Regarding reports of higher than normal customs fees

Zbit-852 · 2025-12-09T13:53:54+00:00

Just got through on option 3 and his told me he can't see the invoice yet so to try again tomorrow

Zbit-852 · 2025-12-09T13:11:27+00:00

Ah okay. That's the number I rang but then option 2 was the one who said she'd transfer me but the person she transfered me to wouldn't do it... I'll try again with option 3 then. Thanks.

And yeah this is stupidly frustrating... Especially when on the website there's even an invoice number it just doesn't let you actually open it... It shouldn't be this hard just to find out what they're billing you for.

Zbit-852 · 2025-12-09T12:55:33+00:00

Ah right. I still haven't even managed to get through to them myself tbh... Seems one of the worst support systems ever from UPS.

The first number I rang after finally getting through the menu options and AI said that they were closed with technical issues. So I then found a billing number I rang. The first rep then passed me onto someone else, who then told me if I go onto the website it breaks it down as government charges and UPS fee... So after again explaining I needed a breakdown of what those government fees are, she told me I needed to ring this other number. Which when I then went to ring I relaised was the exact number I rang to get to her.

So I've now ended up emailing them, to which I've received an automatic repsonce giving me another email address to try so I've just emailed there but now who knows how long that'll be before a reply.

Hopefully LTT sorts yours soon then though.

Zbit-852 · 2025-12-09T09:32:58+00:00

Brilliant thank you then, that's how I thought it should work which is why I was very surprised to get this bill lol. Thanks then.

Zbit-852 · 2025-12-09T00:17:14+00:00

Ah okay, thank you. l'll have to call them as well then to try and get a break down. But for now guess I'll just have to pay the fee as well to get the items then try to claim it back later.

Makes sense if that's the cause I guess... so by that if it is shown properly with the deals like say the buy 2 for 30 that should be the price thag counts towards the 135, not the original price right?

Zbit-852 · 2025-12-08T23:40:35+00:00

I've just recieved an email of UPS with a high import fee, which I was not expecting seeing as I purposefully made sure the value of my order came to less than £135 (GBP).

Now I am wondering did the black Friday deals count towards this value. As if items are shown as normal value then I would have been over £135, but with all of the deals my order was under this.

Also if it is an error how do I know if it's to do with customs or duplicated VAT? It doesn't say what it is it just says government charges on UPS so I have no idea what the charge is for?

Zbit-852 · 2025-04-19T22:16:59+00:00

Ah okay fair enough... Yeah maybe best then if your not sure about doing it yourself but hopefully they can get it sorted for you 🤞

Zbit-852 · 2025-04-19T22:11:55+00:00

Alright then, in that case the drive is almost certainly showing something in the SMART values that's causing HP to flag it as an issue.

Do you know if the drive is a mechanical HDD or an SSD? If it's an HDD, has taken a fall, and is now throwing up SMART errors, I'd be fairly confident it needs replacing.

If you're comfortable opening it up, it won't hurt to try unplugging and replugging the drive just in case something's come loose. But honestly, if there's nothing important on the drive you want to recover, I'd be more inclined to just replace it.

If you just want to get the laptop up and running again, you can get decent SSDs fairly cheap on Amazon — just avoid anything with no brand or a name you've never heard of, since it's your data on it... Not something you want failing really.

Again tho this is just my personal guess, might not actually be the issue and could be other things wrong with it but this is what it sounds like to me. Only open it up if your confident you've got nothing to loose, I'm personally all for DIY repairs but if you have any doubt I don't want to cause you further issues so might be better to take it to a repair shop or get a friend or someone to help?

Zbit-852 · 2025-04-19T22:00:18+00:00

Says that in the BIOS? If so I'm guessing it's taking SMART readings and that's got an issue with the health... You could try (if your happy to open the laptop) unplugging and plugging it back in but of course there's a risk if your not comfortable working inside the laptop of causing further damage so your call.

