Your IBM Notebook LIFE SPAN

A PC Technician told me that electronics parts are wearable and have a lifespan. Just like the vacuum cleaner, television and other electronics you have at home, have wear and tear from heat, electricity fluctuations among others and will eventually be unusable

And with such ordinary wear and tear, the practicality and economics of how long an extended warranty should be purchased comes into play.


KINDLY POST AFTER Voting in the Polls....

Name of Laptop: (brand and model)
Cause of Defect: (FIRST defect your laptop had if any e.g. dead pixel, broken hinge, stucked keyboard, etc)
Cause of Death: (motherboard failure, electric surge...and If
your laptop had to replaced w/in or outside the warranty)
RIP: (When the laptop was replaced, where it went)
​

SAMPLE: #1

Name of Laptop: IBM 96xx
Cause of Defect: dead pixel
Cause of Death: motherboard failure, replaced w/in 1 year warranty
RIP: August 2003, exchanged with a different PC)

OR

If your IBM has not yet have a defect or died, or you have just bought it, you can write the age of your laptop

SAMPLE #2
Name of Laptop: IBM 96xx
Status: 10 years old, still alive and kicking butts in warcraft & battlefield

Copy and paste the pattern above to be easier
Be creative...

There is a separate poll for IBM and Lenovo....
For Lenovo:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=32268

P.S. Special Thanks to Abaxter for giving the permission to post this thread

 

The aim of the poll is to identify when a first defect will appear and when a laptop will retire.

The use will be...
1. If more laptops are defective within a year only, then the extended warranty is not necessary to buy.

2. If more laptops are defective within 2 years then an extended 1 year warranty is necessary

3. If more laptops are defective within 3 years then an extended 2 year warranty is necessary

4. If more laptops are defective within 4 years then an extended 3 year warranty is necessary.

Through this poll, one can know whether it would be practical and economical to buy the extended warranty and up to what year.

I thought of putting it in the notebook general forum, but with the number of brands of notebook, it will fill up the page.


I will be asking the same question to all the brands so that the line of questioning is uniform. Just like in doing an experiment, all the parameters will be equal so as to avoid bias. :base:

The reason behind it is in different brand subforums so that one can distinguish also how their brand notebook compares to the other brand.

As I understand, some have magnesium casing, metal, etc. Others are made of different plastic. Some have different thickness of outer casing... So many variables...
No laptop is created with the same specs....


So by doing a separate Poll for each brand, one will get a better comparison.

 

I notice you've posted this in several forums. PC Magazine and Consumer Reports both do an annual survey about PC reliability and customer satisfaction, and they have a larger sample size than you'll get here. The PC Mag review is at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1851291,00.asp

 

Thank you tsheer for the heads up.
However, the site is not complete. The review has a different purpose. They don't cover other brands like Sager, Portable One, VOODOO, Hypersonic, among others.
They don't tackle the first defect noticed in a laptop and the laptop lifespan...
With regards to the sample size... in time... the number of people entering the survey will be large... and its not a remote scenario that it will exceed the PCMagazine's sample size... in time....

 

What about an A22p that's still chugging along nicely? It's 7 years old and all it's ever had is a RAM upgrade and one HDD replaced. Still very functional, though mainly used a loaner/temp system now.

 

Redchief, its good you are doing the survey and I am interested in seeing the results however I just want to point out a couple limitations:

1. It's important to remember that people who are in these forums are most likely more knowledgeable with computers than the average person. This could affect your result by for example, adding life to the time before people retire their laptop because people in this forum are more likely to be able to solve certain problems themselves.

2. Purpose of laptop could effect the results. My example, a few years ago I only needed a laptop I would use very sparingly and I wanted a very cheap one, didn't care about built quality or features, and I got a dell that I barely used and it lasted quite a while without any problems. Now, my laptop needs have changed and I needed a laptop as my primary computer and need it for business, travel, certain features, and everyday use and I got a thinkpad. I doubt that particular dell would last as long as this thinkpad will under these same uses but your survey doesn't account for how much people use thier computer.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to the results.

 

I see 5+ years out of my laptop, and basically have 3-4 key items that might be replaced due to wear. Keyboard, hinges, display cable, wireless antenna wires. All of the other parts should work up until the laptops death where through a ritual I hold with all my computers... being thrown off a cliff.

 

Old electronic equipment contains many toxins such as lead, mercury and cadmium that must be disposed of properly. I urge you to either sell old equipment or send it for recycling instead of disposing it in the environment.

