I usually don’t have a problem with HP computers or their tech support. However, with any company, a customer’s experience can be somewhat unsatisfactory. I ordered the HP DV6Z laptop and during the last step of the checkout, the image of the computer changed colors. The color of the laptop that was shown on the original page was a black laptop. At the very end of the checkout the computer changed to a silver laptop. I hoped on live chat with HP sales and they assured me the laptop was a dark color and not silver.

 
OKAY, not the biggest issue. I decided I can live with a silver laptop vs. a black one. Still kind of annoying that HP can’t get their shit together and know their own products.

 
Now… on to the real issue. I took the standard hard drive out of the computer to put in my own 120GB SSD hard drive. I installed my own copy of Windows 7 Professional. Why would I keep the copy of Windows that came on the computer installed? Especially since the computer came loaded with bloat ware, crap ware, spyware, etc? I hate when computer manufactures do that. But, it keeps the cost of the PC down, and I always load my own copy of Windows on my new computers, so I guess I’m okay with it. I installed Windows 7 Professional and made the laptop look like a professional business laptop. I finished installing all the updates and loaded all the software I needed on the computer. Every time I started the computer and it got to the “Starting Windows” screen, the screen would flicker uncontrollably and then go away as soon as it got to the Windows login screen. I was freaking out because I had just spent hours installing Windows and all the updates. I thought for sure it was a driver issue since the screen would stop flickering immediately after the Starting Windows screen. I wiped the computer clean and reinstalled Windows 7 Professional 2 – 3 times and still the same issue. I installed other operating systems and the issue STILL existed! I then knew for sure this was a hardware issue.

 
I called HP tech support and the second guy to help me was actually quite rude. He wanted me to press F11 during boot up to do a system restore. I explained to him that I put in my own SSD hard drive and I no longer have the original HP recovery partition. He asked me “why did you get rid of the hard drive?” Because I installed my own SSD drive! Why does it matter? This is hardware issue on my brand new laptop and they need to fix it! The tech guy would not go any further and insisted I buy the Recovery DVDs. I pretty much ended the conversation there because I’m not idiot. Why waste my money on restore DVDs when I know it’s a hardware issue. And on top of that, I don’t want to recover my laptop back with HPs original software and have all the bloat ware on there!

 
I hung up the phone and I decide to take matters into my own hands. I took my brand new laptop and completely tore it apart disconnecting all the flat cables, wires, etc. I put the laptop back together, and whala! Presto! The computer is fixed and the screen flickers no more. I assumed one of two things. Either there was just a bad connection, or the actual video card was bad. Thank god it was just a bad connection.

 
I’m not going to rate HP a complete F based on this one bad experience. However, it is very disappointing this had to happen on a brand new laptop. The worst part was having to deal with the idiot HP technicians over the phone insisting I restore the computer back to its original state using their recovery DVDs.