Just a minute ago, the optical drive in my benq s41-447 apparently died. I honestly don’t understand why this occurring, considering I seldom using it. Currently I’m processing my warranty from Centro (Jl Naripan 89 Lantai II Blok H-11, 022-84467476), but there are potential problems here:
1. I’m currently living in Jakarta, and I bought the laptop in a computer store in Bandung. Does this mean I must travel to bandung solely to claim my warranty?
2. The warranty lasted for 1 year, the date of the purchase is 13 April 2008, and today is 12 April 2009. Just great. GREAT.
3. The warranty label is worn out because the frequent heat from harddisk, now they could just state my warranty is void even though I never opened any stickers. I only added 1 gb ram not too long after purchased this, and I didnt need to peel any warranty stickers.
I actually have suspected during start that the optical drive is crappy, it’s very loud and sometime it spins too fast that it could damage your cd/dvd. You couldnt’ even set the burning speed. Even worse, a lot of burned dvd turned unreadable. thank you, benq.
I’m now in state of peril, seriously, without internal dvd rom, installing operating system in emergency time will be very problematic. I have an pioneer dvd rw optical drive, using usb2ide connection I could connect it with my laptop, but I’m still figuring out how to make it bootable, otherwise, I couldnt possibly do anything when my windows xp crashes.
Due to these unfavourable circumstances, it’s safe to assume my benq s41-447 optical drive is officially dead, and my warranty is void already.
I’m now thinking of plan b, saving money to buy external dvd rw as soon as possible… but unfortunately it’s quite expensive. Oh well, for the benq joybook s41 series users out there, you should be careful. The optical drive can’t be removed and replaced easily like usual notebook, it means you must dissamble the body removing the screws and so on.
I will update as soon as the pc shop confirmed whether my warranty is still legible and I could have replacement for this shitty optical drive.
Update (13 April 2009)
My friend actually claimed his benq s41 warranty a month ago due to harddisk problem, he said I need to phone Galva, the authorized dealer of BenQ in indonesia (021-3456650). The claim department said I only need to bring the invoice/receipt and the laptop to their building during office hour (Monday-Friday) because the pc shop didn’t give me warranty card. My warranty is currently being processed, I will update this post later
I hear this a lot. Even mine does have problems. It seems that a combo drive just sucks. The more I use it for burning CDs, the crappier it becomes. But in your case, the odd thing is that you rarely use the drive. That’s weird.
But anyway, I suggest you to find a replacement for your internal optical drive. For some emergency reason, it’s better to have internal drive compared to external one.
And if somehow you Windows XP crashes, I think the last resort is to disassemble your laptop, take out the hard-drive, plug it in a portable hard-drive case, access it using other laptop, format the drive, and finally you can copy the Windows XP installer in.
ah, thanks for sharing the information jubel. this reminds me to not use Combo drive anymore in future, a lof of my backups turned unreadable now.
I currently trying to make custom bootable usb windows xp intallation using bartpe, but the tutorials are really not layman-friendly, it appears more complex than it seems. in the worst case scenario, I will just unplug my internal harddisk and install windows xp using my sister’s laptop using enclosure :<
Anyway, some laptops do have a space reserved for recovery files inside the hard disk, eg. Sony and Toshiba. I guess they’ve been awesome adding such emergency procedure considering combo drives are just not reliable. Even more, some do not provide recovery CDs at all, all files are already there in the reserved space. Cool. Hehe.
Computers are like a motor engine to me: miracles I don’t understand. I’m accustomed to warranties, failing electronics and multinationals though. It’s like this guy ( poet) Longfellow said: “Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody”.
Good luck!!!