[Solved]X201S smoked, and ibm telling me that its my fault

I have just purchased x201s on April. After about a month, it suddenly smoked from exhaust fan area.

I called support and explained what happened, then they instructed me to place x201s to the box they're going to send to be repaired.

So i did.

After a week or so, ibm support called me saying that it is my fault what happend, and therefore i have to pay $900+ to be repaired.
Now, only thing i did was to upgrade OS from Win7 home premium to ultimate. Both I and ibm support confim that there are no physical damage to this laptop.

I have not opened up this laptop for not even once, and it is under the warranty as it has been used for only about a month.

If anyone knows or familiar with thinkpad or ibm support, enlighten me that what may have caused and how i should approach this matter.

My guess was battery pack/adapter defect, bad batch of condenser, or overheating of Corei7, poor PCB printing.

Any help or suggestion is much appreciated, and thank you for reading my post.

 

Did they give you any reason that they think it's your fault? I would guess a short somehow caused this, and there isn't really much you could have done. Also, find out what exactly they say it needs to be repaired. $900 is ridiculous, even if it needs a motherboard and cpu.

If you're in the US and you can get them to send it back to you unrepaired, I can give you the contact info of a good Thinkpad repair guy in NY (he does stuff by mail too). If you're going to have to pay for a repair, at least don't get ripped off on the price.

 

If they have, it would not confuse me as much as i am.

They told me that keyboard and other parts (premuch everyting on MB) needs to be replaced, and this is caused by customer, so i must pay for.
I asked to speak with reparing engineer, who determined that this has been done by me, but they told me that they cannot do that.
So i asked for detailed report of how or which parts smoke or fire has started and they said they have no idea, the only status they could tell was that there is no spilling/no physical damage on exterior of laptop.

How can this not be covered by warranty? Can i burn the PC from inside without opening it after a month of usage?
And this is why i need help with people familiar with ibm support. More i ask them a question, they toss me back and forth between customer care dept. and billing dept.

 

This sounds absolutely ridiculous. I almost have a hard time believing it. Are you in the USA (I ask because the quality of the warranty service seems to be country dependent)?

There aren't $900 of parts there. Keyboard is like $45. Fan is like $55. Try and get some specifics out of them.

 

I know it does.
I would never imagined to be treated this way in developed country, and yes, i am in US and bought in US. I am Japanese and we would easily get fired for treating cust. in this manner in my nation.
Okay i guess i will ask them to send me the list of parts needs to be replaced and the cost of each.
I cant tell how much time i spent on the phone for this mess.

 

gimlet - apologies for your experience so far.   i've made note of your thread over on the lenovo forum so it can be investigated.   someone will look into it and be in touch.

if the system planar has to be replaced, that can easily be $900+.

 

This is disgraceful that they're doing this. I don't see how they can void your warranty without telling you what happened to void it. No water damage, no physical damage, what could you have possibly done to cause this that wouldn't involve one of those things?

 

Planar? I'm not sure what that means? (well, I think I know, but what I know it as is not a computer hardware part)

 

system planar = motherboard.   IBM never calls them "motherboards".

 

They're $900???? I changed the one on my T60 out for a T60p motherboard and the new board only cost me ~$350.

 

Thank you very much for all your support and the time reading this.
I have just called AGAIN the cust. care dept. and they say that they sent out e-mail to contact repair eng. but not specific date of when they can get back to me.
And also appologized for not knowing anything, and they will be upset as well if it was them in my shoes.
I asked for detailed parts needs to be repaired and cost of each.
I will update as soon as i receive them, and again i really appreciate all comments here as i as so mad and confused.

 

Planar board, CPU (soldered on), and labor. They can make it cost $900. Anyways for OP it should be escalated and hopefully erik has gotten him some help. He should not have to pay for this if he is telling us everything.

 

marlinspike - it's actually more.   an X201s planar with an i7-620LM or i7-640LM is $1194 or $1275 retail purchased directly through IBM.

 

Okay, here is the list of item needs to be replaced or repaird.

