I’m ready to smash my ThinkPad

I know I’m in the minority here, but I’m beginning to despise ThinkPads. I’ve had such amazing trouble with these things and while IBM/Lenovo has attempted to repair them, they just keep failing in new ways. I’m not even being that hard on them, really. Every problem just feels like a manufacturing defect.

My latest problem is that my ThinkPad no longer detects that I have an extra stick of RAM in here. I upgraded from 1GB to 2GB and thinks were fine for a while until it started giving me bootup errors and failed the POST. I figured the RAM had gone bad and shelled out for another stick, which the laptop only recognizes a fraction of the time. It will take me 5 power cycles to get it to see the RAM, and that’s if I’m lucky.

Furthermore, memtest86 fails at times when probing for RAM.

Now I know I probably need the motherboard replaced, but last time I had to do that, Lenovo charged me $700 and gave me one that barely turned out. They then charged me a little bit more to get the laptop replaced altogether (which was needed since they also warped my plastic and caused other damages). They never refunded any of the money, despite their negligence.

It wasn’t that long ago that I had to send this in for a fan replacement. And after that I had to get two keyboard replacements (the first one they sent had a busted key).

Let’s see, with this problem, I’ll now have:

  • 3 faulty motherboards
  • 2 dead fans
  • 2 broken keyboards
  • 1 cracked case
  • 1 damaged LCD
  • 1 dead drive

I want to send this in and get it fixed, but I’m scared to death that they’re going to screw this up like last time I needed a motherboard replacement.

You listening Lenovo? Anyone want to help reaffirm my faith in your company?

6 thoughts on “I’m ready to smash my ThinkPad”

  1. Yeah, I had the “missing memory” problem. My T30 needed a new system board. Of course, that was back in the day when they had a really good return/repair policy (3 years, even for problems I created by, for example, dropping the laptop on a hardwood floor).

    I’m now in the market for a new laptop, but after all the Lenovo problems I’ve been hearing about, I’m just not sure where my mouth is or whether to put my money there…

  2. Rob J. Caskey

    Or more to the point, who is going to be the first vendor to send out a replacement hard-drive-less unit via next-day mail and let us ship back our corpse never having to look at it again.

    /me buys whats on sale, its all made in a sweatshop by similarly skilled workers

  3. Matthew Chestnut

    What model ThinkPad are you having trouble with? I’ve been trouble-free for years with my ThinkPads 390, A21P, and T60P. The only “problem” I’ve had is with a recent battery recall that was taken care of for no charge.

  4. I’ve used ThinkPads since the late 90’s. I have also used Apples and Dells. I now tell people to buy Dell Latitudes, or anything over $1k from Toshiba or Fujitsu.

    The ThinkPads used to be the top brand. Until they were built in China. Until about 2003 the ThinkPads were all built in Mexico and quality was high. Then they moved production to China and in 2005 sold the whole thing to Lenovo.

    Quality is in the trash. You might still get a good laptop out of them, but the number of problems is much higher and the willingness to fix the problems is gone. My last ThinkPad (it will be my last), had case panels that didn’t line up and a hard drive that had errors on it from day one.

    My Mexico-built 600 still runs like it was new. My Mexico-built A31p was a dream until it was stolen. The China-built T60 was ok, but failed after a year. This current T61 has had problems from the day it landed.

    Lenovo should sell the ThinkPad brand back to IBM before they trash the name forever.

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