ThinkPad R40e issue..?!

I just sold my old IBM ThinkPad R40e on ebay and am having trouble with the buyer....

The laptop worked fine while connected to the mains but if you moved the machine or disturbed the adapter the laptop switched off!! The battery gauge (on the taskbar) showed an error but the yellow/orange light (LED on the casing) was lit!!

I deduced that the problem was that the battery was dead - and that it wouldn't hold its charge anymore....

I added this in my listing (suggesting that any buyer wanting to use the laptop away from the mains - should get a new battery)!!

The buyer received last thurs and said it was working 'as expected'!!!!!!!!!!

NOW he is saying that it just randomly turns itself off & wont turn back on again for ages....?? He is sure that the problem isn't the battery because he has tried using another battery (from his old but faulty R40e that he was replacing)...!!

Im unwilling to offer a refund at the moment because it DID work (as described) when i sent it - AND when he first received it...

What else could be the problem.... if not the battery?!
Could the adapter be faulty?!
Or something else!?

 

The buyer now says he is a computer engineer saying that it is sure a faulty motherboard is the problem! He also adds that a potentially faulty adapter, or socket is immaterial... how can that be true?

How would the laptop have managed to get through both the factory restore, and the Windows re-install that I undertook (which took a couple of hours in total), if it was intermittently turning itself off?

Im still suspicious that he is making it all up..... it doesn't make sense!!

Any ideas...? Would like to get this issue resolved asap.

Thanks

 

Perhaps it got jostled during shipment. I don't know. Probably your best course of action would be to take it back and try to fix it. It's kind of hard do diagnose something you don't have. If they dispute with it with Paypal you're most likely going to lose. If you fix it then you'd have a chance to sell it again.