Hewlett-Packard has been forced to offer extended warranties on select notebooks available in China now that government regulators have opened an official investigation into several faulty HP products.
HP China officials released a statement apologizing to its customers, and said HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario notebook owners may need to pay attention to see if they are eligible for the additional warranty time. Chinese media is now publishing information on specific models affected as well as local HP contact info.
Approximately 60 owners said their Compaq Presario v3000 notebooks and HP Pavilion DV2000 had problems related to overheating, which caused black screens and repeated crashes. Six additional HP units have display screen problems, the Chinese government said in a statement.
Until the investigation is finished, HP must "strictly abide by" the rules -- including repairing and replacing any faulty hardware -- with the General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine supervising.
Computer companies have been forced to quickly fix problems in the United States and Europe, but have often been able to get away with delaying or ignoring fixes in China and other parts of the world. The Chinese government -- which deals with quality control issues for products made there and sold to other nations -- has decided to finally crack down on companies.
Considering the country's large population and growing number of Internet users in rural areas, I believe HP will make sure they fix this problem as quickly and diligently as possible. But what other choice to they have? Local businesses going up against the Chinese government have a slim chance of any type of victory.
