T530 mSATA and warranty

Hey Guys,

I know I have been asking a lot of questions about the T530's and I appreciate your patience with me. I am still waiting for mine, but it may go back as soon as I get if it has the loose battery issue. Any, that is not my question at the momemt, my question is can I put a mSATA in my T530 without voiding my warranty? I ask be cause I read this over at the the lenovo forum:
"one caveat for you, though. while the X220, X220T, T420, T520 and W520 list the mPCIe WWAN as a CRU (customer replaceable unit), the x30 series lists it as a FRU (field replaceable unit), meaning, generally, that an authorized tech must do it. so, technically, with your machine, if something "bad" were to happen while you had it opened up to install the mSATA SSD, your warranty might be voided."

So, is this the case? I have been trying to verify it but can't seem to find anything. Thanks for the help.

 

Just "installing" an mSATA SSD will not void your warranty. However if something is broken during installation or the mSATA SSD dies itself, of course Lenovo will not honor the warranty. IMO a mSATA SSD should be an CRU, as drives/RAM are considered a CRU.

 

It's no different than installing RAM by yourself: you can freely do so without voiding your warranty, but whatever you may damage out of negligence while doing so will not be covered under warranty. That said, an mSATA installation isn't too bad. You'll need to remove the keyboard and palmrest (and battery, of course), and then just fasten a screw. Check the hardware maintenance manual before you attempt it.

 

All upgrades will involve some element of risk but fitting a third party mSATA SSD in the T530 should be relatively straightforward. The chances of breaking something physically while doing this process are quite slim. The install process is even mentioned in the maintenance manual by Lenovo themselves.

Will the process void the warranty? If you break something physically then most likely yes as there is no way you can hide from this (but again chances of this is really slim for a mSATA install). If for some reason you carefully installed the mSATA SSD as recommended by the instructions and the system had stopped working you can always remove the mSATA device and just mention to Lenovo that the system no longer work without getting in too much with the details. Keep it simple and Lenovo should sort it out, sometimes being too honest can hinder rather than benefit your warranty claim as one member found out.

 

The rule of thumb for all ThinkPad repairs, replacements, and upgrades that I use is this:

"If it's in the HMM, doing it right doesn't affect the warranty. Doing it wrong does."

That's not necessarily true in every single case, but the exceptions are few and far between.

 

Well by that logic, nothing voids the warranty, provided you did everything right. TBH I don't think they really care about upgrades, as long as nothing is abused/broken. But if say your W520 has an upgraded 2920XM and you send it in for overheating, you might be in for a shocker.

 

I think that's actually pretty true for things that are in the HMM.

Now things like LCD upgrades with third party parts, or taking a soldering iron to the board -- not like I'm, uh, speaking from experience or anything -- yeah, that would void the warranty.

 

I don't know if that's exactly correct. I believe Lenovo does bar code CPUs. If you were to swap the CPU, there's a chance they might notice. They may never find out or say anything, but if they want to make an issue of it, they can. It's a more risky proposition. What if you were to use a different planar for example, though it was a ThinkPad part? Most FRUs are really worth upgrading anyway. For 99% of users a CPU upgrade is a waste of time and money.

 

Lenovo does, as many OEM's do, but unless the CPU was causing the issue (only thing I can think of is overheating), I don't think it would be major issue.

Honestly if the unit isn't physically broken/abused, they won't really care. If they wanted to make a laptop non-upgradable, we'd all have Macbook Air chassis, there's no upgrading anything but the SSD in that. But the fact HMM is readily available to the public, it means you can upgrade away, vs like Sony or Toshiba who need an ASP login to get the teardown guides.

 

be careful with that logic.   having a parts guide publicly available from a manufacturer doesn't inherently encourage or constitute everyone becoming their own technician or indemnifying them from mistakes just because the guides are out there.   you still have to know what you're doing no matter how easy the task or how much information one can find on the internet.

all HMMs contain the following disclaimer for this very reason:

with that said, i'm the last person who will discourage people modifying or upgrading their stuff unless i know they're incapable or over their head.   my only purpose here is to caveat the above statement for the benefit of anyone else reading this thread.

 

No you are right erik, I misworded that. I meant at least the manufacturer understands people want to upgrade parts, so they at least provide good documentation on how to do it. But at least they look out for you, and give you proper documentation, good luck with that from Toshiba, Sony, ASUS, MSI, etc.