IBM Repair Center Work Order Repair Estimate
Part(s) Description: KEYBOARD-IO CARD-MOTHERBOARD-SPEAKER KIT-DC CABLE
Reason/Comment(s): MOTHERBOARD & KEYBOARD DUE TO NO POWER/SPEAKER & AUDIO CARD DUE TO NO SOUND/BURN DAMAGE NEAR FAN
Total Parts & Labor (excluding tax) ____950.00________________

And they did not give me the cost of each item and labor, very nice.
Anyway, DC cable needs to be replaced sounds odd unless that is the cause i think, or is it a standard procedure?

 

that quote is cost on parts, not retail, hence why it wasn't broken down individually.

either way, let's put our torches and pitchforks away for a bit so this can be investigated.   thanks.

 

Wow. I thought tech parts got less expensive as time went on? Figured the $350 that I paid 1.5-2 years go for a T60p motherboard would be considered high by today's standards, boy was I wrong lol.

 

parts by themselves are always gonna be expensive regardless of advancement in technology, because there is always going to be the human cost involved in looking and shipping the part, storage of the parts etc.

But if laptops are bought as a whole, the price will drop as time goes on

 

gimlet,

I've sent you a PM back on the Lenovo forum - we have requested that this be released. It appears that it has already be repaired. I believe it should have gone on engineering hold rather than billable hold.

In any event, I'm sorry that you were informed that you would need to pay before this was fully reviewed.

I hope that the process will complete and this can be shipped back tomorrow - we will certainly work toward that.

Best regards,

Mark

 

Ahhh, I knew there's a reason several people I know have bought Thinkpads on my recommendation and I don't even look at other brands when buying a laptop any more.

 

To the OP...

Sorry to hear that you had these problems. I can empathize as I too had a problem with my newly bought ThinkPad (not as drastic as your problem though) and had got into an endless loop of arguments and disputations with the Lenovo Warranty folks. You are lucky that Mark@Lenovo has lent you a helping hand. I did not have that advantage. However, I just gave up and emailed the Managing Director of Lenovo directly and he intervened to get my problem fixed, which involved replacing the machine totally. Since then I have had emails from Lenovo's Country Manager for Service and VP (Services) of Emerging Markets who have acknowledged and apologized for the troubles that I went through.

Will I buy a ThinkPad again? Absolutely, but I am not enamoured by their Warranty and CS folks who (in my experience) insist on shorting the customer. However, when pushed by their Management, they end up doing a good job. I think much of regarding this is also dependent on the country in which you are based. I would have suggested (before Mark intervened) that if you were having a problem, to write directly to their senior management with full details. As per my experience, they do look into such micro matters and do what is necessary.

 

That's extremely low... unless you bought it yourself off ebay or something.

T41 system planar was $900-$1000 when I had to get mine replaced ~6 years ago.

 

Anyways I have not hear from neither lenovo or ibm support officially yet, so I will report how and what may have caused all this once the product is back in my hand.

Any particular reason why my post is being edited without my knowledge???

 

Current status:
OS 06/04/2010 11:34:00 P Machine being repaired
HF 06/03/2010 01:00:00 P Hold for customer information
HF 06/01/2010 15:16:00 P Hold for customer information
OS 06/01/2010 09:18:00 P Machine being repaired
HF 05/28/2010 20:11:00 P Hold for customer information
OS 05/28/2010 11:10:00 P Machine being repaired
AK 05/18/2010 20:10:00 P Carrier processing request to ship container
AK 05/18/2010 19:41:00 P Carrier processing request to ship container

 

Okay, well looks like you should get your unit back. Let us know on Monday since it is the weekend now.

 

I don't understand the comment about not hearing from Lenovo officially. You heard from Mark twice, and you can't get much more official than that:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/488830-help-x201s-smoked-ibm-telling-me-its-my-fault-2.html#post6316725

Re: [Help]X201S smoked, and ibm telling me that it... - lenovo community

 

>I don't understand the comment about not hearing from Lenovo officially. You heard from Mark twice, and you can't get much more official than that:

Oh, i thought i deserve the explanation from people who has been telling me that it was my fault that what happened, and kept telling that i must pay (customer care dept. and billing dept. + repairing dept.).
Considering how many times i needed to make a call to know what was happening, I was expecting to hear from them.
Maybe that is not how things are done around here, and in which case i apologize.

