Repeated Issues /w ThinkPad T61P

Well, a few of you on these forums may recall who I am. These constant issues are starting to try my patience so any suggestions/help is appreciated.

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Well let me start by saying that ThinkPad's are truly a wonderful piece of hardware, but unfortunately my experience with my ThinkPad has been less than pleasant as of recent.

It started a few months ago when I purchased my ThinkPad T61P. The shipping process took quite a bit longer than I initially expected but that was fine in my opinion. (Being an Information Systems major I understand the part shortages etc.) Skipping forward, after approximately a month passed I received my ThinkPad T61P.

As one can imagine I was like a kid on Christmas, quickly yet carefully unwrapping my new toy. However immediately upon booting up the machine I noticed a defect, severe light leakage from the bottom of the LCD. This leakage encompassed approximately 20% of the screen. I moved past that issue and began to further tinker with the laptop only to find another issue, the computer would lockup after ten-thirty minutes of graphic intensive applications and not accept any commands in addition to the sound repeatidly looping. The only way to resolve this issue was of course forcibly turning the power off and then booting the computer back up.

At this point I was forced to call Lenovo and request a depot repair. Sure enough, the motherboard was defective. A week passed and curious as to where my new laptop was I called and inquired as to what was taking so long. The motherboard was on backorder for two weeks and I would just have to wait it out.

Two weeks later I finally received my laptop back. Immediately after lifting it out of the box I knew something was wrong, for one I could hear loose components moving around as I carried my laptop. (With the lid closed and everything secured) I immediately sat my laptop down and carefully removed the five screws securing the touchpad cover so I could access the RAM slots. Surely enough, the casing around the keyboard wasn't even properly attached! Upon closer inspection I counted at least ten screws missing just at first glance. (Thats just externally, not internally...) I also noticed a problem that wasn't present before, erratic LCD behavior. (Such as random horizontal and vertical lines appearing randomly)

So I called Lenovo back and asked to speak to a manager, within five minutes I was talking to the depot supervisor. (This impressed me and put my worry at ease as he assured me he'd personally take care of it) Needless to say, I received another box and within a week on November 23rd, 2007 I received my laptop back. Unfortunately, the first thing I did out of instinct was remove the touchpad cover to access the RAM, surely enough the casing around the keyboard still wasn't properly attached. In addition the depot said my LCD was fine, even though it displays horizontal lines when using graphic intensive applications, is unevenly lit, has severe light leakage and is extremely grainy. (This is after a clean format and using several drivers)

With the assistance of customer service I was issued a replacement in late December and the issues seemed to disappear. For one thing the LCD was top notch, with only mild light leakage I'd say 3% if that which is normal. However as I began to get more extensive use out of this laptop for college as spring semester picked up work wise I started noticing quite a few issues:

1) Keyboard Issues

The keyboard tends to not register keystrokes as effectively as my previous ThinkPad did. In addition, certain keys fail to register strokes on a consistent basis. Last but not least, certain essential system keys do not work properly at all. (Such as F8 to enter Safe Mode does not work at all. So I have to do the long routine of manually enabling Safe Mode via MSCONFIG. As one could imagine should a real issue occur where I cannot access the OS in normal mode to enable Safe Mode the long route, I would have no choice but to reformat which is unacceptable to me)

2) LCD Issues

Whereas the LCD Screen provided with my replacement laptop is absolutely gorgeous and resolves all the quality issues present in the old machine it has backlight issues. (Say I close the lid of the laptop and the backlight turns off to conserve power. Well when I go to open the lid back up often times the backlight will be dimmer or it won't even turn on! This leads me to repeatedly opening and closing the laptop to try and get the backlight to turn back on or just becoming completely frustrated and having to forcibly restart the laptop. By the backlight not coming on I mean only seeing a black screen, that's it!)

3) Graphic Issues

As we discussed previously, this laptop was bought based on your reputation of providing high quality and extremely stable machines. It is intended for college use as I am majoring in Information Systems and require a laptop around the clock. (I literally am never seen without a laptop in my presence)

Unfortunately when utilizing graphic intensive applications which is what I bought this machine for, after roughly ten-thirty minutes of intense usage the machine locks up. (The sound loops repeatedly and the machine will not respond to commands, forcing me to turn it off manually) This occurred in the previous T61P I owned and was the main reason I hesitantly went through the long process of contacting Lenovo and getting it replaced. (Which took over a month)

4) More

There are quite a few constant and irresolvable issues that I can mention as well...

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Now, let me go through the steps I have tried to resolve this issue.