 

I can tell you that IBM ThinkPads are pretty long lasting. We have plenty of old 700mhz A21m models that are in service and chugging along.
A RAM upgrade and HDD replacement does them wonders.

We still even have a few 390X models in the closet, but I haven't tried powering them on to see if they work.

The market for used ThinkPads seems to be much stronger on ebay than for other manufacturers as well.

 

I said 6 years, but only because what I wanted to say was not an available answer. I've had ThinkPads for many years. 360, 600, T20, T22, T30, T42, and now a T60 for my daughter while I still use the T42. None have ever failed and become unusable. They were all retired from my usage by either being passed on to someone else, or by being replaced with the next faster one. The average time before one left my use was around 6 years.

 

IBM T20
Display cable
Ordinary wear and tear

I bought my T20 about 3 years ago, used. I can't speak for what may have happened before that, but I suspect there weren't any problems.

There were times when the display simply didn't "display", although I could see a faint image. Thought at first it was the inverter. Changed that, no change in the problem. Ordered a cable, dove in, replaced the cable, fired it up and it's been working great since then. The old cable was just getting hard and inflexible. A pain in the butt to replace, but well worth the sweat equity !!

Love my T20.

 

Specs in sig, still perfect apart from a slightly buzzy fan. Says 2000 on the underneath!

 

Name of Laptop: Apple PowerBook G4
Cause of Defect: None.....no broken parts, missing screws. (the OS crashed once....and it was my fault!!!)
Cause of Death: Still alive and doing what it did 4 years ago.
RIP: As soon as I get my T61, the PowerBook is going into my car to be taken apart to run as Carputer.

 

How about this poll:
How many of you have actually used the Warranty? When was the first time you used it?
How many of you have never needed the warranty?

 

I would say 3 years+ coz my T61 come with 3 years International Warranty. So after the warranty period, I hope my machine still can last me another year

 

I agree with the last post. I have a friends 600E and it's still kicking about to Ebay it and it's 10 years old. I think only the hard drive was replaced once due to failure which occured 3 years ago.

 

Not *exactly* on topic.. but I have a Thinkpad 390E that was left with me.. the previous owner managed to drop it badly, hinges have ripped out of the back chassis.. I wanted to fix it up (rebuild it from another 390E but the shipping costs were too expensive to make it a useful task) Anyway, it's an old model, 8 years I think those babies were out (bios date is 1999) and I have to say, apart from the screen not sitting up on the notebook (needs to lean against the wall) it functions perfectly otherwise.. I'm using it for a Linux router/toybox

I haven't seen many PCs that can survive that kind of abuse and still tick away.

 

I've got a 570 and a 570e Thinkpad that are still working. The 570e {a first gen PIII I believe} has traveled around the world with me and is currently doing time as my torrent machine. Both of them have screen issues where you need to move the screen back and forth till the picture pops in perfectly. I got them used and for free from a dot.bomb at least 6 years ago. It was almost emotional to buy a more current laptop late last year because that was such a trustworthy and reliable piece of gear. That and the fact I actually had to spend my money for a laptop! Love the vintage Thinkpads!!

 

I got fan error in my T30 at the 4 year mark. It boot up after several attempts, then finally it stopped working.
A LOT of the thinkpads in our university stopped working at the 3-4 year mark, which seems to be consistent with the poll numbers here

 

I bought a R60 in Jan this year, after just 3 months the keyboard failed and my palm rest was warped. Lenovo/ibm replaced both of course. But personally i have to wonder if the quality of Lenovo/ibm thinkpads have suffered?

Plus I really regret buying my thinkpad in China. Overhere, Lenovo no longer offers extended warranty, so mine only has a 1 year warranty, they are also not offering upgrades to Vista...

 

I doubt it. The problems I mentioned are all with T4x, T30s.

 

My t42 died from the motherboard problem. Apparently this is a common problem for the t42s.

 

Name of Laptop: IBM ThinkPad 365XD
Status: Got it in 1996. That's 12 years and still working.

Specs are 10.8" SVGA (800x600) display, Pentium 120, 40MB RAM, 1GB HDD, Win98SE. It still works today. It is the only laptop in my possession that has a serial port that my OBD-2 interface cable requires, so it is relegated to that role. Before anyone asks, USB-Serial adapters don't work. I tried. The interface cable and software author also tried and found the adapter added too much latency and threw off the timing of the OBD-2 protocol. I could upgrade the interface cable to USB but I will wait until the ThinkPad dies, which is probably never.

 

Please don't revive old threads.

Thread closed.