 

Like some crime scenes, the coroner/crime scene investigator can't give you a straight answer without looking at all the evidences that has been presented, and not all information is released to the victim family without first checking with many different legal departments.

While, your problem is not as serious as what was mentioned above, but given that so many departments are involved, and there is so many things that could have gone wrong, it may not be possible to give a straight yes and why off the cuff.

What Mark_Lenovo did was basically helped you to resolve the billing and other issue to help you out on your end, but i don't think he would know the full extent of the issue, until there is some sort of further investigation (maybe he does and could not tell you for due to sensitivity of the information).

It is tough for you in many respects and you are curious to know what has happened, but you got to give some leeway as to the type of information you want to obtain.

 

I understand, its just frustrating that i spent so much time, decent amount of money, and amount of time that i could have spent with this pc.
Since PC is necessary for my work, i have purchased another PC i'm writing with.

Then all they have to say is I'm sorry...does not sounds fair to me.

 

Fill out the customer feedback survey type thing and/or write to management to express how you feel about your warranty service experience.

 

So finally it is back, and working.
It came back with some stain on Top surface, but besides that it seem all fixed.
Repair summary says :
MB overheating
Speaker Kit overheating
Mini PCI card overheating
Keyboard overheating

So pre much whatever i guess, i didnt know keyboard can overheat.
It took nearly a whole month, and costed me 3-4 hrs of my life time, and $650.00 for the PC to be used while gone, and phone calls from cell.
I just hope this nightmare never happens again, and that for everyone.

Thank you for helpful advise to the ones who gave that out.

 

Stain? Can you clean it with some rubbering alcohol?

 

About the keyboard overheating, I think they meant the wire or the connection to the motherboard overheated or burnt, so I think they need to replace the keyboard too.

 

I am not sure if this defect is caused by hardware or software, but there are a couple problem i see since it is back.

1. PC speaker is extremely low that i'm not sure if the sound is coming out, and this is only when i attempt to play music/video off browser, such as youtube. System sound and Media player (winamp/WMP) works just fine. If i hook up to stereo system, it plays just fine off browser.

2. My BT mouse i bought with this X201s disconnect itself out of blue. This happens without any particular action, and I must turn BT wireless OFF then ON to get the mouse moving again by Fn+F5.

It could be both caused by driver or something, but i updated all i can with Think Vantage Tool, and Win Update.

If anyone got any idea, i would appreciate the insight.

 

the BT mouse will power itself off after a period of inactivity.   moving it and waiting a few seconds should bring it back online.

 

I understand that. The thing is it just turned itself disconnected while it is active, and only way to bring it back is to turn BT wireless OFF/ON.

Should I be opening new thread for this to see if anyone else have seen similar probs?

 

Something similar just happened to me this morning. It was on battery power, and not doing anything - Windows wasn't even booted up, and when I touched the underside of the exhaust vent and the memory and CPU, it was very hot...

I quickly took out the battery, which strangely enough, was cool... and held the power button until it was completely off. Also placed the notebook on some metal, to improve heat dissipation.

Very strange.. I'm already having trouble with this new notebook sleeping. The quality of the X201 series seems suspect.

 

I've had similar experiences when closing my x200s' lid to sleep. It won't enter sleep mode, screen does go black, sleep led never lights up and the CPU and Fan go to 100% on. It stays this way until I press the power button to turn it off. It use to happen at least once every few days (which is a lot imo) but it's been fine lately. If it keeps happening you should run System Update.

 

I've had that happen a couple times on my x200 if it doesn't sleep properly. But I haven't had that in a few months. So it might have been related to a bad motherboard I had replaced.

 

The repair center tried to pull something similar on me, I told them not to do the repairs and ship the laptop back. I called tech support and setup another ticket and sent it back and they repaired it without issue. I think it more has to do with lazy repair technicians rather than company policy.