Warranty and OS changes

I don't know if this was asked before, but I've searched a lot for it and found nothing. How is Acer warranty regarding OS changes? Will they still honnor warranty? Any experience or inside info?

BTW I bought my one yesterday, quite nice, but I'd be more confortable with a debian based distro.


Best regards
Fernando

 

I have never heard changing operating system would invalidate warranty, in fact, 9 out of 10 times if there is a hardware failure workshops don't even bother to check whats on the user's drive, they just boot their own test software.

 

I think warranty policies depends on each country. Most of them have different policies. One way to make sure is to give a call to your local support center and ask them about it.

For instance in my country if I change the OS, it will void the warranty, that's why I installed my preferred OS i.e Mandriva into a 8GB thumbdrive (around $19) and leave the Linpus OS intact in the internal 8GB SSD. I'm doing dual boot in the matter of fact.

 

Actually after I posted this question I made them a call and ask, their answer was that they would honour the warranty but the laptop must be returned with the original OS reinstalled. If it breaks in a way that I wont be able to reinstall linpus, then I can kiss the warranty goodbye.

I also considered dual booting with thumb drive, but how fast is the AAO with the OS running from the thumb drive? I've tried xubuntu briefly on a thumb drive and it did seem fast enough, but it was really a very brief experience. It would be interesting to know your experience.

 

Well Fernando, that is the same policy they implement in my country as long as when you send for any warranty claims with the original OS, they will honour it, so it's acceptable for me.

I only got this AAO for just 2 days (actually bought it for my wife) and I've been playing with every hour since. For me running full version of Mandriva 2008.1 is really fast enough to do surfing, writing emails, browse pictures and do some OpenOffice works. The only setback is the booting time (takes around 80 seconds to boot) but hey, it's a cheapo thumbdrive, I can live with that so does my wife. The main reason why I choosed Mandriva 2008.1 rather than Ubuntu or other distro is, this distro supports Huawei E220 modem out of the box. Not that I couldn't hack it or fiddling around to make it work with other distros but I'm too lazy for that and furthermore I there's a chemistry between Mandriva and me.

If you really want speed, my advice is to get a 2.5" 7200rpm HDD and put it into a USB casing and install your favorite distro into it. For me I just don't want to spend too much money on this baby and thumbdrive is small and light which suit the main reason for easy portability, AAO and thumbdrive they compliment each other.

If you really have a good knowledge in linux, it shouldn't be any problem for you to install and configure AAO for dual booting.

 

thats quote from acer uk website.

this means if different version of OS (3rd party software) will be responsible for hardware failure then warranty is void. Otherwise they don't care.
In practice I find it hard to think of any reason how different OS would cause hardware failure...

 

Yes, I would agree with you too....how on earth installing OS can do damage to hardwares....

 

Of course it could, the Linous OS is lightweight and designed to compliment the SSD. What if you installed an OS that throttled the SSD and tested the CPU?

I called Acer about this before the One was released. All lines of enquiry seemed to imply that it wouldn't void the warranty, but then again none of them even knew what the One was and wouldn't provide me with anything in writing.

 

Terribly sorry to necro a seemingly old thread

but I was wondering also I bought my aspire in walmart and I was wondering if I would be able to return it even if the OS was changed, changed it to fedora.

Not to long ago i brought back an HP slimline in circuit city funny thing was they never really checked it they basically just looked at the serials to confirm that I was able to bring it back. I was just wondering is it the same if it's with laptops and stuff and any other retail store? has anyone tried that? does anyone know? seems to me they don't really check they just check if every component is in the box and that's it.

 

It doesnt make much sense to me really.
the OS is machine independent.. meaning I can go to a retailer and buy a Windows XP professional. There is nothing that says that I cannot install it on my AAO.
However, if the AAO fails, and the failure is caused by the new OS installed (possible but a remote possibility nonetheless) then they will not be able to honour the warranty.
I suppose if you can put the original OS back before sending it would probably be better, but i wouldnt go out of my way for it..

 

ahh I see it shouldn't affect it.

I opened the warranty letter it listed what it didn't cover and part of it was

"Software, including the operating system and software added by you. any third-party software, or the reloading of software"

it's sketchy for me because my reading comprehension isn't that good

I wonder if I can wait till christmas is over then return it with the excuse saying that it came with "fedora" lol :lol: