bkjohnson
Premium
join:2002-05-22
Birmingham, AL
| Anyone else having Lenovo T61 problems?
For years I, along with others at work and in my family, have been using IBM Thinkpads with great success, including those made for IBM by Lenovo. Recently, however, my sister bought her second Thinkpad, a nicely equipped T61. She has had a great deal of trouble with it - frequent BSOD occurrences, freeze-ups, etc. Even though she paid for extra warranty coverage, Lenovo tech support has been unhelpful and almost incompetent. Has anyone else experienced similar problems with this model? |
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PeteC2
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Premium,MVM
join:2002-01-20
Bristol, CT
clubs:
 ·AT&T Yahoo
edit:
April 30th, @06:12PM
| Sadly, customer service is not a happy story in the computer idustry...pretty much across the board 
I have a friend with a recent-vintage T-61, but he has had no issuea at all with it, and is very satisfied.
BTW, Lenovo bought out IBM's PC division, they do not build notebooks for IBM, they simply bought out the Thinkpad trademark...not unlike that Compaq, once one of the premeire PC makers, is now only a trademark under Hewlett-Packard who had bought them out some time ago. In fact, it is kind of ironic that "Compaq" is now the budget line of HP. Not to say that today's Thinkpads are not good notebooks...but they are in no part "IBM".
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Rothan Tik
Destroyer of worlds
Premium
join:2000-11-07
Danvers, MA
·Verizon Online DSL
| said by PeteC2  :Sadly, customer service is not a happy story in the computer idustry...pretty much across the board I have a friend with a recent-vintage T-61, but he has had no issuea at all with it, and is very satisfied. BTW, Lenovo bought out IBM's PC division, they do not build notebooks for IBM, they simply bought out the Thinkpad trademark...not unlike that Compaq, once one of the premeire PC makers, is now only a trademark under Hewlett-Packard who had bought them out some time ago. In fact, it is kind of ironic that "Compaq" is now the budget line of HP. Not to say that today's Thinkpads are not good notebooks...but they are in no part "IBM". I dunno. I had a T40p when it was still branded IBM. My T60p is a pretty close (newer) equivilent in my reckoning. AFAIK, IBM just rebranded it. |
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PeteC2
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Premium,MVM
join:2002-01-20
Bristol, CT
clubs:
·AT&T Yahoo
| said by Rothan Tik :I dunno. I had a T40p when it was still branded IBM. My T60p is a pretty close (newer) equivilent in my reckoning. AFAIK, IBM just rebranded it. Well, there is a marketing relationship of sorts still there, as it gives IBM a notebook solution to offer customers, but IBM has nothing to do with actually building/servicing 'em anymore.
In a way though it does not matter, the Thinkpad line is still a quality notebook, but it is Lenovo, through and through.
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...something is happening here but you don't know what it is...do you, Mr. Jones? |
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NgtFlyer
join:2000-07-09
Marietta, GA
·Speakeasy
| reply to bkjohnson
Something also to take into account.. For quite a few years, laptop computers aren't actually made by the actual "manufacturers" and this even includes Lenovo. They do not have manufacturing facilities and rely on ODMs such as Inventech and Quanta to build the actual machines. (AFAIK, the Macbook Pro is also produced at the Quanta factory in China). RedPhoenix, The use of the Compaq name is a bit weird. True that the budget machines are sold with both the HP and Compaq names, but the high-end HP business class machines are also branded HP|Compaq. My particular notebook is an HP|Compaq NC8430. I'm happy with it, even if it rolled off the line at Inventech in China.  Other notebook ODMs include Sager, Mitac, Compal and Foxconn.
Oh, and as an FYI to all the Apple fans, they don't actually manufacture anything, either. They design it, then ODMs build it.
