem and they had me ship it back to them again; 2 weeks later I get back the laptop with a letter that stated no defect found you need to reinstall your hard drive for the computer to boot up. Now I am very confused because the computer still will not boot up and they are telling me to install a hard drive so I call them yet again and this time I am put through to the 2nd level to talk directly to a technician (so they said) the Tech pulls up the tickets from the first and 2nd times I had to send it in and tells me that according to the repair technician my hard drive was missing when they received it the first time and told me that if I installed it my computer would boot up. I asked this idiot that If I had removed the hard drive why would i have shipped it back to them for failing to boot up? when I asked to speak with a manager or supervisor I was told they do not take calls, I asked if they would investigate this to determine if the technician who took my laptop apart misplaced, damaged or stole the hard drive and he said no that there was no reason to since it wasn’t installed when they received it. He then told me there was nothing they (Acer) would do. He would not give me any number or address to file a complaint with. I had to call another number to get a P.O. Box address that I could write to as if that will work.