My Laptop...

So... about a month ago the hinges on my Thinkpad SL400 broke. I placed an order with IBM to get some new ones, and they just today informed me, after much poking and prodding, that they don't make those particular hinges at the moment, and offered comparable ones...which wouldn't be in stock until November. During this time I have tinkered with it and attempted to repair them myself...or at least figure out a way to use it until those hinges came. Now, it won't even start up, and a screw-head for a vital screw is stripped, meaning I can't get it out. I followed the guides on the Lenovo website to the letter, and this still happened.

I bought it through my school last December, partly due to the slight discount and 4-year no hassle warranty, which they now say they may not honor, due to the economy, (what's my $40,000 a year go towards then, definitely not the classrooms, or the $700 in books every semester), so would those that are better in knowledge in this area be able to tell me if I am fucked in the warranty department, since I have been tinkering, and if so, how much repairs could cost? (Like is it a $100 thing, or $1000 thing) I've been living off my Dell for the last month, which has actually performed quite well despite the problems I have had with it in the past. It's just a bit slow and I prefer the Thinkpad.

Also, sorry for the long-windedness, I took a Hydrocodone about an hour ago to try to get me to sleep...which hasn't worked, and now has me going crazy about this. I can be such a dumbass at times.

I went through a very similar issues dealing with college and the over-priced laptops they required us to buy as part of the tuition. My suggestion...never underestimate the power of the Better Business Bureau. If the warranty is still valid, they are REQUIRED to honor it and fix the laptop...you PAID extra for the warranty after all, right? If the parts aren't available, they are required to replace it with a comparable laptop.

I went through nearly the exact same thing and after a call to the B.B.B., both my school and Dell were jumping through hoops to replace it.

Thanks, I think I had a bit of a freak out last night. I bought it through them, with the guarantee of that warranty, which is through Lenovo itself, so they should honor it still. The only thing that worries me is that I've opened it up myself, but really, I don't think that should matter. I could have just been trying to clean it, and it's not like Dell, who gets pissy if you touch the computer the wrong way.

KABOOM,

KABOOM said:

The only thing that worries me is that I've opened it up myself, but really, I don't think that should matter.

Click to expand...

Whatever you do, don't tell them you opened the laptop. That will probably void the warranty (depending on what you opened).

Am I correct in that you said this machine is less than a year old? If so, then it should be fully covered under warranty. Don't let them get away with that "which they now say they may not honor, due to the economy" BS.

Oh no, I'm not gonna say anything other than that it was dropped when I moved into my apartment for this semester, and that the hinges seemed flimsy for about a week or two before that. Which is mostly true, except the dropping happened due to being under the influence. The stuff I did amounted to taking out the hard drive (which is one screw and popping a plastic piece off) and unscrewing a few more screws to see the extent of the damage on the top half, which had pieces that fell out before that.

And the whole not honoring crap, forget that, they may shut down our pool, our sauna, not turn on the A/C in the buildings, but I paid for it, I should have services rendered.

We decided to stuff towels into the drains of the shower room and block off the exit with a piece of plywood wrapped in a shower curtain. We then turned on all the showers to full hot. After we got back from class, we had about 4 feet of water in the shower room (it is about 10 feet by 15 feet in size).

We had a great old time swimming around and drinking beer until the housing department showed up and told us (we were on the second floor) that it was "raining" in the dorm lobby, as all the water weight had caused the floor to crack slightly.

Needless to say we all shared a repair bill for $10,000. It worked out to about $300 bucks for each of us...

So...I hope that makes you feel better about getting drunk and dropping your laptop...see, we all have things we'd rather not have done.

In any case, since Lenovo is a Chinese company that bought out the IBM laptop division a few years back, I'm going to assume you have as much luck as we have had at the office with them...not to f'ing much. The Chinese seem to love to sell stuff, just not support their equipment after the sale.

I took a damaged laptop to my college's IT department and lucked out, I found a grad student who ordered the parts I needed and fixed it for cost plus $50 bucks, and it had a crapload of stuff wrong with the case and the display. I think he did it just for the practice.

Could be worth a shot...find a computer geek with time on his hands and an empty wallet.

Or if you bought it through the university bookstore, find out who the store manager is and start leaving a string of voicemails that a warrantee sold through their store is not being honored. They usually help you out just to get you to stop leaving messages.

Opening it and dropping it are both warranty busters. Tell them it fell apart with ware and tear. The B.B.B is a good Ace in the hole, but you should not need it. O and pray you didn't split any of the stickers inside. Good Luck.

Nope, no stickers were busted. I made sure of that. It also is working again, I hadn't realized that my adapter had become unplugged and the battery had drained, so its working just fine now, I'm on it right now. The only problem is the left hinge, from my POV is completely broken, wires are holding it on there, and a wire or two are out on the right one, which is pretty loose.

I figure I'm just gonna go with the story that I noticed the hinges getting loose over the past few weeks, thought it could make it to when I got back to campus (which is a good 3+ hour drive from my house), but it didn't. And the one stripped screw wasn't stripped, it was fine, I was being stupid then as well. So I think I'll survive this.

choppes, that's pretty crazy. It actually wasn't drunkenness, but a certain plant... Anyway, I do know a few people casually in the IT department, so I might catch some luck there. I have noticed that ever since the buyout, a lot of people have been complaining about Lenovo and their new business approach. Apparently, the actual maintenance and repair people are really, really good, since most of them are IBM holdovers, and not people untrained people in India.

Too damn long a post...but oh well.