Any troubles with Scan.co.uk?

stu_the_flat

stu_the_flat

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Stuart
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Sorry I need to rant!

I've been with out main a computer for weeks now.

My friend who is up on computer hardware created a shopping basket for a fairly decent computer on this website called Scan.co.uk, I bought at the cost of ~£300 and it arrived.

I built the computer and switched it on, powered up nothing displayed on the screen, every part appeared to be receiving power, Rest it and it booted up with a “bad cmos check sum error” couldn’t surf the menus with out it crashing.

My friend and I identified the fault with the motherboard. I explained the whole problem to scan and they gave me a returns code for the motherboard, fine, I paid £5 for secure delivery of the motherboard, fine, next day I get a “no fault found email”, OK I’ll accept that something else is faulty, I phone them up, he says that a “test” only involves plugging it on and turning it on! :cuckoo:, re-describe the problem, He agrees to send the motherboard for re-testing!

Two days later and nothing, I phone them up, they say it is not faulty. I ask if the is the first test or second test, they say that there is no record of a retest and there is no way it can be done through the phone! WHAT THE HELL WAS THE FRIST GUYS DOING!

So I get this e-mail Asking me to describe the problem ( for the third time:bang:) and I notice this line “Please be aware that if the RMA is not found to be faulty an additional re-test charge of £5 + VAT would be added to the current no fault found fee.” Now I think want original fee? You have just turned the ****ing thing on! So I start reading the terms and conditions and it includes such gems as….

“ In individual circumstances the provisions of the voluntary code may be more or less favourable to you than your statutory rights. You are free to withdraw from the operation of the code at any time and pursue your statutory rights. If you are in any doubt about your statutory rights you may wish to consult a solicitor or your local citizens advice bureau.”

So there you go, Scan.co.uk I’ve spent £300 + £5 plus my “no fault found fee” and I have nothing to show for it and I doubt very much the retest is going to be of any use,

Stuart
 
aligibbs said:
Why not send it all back under DSR? Then it won't have cost anything but the postage?
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^^^WHS^^^ send it all back and start again.
 
..........
 
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CraigF said:
No disrespect m8 but you state your friend is clued up on computers?...Well in all honesty i would say i have forgotten more than he has ever learned.

And no i am not going to explain the 20 second fix for this because quite simply a very little knowledge in your friends hands could be very dangerous.

You state there was no fault found....Well that because there is no fault.
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oh what a helpful comment.

this board is going from bad to worse

if you're so clever be helpful to the poor guy and not an unhelpful idiot
 
Reset the CMOS via the jumper?
 
CraigF said:
No disrespect m8 but you state your friend is clued up on computers?...Well in all honesty i would say i have forgotten more than he has ever learned.

Let me explain why -
If your friend had even the slightest proper piece of computer knowledge he would know straight off that a Checksum Cmos error is very very common in new build computers from scratch.
This is people saying .."yeh m8, i know how to build them..just order the parts and its shooty in". Until something like this creeps in.. and he has no bloody idea how to fix it.
Yes he is correct it is the Motherboard but only because that where the Cmos is located and therefore could not be anything else..
Please tell your m8 to stick to his goddam day job and as for you buy one fully built for a reasonable price and save yourself this type of ranting.

And no i am not going to explain the 20 second fix for this because quite simply a very little knowledge in your friends hands could be very dangerous.

You state there was no fault found....Well that because there is no fault.
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I have to agree with keirik that comment is insulting to me and my freind and just isn't worth the pixels on my screen,


Mr_T said:
Reset the CMOS via the jumper?
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Thank you for your comment. I did reset the CMOS. If anybody does have any technacl adivce I would be very greatful as I want to get my computer running not to waste scans time (and my money).

Cheers Stuart
 
keirik said:
oh what a helpful comment.

this board is going from bad to worse

if you're so clever be helpful to the poor guy and not an unhelpful idiot
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I agree, if people can't be civil don't post.
His friend was "up on hardware", it never said he was an expert.
People use the forum for genuine help, not to be put down with boorish comments. :thumbsdown:
 
Also worth loading the defaults and then saving. The checksum error often comes up with the CMOS time is wrong, also check the 3V battery.
 
