Pavilion Elite e9180f freezes, crashes, BSOD

Question

I am one of the many unhappy customers who bought this piece of junk (Pavilion Elite e9180f) and waited too long to return it because in my naivete, I thought it was some kind of simple software issue.  Nope!  It's definitely something wrong with the hardware, because the freezes and crashes have been happening since day 1, right when I took the thing out of the box.
Yeah, the system is fast and runs Windows Vista great, when it's actually WORKING, which is usually only guaranteed for about the first 5 minutes after you power the system on and boot windows.  After that, it's just buying time before it crashes again.  Forget trying to get anything done on this computer.  Forget about asking this PC to play a video or music file without the files "stuttering" during playback.  Even my 7 year old Sony Vaio which is running XP can handle playing an MP3 file without stuttering and crashing!
Like everyone else, the freezes and crashes happen either one of two ways:
1) The machine begins to "stutter", stutter more, then freeze/crash.  When I say stutter, I mean I move the mouse, the pointer graphic will hesitate on the screen and lag behind.  If you start to play a video or music file, this manifests in an audible "stutter".  The stuttering gets worse and worse as minutes pass until eventually it freezes for good, blasting that 1/50th second moment of audio into infinity.  You have to reboot immediately if you don't want to go deaf or be driven mad.
2)  I will be doing nothing at the time (example, I close all programs out and leave Windows sitting on the main desktop screen), I'll walk out of the room for a minute, then come back and find I can't move the mouse. This system will often lock-up without any warning!
Sometimes I'll get a BSOD or error screen, sometimes I won't (in which case your only option is to do a cold re-boot.)  When I do get the BSOD, the error is ALWAYS the "did not get a response from the secondary processor" yada yada.  I wish HP would just admit they shipped this model out with a bad processor/motherboard/whatever and do an official recall.  I have owned PCs for the last 13 years and this is the worst and most consistently disappointing experience I have ever had.
What is the hardware issue?  Which part is the lemon part?  The motherboard?  The processor?  The BSODs seem to indicate a bad processor.  I do have the Pegatron Truckee version 1.03 motherboard.  Is that the problem?
P.S.  I have contacted HP on many occasions about this, literally stayed on the phone for hours with "customer support" (according to one HP rep, 80% of their customer service reps are based outside of the United States...good luck getting any "technical" help from them) to no avail.  I did talk to one nice tech support guy in Canada who said "it sounds like your unit has a bad processor", so he had HP send me a box to ship my unit to their repair center so they can replace the processor.  However, I have also had HP reps tell me it could be anything from the memory to the hard drive.  Multiple HP reps claimed to me that they have "received no complaints" about this system.  One guy told me he "thought he got an email last week" regarding "something" about the system, but couldn't remember what it was and he put me on hold while he searched for the email.  He never found it.  What a joke.
EDIT:  Just to clarify, the crashing issue has been happening since day one, but initially I thought it was an issue with Vista.  I had never owned or used Vista before, so I thought maybe Vista was just unstable.  Nope.  I know several people who own Vista and have never experienced these issues.  I have downloaded every update from Microsoft/Windows Update.  I have upgraded to Vista SP2 with all the latest drivers and software for all of my hardware.  No luck.  It is definitely a hardware issue.  Thank god HP's warranty is good for 1 year (I bought my Elite in July).
Message Edited by Doonyman on 09-24-2009 02:58 AM

Answer 1

Unfortunately I have to add my disastrous encounter with HP's E9180F a true lemon HP is selling. I must take some responsibility for not carefully researching this model before I purchased, but I trusted the HP name and got stung- big time.
The scoundrel  :
HP and its Pavilion Elite e9180f
Windows 7 64bit
motherboard - Pegatron  Truckee ver 1.03
BIOS ver  5.22Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
Memory 9206 MB Ram   
As so many others have reported my HP E9180f started locking up and going to BSOD right out of the box. My first freeze-up came when I was doing the Windows update process. At first I didn't think much about it but I started getting random freezes a couple time a day. At that point I went online to see if others had experienced the same problem and perhaps had a fix. What I found was very troubling;  I found extensive documentation describing my exact problems and what was really horrifying was the reports of how ridiculous HP's help services were treating people with the problem. At first I didn't totally believe what I was reading on HP's own customer forum; I do now.
·         I've went through the total recovery process three times now, HP techs have spent hours remotely running my computer, (yes it did lock up on them to)
·         I had to upgraded the BIOS. (HP tech tried, said he had, but he hadn't)
·         I was directed to clear the BIOS (luckily for me I had the tools
·         Updated all drivers again and again.
·         Next I was asked to remove the video card, memory, and motherboard power cable and reseat them. I declined because I didn't want to give HP any reason to void my HP 2 year House Call Care Pack which covers this unit. When I invited HP to send a service tech out to perform these tasks, they said that house call only covers part replacement, we weren't replacing a part. I couldn't believe what I was told. Are you feeling my frustration?  
Keep in mind that each time HP requests that I make changes, they then ask me to test the system, which I did and each time with the same result, BSOD
I'm heading into my fifth week of working with HP to fix this problem. and I still haven't even been able to get my case moved up to a senior case manager, what a joke HP's help process is.
 One conversation I loved was;
HP tech: "I'll have a senior case manager call you within 24 hours."
Skeptical me: "What should I do if I don't get a call?"
Silence, no response.
Me again: "What should I do if I don't get a call?"
HP tech: "That's an impossibility."
Guess what? The impossibility became reality (I bet you guessed) .
HP's last stall tactic was to have me fax them my proof of purchase and invoice and call back in 24 hours. Where have I heard that before? Apparently nothing can go forward until they receive it. So I faxed them the stuff within 10 minutes, and when I called back 24 hours later, guess what, you're right it wasn't on their system yet. I asked couldn't I be escalated to a senior case manager  (it's apparent that only a senior case manager can do anything). "No," was the tech's reply, "call back again later".
Please if anyone out there knows the secrete to getting a senior case manager, or an HP tech support number here in the U.S. so I can get this thing fixed I'd love to know it.
Fast becoming HP never again.