1) I have done a full reformat of Windows XP Professional SP2 and installed the latest drivers from your website as of yesterday. This did not resolve any of the above issues.

2) I have properly uninstalled the graphic drivers and tried over six different others in a desperate attempt to resolve the graphic issues. However, this did not resolve the issue.

3) I have done a memtest86+ diagnostic on my 4GB of RAM to ensure that is not causing the graphic issues. This RAM passed with flying colors and in addition I even tested them in a friend's T61P. He was able to use them to run graphic intensive applications without issue.

As stated earlier I am an Information Systems major and thus I have the need for a reliable, stable computer on a constant basis. I am CompTIA A+ Certified and thus have the necessary knowledge to diagnose and repair computers to an extent. After hours of trying to rectify the issues with this laptop I am passing this issue onto you.

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I apologize for the extremely lengthy post, but I felt it was necessary to make you guys aware of the issues this ThinkPad has caused me since purchase and I was hoping perhaps someone would be willing to help or offer advice? If I have to I'll call Lenovo and work my way up to a manager, but having to spend up to five hours just to argue with a technician that this is a hardware problem and not my mistake seems counter-productive to me. (I had to with the first case and trust me it wasn't a pleasant experience)

 

Seems like you got a bum laptop.

How long can you be without your laptop? I'd try to argue that even though Lenovo attempted to repair the machine several times, it still has issues. Then try to get a replacement machine.

 

The problem is this IS the replacement machine. lol sigh

 

my T61p used to have the same exact problems that you were having. luckily, i work at the computing place for my school and we have certified technicians here to perform repairs on laptops. since they knew me, they just put in orders for motherboards for my T61p until one of the motherboard replacements worked. Long story short, my symptoms were caused by a faulty motherboard. you could also replace the keyboard if it's not registering any keystrokes. but definitely, this sounds like a hardware issue.

 

thank you , you are all right , Thinkpad is not great but is just a portable computer with lots of issues.

it is no longer IBM quality if there was such a thing I believe all was just a myth.

I know a lot of frustrated users with this thing.

I strongly suggest any potential buyer of this overpriced laptop to carefully check out a Dell Latitude or Vostro before decide on anything firmly.

The LCD is so bad that I thought about was designed in 80th.

 

Just go with a Dell or HP business, much better than this black box without any new innovation.

 

If even the replacement is having issues, then the replacement will have to be replaced too or repaired. If you didn't purchase onsite warranty though I don't think they will send out a technician.

Can you find out if Lenovo has repair facility you can bring it in to locally? I'm not sure if they do but you'd probably have better luck if you could reproduce the problem to a tech face-to-face.

 

Sadly I have to agree that the quality of Thinkpads is going down a bit. I still feel that my T60 is better built than my Inspiron 1520, but it is still having issues ... motherboard went bad, I'm on AC adapter #3 (and probably going to need a 4th).

I'm not sure if my dell would put up with all the thinkpad does but it has its problems.

As far as the T61s go, they deployed them here at Morrisville (Thinkpad University) and I know they had a lot of problems with them.

 

please kindly take lappyforphotoshop's comments with a grain of salt. he seems to be the kind to just bash on Lenovo because they are more expensive in his location. this has been proven in other threads as well.

the Thinkpad was originally designed for IBM employees if I remember correctly. and way back in the day they were expensive because they were only designed for business users, not mainstream users. that's also probably why IBM was losing money keeping the Thinkpad business since not many people bought them because they were highly priced. However, they were / still are the industry's best (IMHO). after Lenovo took over, build quality hasn't changed much from previous generations (still solid, can still take more of a beating than other computers), though quality control went down a bit. but remember that most of the people posting on this forum are unhappy with their laptop. i'm sure for every one person that's unhappy, there are 10+ happy ones.

I work for my school's computer help desk. we offer computer repairs and i have seen / used a fair share of different computers varying from samsung to toshiba to sony to dell to hp to ibm's. The oldest laptop I have ever worked with is an IBM T20...that laptop is just as solid as the Dell D630 we have at the office (slower but build quality wise, i'd take that over the Dell). Plus, Thinkpads aren't all that expensive. You can get a decked out Thinkpad for around $1000. That's the same price as a Dell / HP business notebook, if not cheaper.

but enough of this off tangent refute regarding lappyforphotoshop's comments. this sounds to be purely a hardware problem so all you should have to do is get the replacement replaced until it's fixed. it's a hassle, but once it is fixed, i'm sure you won't have any regrets

 

Yeah, my major issue is that in the middle of spring semester I can't just keep swapping my only on campus laptop in and out until I finally land on one that decides to work properly. Perhaps I'll get lucky and can push for a refund or something...