Yep, it could be a dying battery. Cheap as chips to replace and may solve things.
 
The bad checksum error can be caused by quite a few things, basically what it means something has changed in the BIOS since the last boot.

My guess in this case as it is a new MB and you don't know how long it has been sitting on a shelf is the battery, also it could be a problem with the memory are you sure the memory is compatible with the MB?

Go into the BIOS and set the date and time to correct and maybe auto set the HDD/s save and reboot
 
Ok...Take the Battery out...Move the jumper from the 2 prongs in the 3 pin combo eg..1 and 2 to 2 and 3...Switch PC on Without Battery.
Let it error..
Put battery back in...
Voila

Almost forgot....You will need to immediately go into the Bios and Just Save and Exit.

If that does not work move the jumpers back to 1 and 2. Some need it some dont.

Oh and for the record i was not being rude or unhelpful i was simply sticking up for the poor CS guy that IS NOT HERE TO DEFEND HIMSELF....Read the Forum Rules on naming Companies that can't defend themselves.
 
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One more thing...I have used Scan for many many years and so have many thousand others and none of us can fault them in any way shape or form. But you come straight on here because you think they are being unfair with you and rant about them being bad when if you have read their T and S you would have known all this..
 
I've purchased all my PC peripherals from Scan on both a personal and business basis and never had an issue.

I always pay for the scan insurance which covers anything like this.

Craig, what use would removing the battery do apart from resetting the BIOS to factory default... which it already is?
 
Jaffster said:
Craig, what use would removing the battery do apart from resetting the BIOS to factory default... which it already is?
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It wipes the TSR's m8. Terminate and Stay Resident Programmes that remain in memory due to the battery..Removing the battery kills the brain so to speak and totally resets it.
 
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Cheers for the comments guys. I have gone for a walk added somebody to my ingore list and calmed down!

at the moment the motherboard is out of my hands.

I have gone for a walk added somebody to my ingore list and calmed down! I phoned Scan again and had a much more productive talk, they said if they can't find a fault I should send in the rest of the components in. and they will try to find the error and they are likely to waive most of the charges,

So they have scary T&C's but seem quite good if your speaking to the right person.

I will keep the origonal post but choose a less emotive thread title.

Cheers Stuart
 
stu_the_flat said:
Cheers for the comments guys. I have gone for a walk added somebody to my ingore list and calmed down!

at the moment the motherboard is out of my hands.

I have gone for a walk added somebody to my ingore list and calmed down!

Cheers Stuart
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Oh God...Pillow Rage now.
Cry me a River m8 and grow up ffs
 
I've work in IT, and I've built dozens of PC's over the years, and this sort of error is very common.

PC's often fail to start up the first time power is applied. There can be dozens of reasons for this, usually something simple like a loose cable or one not connected at all, or motherboard jumpers, BIOS battery problems.
You should also check that the motherboard jumpers are set correct and the board headers are connected up correctly. These do differ between motherboards so it's hard to give any specific advice.

I completely agree with you about Scan. I've found their attitude and customer service terrible in the past, so I wouldn't use them again.

You would be best to just send the whole lot back and get a refund under the Distance selling regulations.
:)
 
I'm firmly with the group that has used Scan for years, I've bought quite a bit of stuff from them with no problem at all..... I have also bought stuff that has been DOA and stuff that has failed within warranty, they have always been absolutely brilliant, even to the point of ringing me up a few days after offering technical solutions to problems too make sure I'm happy.... technically helpful and commercially very fair. Can you imagine how much time and effort they must devote to dealing with operator/builder errors? I rate them highly and will likely go to them for new stuff for the foreseeable future.
 
Wow never heard of TSR's being resident after a PC is switched of especially when they are allocated to volatile RAM and that is where they reside which is cleared when power is removed. The battery is there to maintain the storage of the bios.

