Fradulent repair status

justalaptopformymom

I bought an Acer Switch 3 for my mother, this device is 5 months old and under warranty. I'm an IT engineer. She noticed in April she was no longer able to have telehealth appointments with her doctor because her webcam wouldn't activate. I've tried every software fix under the sun, including a complete OS reset and I come to the conclusion this is a hardware failure, no problem, the device is under warranty, right? After going through level 1 tech support they tell me I have to pay for the shipping to send this guy in, so I reset the OS and send it on its way with the problem description: "The integrated camera has failed. Webcam shows black input when I use the Camera app, Zoom or Teams will show black input as well, no video, no photo."

I receive the device two weeks later with a note in the repair report "could not duplicate the stated issue," I turn on the device and turn on the Camera app (easiest way to test the front facing webcam) and it is pitch black just like it was before. I'm violently angry.

I make purchasing decisions at work and usually go for a Dell or Lenovo or some other business class laptop that I'm certified to fix, though I no longer do troubleshooting regularly as part of my job, but because my mother was working with a budget and refused to let me pay for it, I went with an Acer, having had relatively decent experiences with their monitors. I am beyond regretful. Not only can't I fix this device myself, but spent money to send it in for some guy at some repair center to just fake their repair report. 

Reddit's Acer subreddit is a ghost town, doubtful anybody monitors that. What else do I try? Twitter? FACEBOOK? Corporate website has no email address to correspond with. Acer Community, for the love of your own mother, what would you do? While I make more than my mom, we are not a rich family. $700 is nothing to sneeze at, and Acer is obviously the type of company I'm never going to spend money on, or ever help one of my own clients and customers spend money on ever again.

Edit: Bonus points, their self-service portal is a blackhole and will not take the S/N of certain models, the Switch 3 being one of them. This purchasing/service experience is the worst I've ever had with any major technology vendor.

justalaptopformymom

... I should mention, if I've just been a complete moron and there's some secret webcam on/off button I've somehow missed, please let me know. I'd rather be an embarrassed idi0t as long as my mum has a working laptop. But I swear I've read the manual, I've looked the device over, I've tried webcam testing websites and applications--I'm not insane, right? This is terrible?

StevenGen

justalaptopformymom said:

... I should mention, if I've just been a complete moron and there's some secret webcam on/off button I've somehow missed, please let me know. I'd rather be an embarrassed idi0t as long as my mum has a working laptop. But I swear I've read the manual, I've looked the device over, I've tried webcam testing websites and applications--I'm not insane, right? This is terrible?

This is very unfortunate and its not part of the course with Acer products generally. We are an Acer enthusiasts community and I'm sure that administrators here could do something and advise you of what to do. In my experiences with Acer they have always fixed every warranty problem even if and in some cases the warranty expired, with many products that I've purchased. Contact and/or take your mothers Switch 3 to an Acer locally to you and have them look at it personally while you are there and tell them the situation. Also, what is the exact Switch 3 model number as we do have access to service manuals and maybe your cam problem is a minor hardware problem that you could specifically point to with Acer to fix.  

billsey

It would help a lot to know which Switch 3 model you have. IIRC some have a privacy toggle that places a little plastic gizmo over the lens to keep your camera physically off. Perhaps that's what is happening with yours. Does Device Manager show the camera without any warnings? There is the possibility the camera wasn't mounted correctly, so it's looking at the inside of the case, but that would be really rare...

justalaptopformymom

Hello, I played around with the chassis myself and it seems putting my thumb over physically where the front facing webcam is and then removing it (placing light pressure), will cause the system to find it. But sometimes it'll work and sometimes it won't. It is certainly a hardware defect of some kind. I took a video of it but don't want to start with support again. I'm just going to buy my mother a backup webcam because the warranty process for this was incredibly painful and I don't want to blow another $30 and 3 weeks for someone to do zero work. 

No response from Acer. I've tried Reddit as well.

This is a SF314-42-R6YC-US W10HML64SF6T/R5 4500U/BT5/8G/256GB PCI NVME/4L3.22/14.0     

billsey

Since getting physical with it changes the behavior, I'd guess it's the connection between the camera module and the wiring that goes to the MB... Technically it's not a difficult process to fix that, but realistically it means taking it down quite a ways, so better to let someone else do the work. You have to remove the display portion from the rest of the computer, then pry the bezel off to get access to those wires.

justalaptopformymom

billsey said:

Since getting physical with it changes the behavior, I'd guess it's the connection between the camera module and the wiring that goes to the MB... Technically it's not a difficult process to fix that, but realistically it means taking it down quite a ways, so better to let someone else do the work. You have to remove the display portion from the rest of the computer, then pry the bezel off to get access to those wires.

I mean, that was the intention. But I don't know what to do if sending in for warranty servicing does nothing because the technician simply skips doing the work. Still nothing from Reddit--or here for that matter, except you fine people. I suppose I'll try Twitter but I find it completely ridiculous there's no general or corporate contact info I could get in touch with.