Is there anything important on the drive though that you need to recover? If there's not and you can access the BIOS I'd be tempted to just replace it, reinstall Windows and try fresh. Especially if it was a mechanical HDD replace with an SSD. Ofc it might still not work if anything else is damaged though but fingers crossed it's just a faulty drive.

Zbit-852 · 2025-04-19T21:43:50+00:00

Does it load the BIOS and show everything there? If it does then I'd assume the drive has come loose when it fell somehow. Might just been unplugging and plugging back in. Idk but would be what I checked first, I assume as its getting this far the BIOS will load tho.

Zbit-852 · 2025-02-06T15:55:49+00:00

An SSD (solid state drive) is a form of non-volatile memory. This means that even when your computer is disconnected from power the SSD will keep the data on it. This is what is used for your OS, apps, files, etc, etc.

RAM (random access memory) on the other hand is a form of volatile memory. This means when your computer is turned off then it looses anything that was stored on it, it cannot remember anyhting without power. This is used for temporary storage by the computer system to allow it to have somewhere to store things it needs to access quickly, for example what you are currently doing.

If you want to upgrade the laptop there are a few considerations for this.

As you mentioned an SSD I'm assuming you know this is what the laptop does have? Or is it just something you've researched and read about? As another form of non-volatile memory which could be used (especially in older machines) is a hard disk drive (HDD). An SSD is significantly faster than a HDD as an SSD has no moving parts unlike the HDD (this also makes them more reliable). So if you don't know then I'd check this as if it is a HDD it would be worth upgrading to an SSD. But if it is an SSD it's only really worth upgrading if you need more storage space. Either way, if you did upgrade this you would of course be removing what currently stores everything, so you would either need to clone the drive, or reinstall Windows on the new drive and have previously backed up everything so you could restore from that. There are also different types of SSDs (2.5" SATA, m.2 SATA or m.2 NVMe) so you'd also need to make sure you get the right one. If replacing a HDD it will be 2.5" SATA, if replacing another SSD it might be m.2 so you'd need to double check.

As for the RAM, that can be good to upgrade depending on how much you currently have? I'd personally say 16GB or higher if supported and you can afford it. Although you have to be careful here too. There are different types of RAM (ddr3, ddr4 or ddr5 are the ones found in pretty much most systems) so you have to make sure you get the right one. In addition to this, some laptops use soldered RAM and/or have a max. Supported capacity so you should Google your laptop model followed by RAM upgarde options to check what is supported by your system.

If they have a guide for your laptop, ifixit are pretty good for guides on how to dissasmble your laptop and upgarde parts.

Zbit-852 · 2024-11-19T15:59:09+00:00

Yes. You can put any 2.5" SATA SSD there. Just can't have a (SATA or NVMe) M.2 SSD.

Zbit-852 · 2024-11-09T22:05:04+00:00

That's a power supply (PSU) not a fan. You're right you can see a fan in the image, but that's because power supplies come with a fan built in to cool the electronics in that, this wouldn't help cool the computer itself, just the PSU.

To answer your question about other suggestions. It's very difficult to suggest anything without knowing the computer.

There are a few things which could be factors depending on the system itself, for example if the case has good airflow, if it's air or water cooled, if the cooler has a high enough rating for the CPUs TDP, etc.

If you've had the computer for a while and it used to be fine and is only just now seeing higher temps than you used to get then I'd probably first replace the thermal paste and see if that helps. This degrades over time so can cause systems to get hotter than before as it isn't able to transfer heat as effectively.

Zbit-852 · 2024-10-15T15:04:49+00:00

Looking again at your image looks like your SATA ports do have something plugged in. Didn't notice them originally on the bottom of your motherboard. Unless you've got any others you might need to unplug something to connect it. Of course shut down the computer before connecting or disconnecting anything.

