Laptops suck
At the end of the last chapter, our hero Paul was faced with playing the waiting game with Centrecom, as the refund proceedings begun.
On the 19th, I got a phone call from Centrecom, where I spoke to a rather helpful guy (Ivan?) who was about to call Asus to sort things out, but was getting the story from me first.
It was an interesting conversation. After explaining what the problem was, as well as what had happened with the laptop, he claimed the most likely case would be a 'exchange' of laptops - that is, I'd get a different model (Yeah, I'm sure that falls under the Consumer Trading Act…).
Great, I thought, A8JP here we come. Ivan was curious as to what I was after, I told him about the A8JP as well as Centrecom's horrible pricing compared to say…Myer ($2800 vs $2100. Yes, Myer is winning here).
He got the story he needed, then called Asus to try and initiate the refund, and Myer to make sure it was the 'same A8JP'.
Half an hour later, he calls back.
- Centrecom will happily match that price…nice way to drop $700, and thats not the best price I can get either (haggling will get less, but JB HiFi has it for $1997)
- Asus have a 'special cases manager', who was 'offline' so I needed to send him an email.
Nearly two weeks later, no response from him.
To be perfectly honest, I don't know whose fault that is - Centrecom's or Asus'. Personally, I'm leaning towards Centrecom, because the 'contract' of warrenty is between Centrecom and me, not Asus and me. I didn't buy this from Asus, I bought it from the retailer, Centrecom.
Fast forward a few days (25th to be exact), and an Asus tech from Silverwater calls me up to notify me that they've just released a BIOS that solves all the grainy screen issues.
Freaky timing, I thought. The BIOS isn't available on their website, so it was sent to my email. Because I haven't been online much lately, I haven't had a chance to check out the BIOS (not that it overly matters, Centrecom have my laptop), however today I did.
Comparing files F3JP203.ROM and F3JP203.T00 FC: no differences encountered
Gah. Asus have sent me that beta bios that causes BSOD's.
I give up. Honestly, this just isn't fair.