Still, I consider the Thinkpad line among the best of the best out there. They are still very well designed, durable machines. |
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MIXZ1
join:2001-01-02
Mexico
·Prodigy Infinitum
| reply to bkjohnson
You don't mention the configuration, i.e. memory, video adapter and you don't mention the operating system. If it's the NVIDIA 140 and 1 gig of RAM running Vista (just guessing ) you are not alone. A couple of gigs additional RAM and running the Lenovo System Update applet will help. If it's XP, which should be very comfortable in that minimum configuration, then there is a real problem
There are 2 boards that are ThinkPad specific. »forums.lenovo.com/lnv/ and »forum.thinkpads.com/ where you can find lots of solid information.
My machine is T61p with the NVIDIA 540 video adapter and 3 gigs of RAM. I'm running XP Pro and the machine is flawless. |
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johnsea66
Cool Down
Premium
join:2003-01-26
Canada
·Aliant Communicati..
 ·Red Ball Internet
 ·Rogers Hi-Speed
| reply to bkjohnson
At the university I work at, they only buy Dell and Lenovo machines. The lenovos have a SIGNIFICANTLY higher failer rate than the Dell's. This is the combination of laptops and desktops. However, the T61's have had even more problems than any other model. Hard drive and motherboard failures left and right. |
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SAP_Pete
Premium
join:2002-09-13
Las Vegas, NV
| reply to bkjohnson
I've bought my T61p almost a year ago for $1800 + tax, incl. 3 year accidental damage protection, and have been very happy so far.
I've had plenty of laptops of all kinds of brands, and this one is my favorite besides the IBM A30p I bought in 2001 (?).
Config:
6459CT CONFIGURED SYSTEM
INTEL CORE 2 DUO T7500
MICROSOFT WINXP PROFESSION
15.4 WSXGA+ TFT
NVIDIAQUAD FX 570M W/WWAN
2GB PC2-5300 667MHZ 2DIMM
160GB HDD,5400RPM
INTEL TURBO MEMORY 1GB
DVD REC.8XMAXDUAL LAY UB-S
INTEGR.BLUETOOTH PAN
9 CELL LI-ION BATTERY
No failures, and I use it every day carry it on at least two flights per week.
The only downside is that the underside gets pretty hot when running graphic intensive games. 100% satisfied, and a great price at the time considering the accidental damage protection. |
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mmarovitch
join:2008-07-15
Port Orange, FL
| Im going to say that I also have a t61 and so far it works great.
I have been a fan of IBM since the 80's so I had the first IBM laptops, and their first color laptop. I also had a r32, and a t41. Now the t41 had to have the motherboard replaced 4 times. |
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bkjohnson
Premium
join:2002-05-22
Birmingham, AL
| reply to MIXZ1
It was nicely configured - 3 gig RAM, upscale processor,discrete video) Vista Home Premium (Which I have had no problems with on 5 other machines with hardware capable of running it) etc. She had a T43 for years, and loved it, as I do mine. Lenovo finally agreed to replace the machine with no restocking fee, and the replacement machine is running well. It took protesting the charge through her credit card and other steps to get it done. |
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ftthz
If love can kill hate can also save
join:2005-10-17
| reply to bkjohnson
Yeah with the t61 its hit or miss but i would recommend using a thinkpad update to get the bios fix, if you still any updates for your graphics card, and anything that deals with power. Doing that clears up most of the bsod than I just usually keep the system up to date with windows updates / good anti-virus and usually runs pretty smooth. If you dump the info after you get bsod you can always google for a way to fix it as well. Just finish tuning up and fixing about 4-6 t61s. Of them only 2 of them were in really bad shape. Using the restore points than attempting to applying all the proper patches made it easier for me to fix them. Currently fixing a r61i that the hard drive clicks to death so if you can deal with tech support I got a hard drive / cds from them to fix it up. |
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bkjohnson
Premium
join:2002-05-22
Birmingham, AL
| All of that & more was done - no joy. I suspect a hardware problem. The only hardware Lenovo replaced on the original machine was the keyboard, which was also defective. The replacement machine that they finally sent runs well - it just took awhile. |
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