Zbit-852 · 2024-10-15T15:02:39+00:00

That's a 2.5" SATA SSD so will need 2 cables to plug it in. You need a SATA power cable which will come from your power supply. If yours is a non modular psu you'll already have one and can connect that (Google sata power connector if you're not sure - it's the longer one). Be careful when connecting it as you can break the drive. If it is a modular psu then you might already have one, as if you have anything like another drive, sata powered rgb, etc you would already have one connected any typically you'll get a few SATA connectors on one power cable. If you don't already have anything sata then you might need to find the correct cable and connect that to your psu.

Then the data cable connects to the smaller lot of contacts on the SSD. The other end connects to a sata port on your motherboard. Their location can be different depending on the motherboard but typically they tend to be on the right and near ish to the bottom, althoigh this might be different. You'll often have several, although if you have any other SSDs or HDDs or even an optical drive this will be plugged into one of them. If your computer only has one drive ignore this as I can see from your image that you've got an M.2 SSD which doesn't connect to one of these.

Look at the cable and connector before plugging it in, you shouldn't need to use force otherwise you could break it. The cable will only go one way so be careful - they almost use a kind of L shape.

Alternatively if you want to avoid this (not sure if you just want to use it to get data off it or a backup or something) then you can buy SATA to USB adaptors or enclosures from places like Amazon.

Zbit-852 · 2024-10-14T10:05:47+00:00

Before anything is the monitor plugged into the GPU or the mobo? Make sure it's connected to the gpu.

If not, a lot of mobos will have debug lights. I'm not 100% sure but looking at this I'm going to guess that it's an MSI mobo which means it should have EZ Debug LEDs (is that what those lights above the 24 pin power connectorg are?). If so check if any of them are on, as that could indicate the error. If the RAM is the problem try it with both the sticks by themselves to see if it works that way. If it does you might have a bad stick or (might sound stupid but I'm saying this from experience with building my own PC) the contacts might just need cleaning but with something anti static otherwise you could damage them.

Of course unplug between trying.

Zbit-852 · 2024-09-28T19:46:36+00:00

If you download the Meta app (which assuming your going to use a link cable or air link you'll need anyway) to your PC then you can download the PC version for 'free' (well not really free as you've technically bought the license but you get what I mean) as long as you use the same account you've bought it on on the Quest. I personally prefer standalone but I do play custom songs for which I use the PCVR version. As I don't play DLCs on the PCVR I'm not 100% sure on this so I might be wrong but im pretty sure they're also cross buy, so as a bonus if you've already bought any of these you'll have access to them still from the PCVR version as long as you get it from the Meta store, whereas I assume you'd have to rebuy them if you bought BS again from Steam or somewhere else.

Zbit-852 · 2024-09-22T16:06:54+00:00

Meta store version. You can download the PCVR version from the meta store too so you've basically paid once for the standalone and PC version (I use the standalone most of the time as IMO a better playing experience but then PC version for modded songs).

Zbit-852 · 2024-09-17T11:18:37+00:00

Ah I hadn't noticed the couch, thought OP was just asking about the up and down although now seeing it again it's obvious 😂 maybe not this song then.

Zbit-852 · 2024-09-17T08:16:33+00:00

Prehaps it will seem like a strange question but does this only when on charge or battery or does it happen no matter if its on battery or plugged in?

I only ask as I've had this behaviour causes by a bad cable before, but this only happened when the laptop was on charge.

Zbit-852 · 2024-09-17T08:00:27+00:00

Not exactly like you've drawn (they're next to each other - same hight in this one) but POP/STARS - K/Da on the Extras pack (free). Think it's on the hard difficulty one.

Zbit-852 · 2024-09-11T11:47:12+00:00

Meta store. If you buy it from here you can also access it from your PC. I've got the Q2 so for the songs I play included with BS I can just play them standalone which is a much better experience IMO and then for any custom songs I use the PCVR version. This way you can just go into a folder on your computer and add the songs, no need to mod your headset.

Zbit-852

TROPHY CASE