I really wanted to keep this T61P, but if two units have failed consecutively in under six months I have my doubts as to how reliable it will be over the next three years. (Which is what the warranty I purchased covers...)

Thanks for your comments guys.

 

YMMV but my new T61p runs flawlessly ( knock on wood )

 

maybe you can try to get them to rush the laptop to you. or send you a replacement before you send the defective one back? though it would be inconvenient to have to reinstall everything over and over =/

 

+1 New T61p here but so far, so good.

 

Very sorry to hear your sad story. Makes me want to ship you my T61p until your semester is over. In other threads and forums, it is clear Lenovo did have a Motherboard problem in the 4th Quarter of 07 and it might have been associated with one of their manufacturing sites in China. We went so far in one thread as to compare manufacturing codes to try and determine the culprit site.

And, yes, go back to Lenovo and get your replacement PC so we can continue to receive your GeForce 8800 modified drivers!

Wishing you luck and a speedy exchange.

 

Get any whine with that processor?

This story is making me hesistant on sending my laptop in to get the whine checked out. I think they want to switch motherboards.

 

None so far!

 

Hackerz: Did you try pulling out 1 stick of RAM and running with just 1x2GB? (Alot of users who have that faulty planar problem have no issues with 1 stick but do with 2 sticks)

If that works it might be a temp solution till school is over and you can send it back to the depot. Meanwhile you can also try getting them to send you a new kb...they're easy to self iinstall , no need to send to depot for that.

 

The last two times I sent my ThinkPad to the depot it came back missing over twenty screws with components floating around inside the case. I think its safe to assume I have absolutely zero confidence on the depot.

I just ran the diagnostic they use at the depot and it seems my GPU is defective, rather than my RAM.

I'm on hold with Lenovo right now trying to either get a replacement or a refund.

 

I don't mean its a RAM issue (the ram itself could be perfect)...but its a planar issue affecting the GPU that only manifests itself with 2 sticks of ram. Its been thoroughly documented here and on thinpads.com (if its the same issue)

 

Yeah I'm aware of that, my first ThinkPad T61P was defective for that very reason. This one doesn't have that issue though, its a defective GPU which kinda makes owning this laptop pointless. Look at the workstation power with a broken GPU...lol

 

Hackez,

I'm sad because this seems to happen to nice people. I think you've really been patient. But I'd recommend that you just keep pushing.

"You can get a decked out Thinkpad for around $1000."

Actually mine cost most than 3... (with 3 year depot) and it has everything in it.

Mine was built dated 10.7.07 and it is flawless with 4 gigs of memory. I have it running 64 bit Vista now and it's solid in every repect. Last last I did a disk defag and the disk ran continuously for 20 minutes. It's totally silent and I noticed for the first time that the right palm rest was at body temperature but no warmer. I do feel that it throws out a lot of hot air out of the side vent.

 

Is it not still EZServ/Solectron?? (Atlanta)

 

I am really reaching my breaking point. After being on the phone for three hours the best I could manage was a RAID depot repair which basically means two managers have to sign off on the repair before it can be shipped back to me.

I'm sure that will do a ton to ensure my issue is completely resolved...

If there are any issues when I get it back I'll be threatening legal action and pursuing action through the BBB. This is simply ridiculous and the last time I'll ever purchase a ThinkPad.

 

Can you install some temperature monitoring software? There are some free packages out there that may be able to monitor the temperature of your processor and graphics chip; these may help determine the cause of the problems under heavy graphics use. I think either your CPU or GPU may be overheating.

One program you could try is HWMonitor; you can find it here:

http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

 

I learned the hard way that having only one computer at college is no good. When I started this year, I had 2 desktops and the laptop.

Each month I lost one (surprisingly enough, they were all motherboard failures) and I, a computer student that REQUIRES a computer for most classes, did not have any sort of computer.

I would have had to go 2 weeks without a computer had I not been able to run home and grab another.

My suggestion to you (if you get the money back for the Tpad) is to get two laptops. Or if you get your thinkpad sorted out, pick up a crappy spec'ed laptop off of ebay or something as a spare.

 

Having two laptops with similar technology is excessive. I prefer to space out my computer purchases so that the hardware can stay somewhat up to date.

There's always school computer labs after all..

 

..Or Rent-a-Center Boy this sucks. I have heard a lot of bad stories about the depot techs. Makes me wonder if an extended warranty is even worth it.