Anyway Scan are fine no problems from me I have been using them since they were based in Little Lever. they have some strange policies regarding returns but they never affect me as I just take the thing back get an RMA, go to the counter and order a replacement. The biggest pain is buy somthing and then need a refund imediatly after the refund takes a while to come through due to their card handleing method.

I suspect there is something faulty, board, memory or CPU. I know they won't test systems if bought as components. If you want send all the stuff to them and I will go in and test the stuff on their workbench. I think its still available the work going on in there is just to build a huge demo area and shouldn't be affecting the support area. find the cause of the fault and get scan to replace what ever is faulty.
 
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Cheers guys for the replies, I think they are a good company if you have no problems and it sounds like I could have solved my problems myself/ with out needing to invole scan,

I think for future reference if you do have problems phone scans technical help you will get good customer service (although you will have to go on for hold for a while but its worth it.)

For the record in my original email I did state that I would prefer technical support if they suspected a user error rather than a faulty piece of equipment and I did offer to send back anything and everything that they did suspect was faulty.

Stuart
 
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A good email address is Shelly@.... or themanwhocan@... same person and owner of scan ;)
 
I've been buying from Scan for as long as I can remember. I have, in the past, had to remind them of UK consumer law when they tried to tell me I had to return a faulty item to the manufacturer. But that was a one-off several years ago. Normally it's a good service.
 
Kinnell, another TP speciality.............:thumbsdown:
 
CraigF said:
It wipes the TSR's m8. Terminate and Stay Resident Programmes that remain in memory due to the battery..Removing the battery kills the brain so to speak and totally resets it.
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:lol:
 
Some of those Trustpilot reviews are a perfect example of why the like of Scan blame the customer.
 
I've used Scan since they has a tiny little back street store in in Little Lever to the new place at Horwich, I have notice over the years (many Years) that the service has gotten worse when retuning faulty equipment.
 
i stopped using scan due to the attitude of the RMA dept, I have lost a few hundred quid in there "partial refund" when the product is end of life and they don't have a suitable replacement to you. ebuyer on the other hand give a full refund without asking.

if you go on there support forum and complain you get banned, simple as that, its just a cover up to save face.
 
CraigF said:
It wipes the TSR's m8. Terminate and Stay Resident Programmes that remain in memory due to the battery..Removing the battery kills the brain so to speak and totally resets it.
Click to expand...
:cuckoo:


TSR's reside in RAM. RAM is not powered by the BIOS/Clock battery. RAM is cleared once you remove power from the mainboard.
So not only do you not know how to communicate in a civil manner, you don't know much about computers either.
I find it best that if you don't know what you are talking about to keep your mouth shut.
 
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I have been working in IT for 12 years now, I am a programmer and hardware designer by trade. I must point out also TSR's are only active in RAM, so as soon as the PC is powered down, they are wiped.

The BIOS battery only keeps the settings in the BIOS stored and the RTC. So removing the battery is the same as the reset jumper.
 
CraigF said:
It wipes the TSR's m8. Terminate and Stay Resident Programmes that remain in memory due to the battery..Removing the battery kills the brain so to speak and totally resets it.
Click to expand...

(warning, old school geekery follows)

As others have pointed out, this is untrue. Turning off the computer wipes the RAM aside from the CMOS. Further, "terminate and stay resident" is something from the ark, it applied to DOS programs and was achieved via an INT 21h (AX=31h) call. The INT21h interface is basically redundant in the NT kernel, it's there to allow DOS programs to work, sort of, but it doesn't do anything properly useful.

Even on the DOS kernel operating systems, the last of which is 10 years old, the introduction of 32 bit drivers for disk support in Windows 3.11 started to make a lot of TSRs that interacted with the disk non-functional, Windows 95 killed still more of them and as it went through 98/98SE/Me they all eventually stopped working. TSRs had reached the end of their usefulness and were dying off in 1993.

Basically, you're making stuff up :(
 
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