Thinkpad T43 dead after 2 days... is hard drive to blame?

[Chrispy]

Hello all. Now I know that a T43 is obviously not a mac but I trust the advice of macrumors members so much that I want to ask this question here. I have a question regarding my thinkpad T43. I had it for about 36 hours and I was installing some drivers when the computer went to a blue screen and would not boot to windows anymore. I attempted to re-install XP pro but it would not read the CD and kept giving me read errors. I attempted to use my external DVD-RW and it had read errors too.

I then tried to use my Rescue and Recovery CD and restore a backup point from a few weeks ago (when I had my first T43 that was replaced). The backup would load but when windows went to boot all I got was a blue screen again.

Now, I installed an 80GB 7,200 RPM hard drive on the computer when I got it and loaded XP pro. Could my hard drive have killed the computer?? I removed it an put the factory drive back in as well as factory memory. The problem still exists. I even tried different memory to be sure the RAM sent by IBM was not bad. Problem still exists.

Has anyone had a similar experience? It seems my motherboard died (IBM said today they replaced the mainboard so this is the case so far) and could my hard drive be to blame? I'm getting it repaired and when I get it back should I not put my 7,200 drive back in it? When I got the blue screen I was removing the IBM thinkvantage password software so could that have something to do with it? Sorry for all the questions just trying to figure out what happened and if it has happened to anyone else.

Also, is there any way to get the computer to stop telling me I have a non-IBM hard drive in it at startup? I keep getting an error message that says I have an incompatible hard drive installed. Thanks.

 

[RacerX]

I've always had pretty good luck with ThinkPads in the past... but from what you've detailed, it sounds like it could be the hard drive that is leading to these problems.

Of course, if that drive was in there when IBM was looking at the system and they didn't say anything about it's compatibility... that would be a little odd.

Plus I haven't had any experience with the spin-off company that does ThinkPads now, but IBM has kept pretty close ties with them so far.

Sorry this isn't more helpful.

 

[Clix Pix]

Aren't you the guy who kept going through various Macs, finding fault with each of them and returning them? And now you're having some problems with PCs? Maybe the issue isn't with all the various computers but with something you're doing/not doing??

As for your problem with the Thinkpad: not sure how much help you'll get from here, seeing as how this IS a Mac forum, not a PC forum.... From what I know of IBM and the Thinkpad they've always been pretty reliable; of course now that some other company is manufacturing them there may be some differences in quality control.

Maybe you should contact the company that is now making the Thinkpad and ask them some of your questions.

 

[Chrispy]

Aren't you the guy who kept going through various Macs, finding fault with each of them and returning them? And now you're having some problems with PCs? Maybe the issue isn't with all the various computers but with something you're doing/not doing??

As for your problem with the Thinkpad: not sure how much help you'll get from here, seeing as how this IS a Mac forum, not a PC forum.... From what I know of IBM and the Thinkpad they've always been pretty reliable; of course now that some other company is manufacturing them there may be some differences in quality control.

Maybe you should contact the company that is now making the Thinkpad and ask them some of your questions.

Yeah I may contact Lenovo (well IBM since they handle all the support issues). It is not something I'm doing as IBM reported to be today that the mainboard was defective and it has been replaced. The first unit was damaged in manufacturing and it was exchanged right away no questions asked. I had a Dell Latitude D610 in December that had to be returned becuase when it arrived the cable connecting the screen to the computer was bad and it caused picture distortion. Looking back on it, at least many of my bad apple products were things like dead pixels (while still annoying not as bad as a bad motherboard or manufacturing defect). I just lost faith in Apple when I had a bad LCD on the latest Rev. 15" powerbook and I had to argue with the genius to get him to admit he did see the problem as well.. sigh.. I guess all companies have their problems.

I will call IBM and see what they say about using a 7,200 RPM hard drive in a T43. I know Apple says it is not a good idea in their powerbooks but many people pull it off no problem (Apple probably says this because of heat and battery issues tho). The hard drive is currently running just fine in an old Dell Latitude C400 series computer so I know the drive is not bad. I know there are some people on this site who use IBM/Lenovo computers and Apples together since both are great products so I hope those people will chime in for me Thanks for the responses so far.

 

[homerjward]

Yeah I may contact Lenovo (well IBM since they handle all the support issues). It is not something I'm doing as IBM reported to be today that the mainboard was defective and it has been replaced. The first unit was damaged in manufacturing and it was exchanged right away no questions asked. I had a Dell Latitude D610 in December that had to be returned becuase when it arrived the cable connecting the screen to the computer was bad and it caused picture distortion. Looking back on it, at least many of my bad apple products were things like dead pixels (while still annoying not as bad as a bad motherboard or manufacturing defect). I just lost faith in Apple when I had a bad LCD on the latest Rev. 15" powerbook and I had to argue with the genius to get him to admit he did see the problem as well.. sigh.. I guess all companies have their problems.

I will call IBM and see what they say about using a 7,200 RPM hard drive in a T43. I know Apple says it is not a good idea in their powerbooks but many people pull it off no problem (Apple probably says this because of heat and battery issues tho). The hard drive is currently running just fine in an old Dell Latitude C400 series computer so I know the drive is not bad. I know there are some people on this site who use IBM/Lenovo computers and Apples together since both are great products so I hope those people will chime in for me Thanks for the responses so far.

you can buy a t43 from them with a 7200rpm drive so i'm sure it's fine.

 

[Chrispy]

you can buy a t43 from them with a 7200rpm drive so i'm sure it's fine.

Oh, that is good to know. I looked at that the other day to see about it and I must have overlooked that. The hard drive is an IBM brand hard drive as well so I would think it should be ok. Now I just have to figure out how to make that annoying warning window go away at startup haha.

 

[fjs08]

Hi,

I can sympathize with you. My son had a similar problem about a year ago. IBM service was terrible. I ended up contacting IBM, and after jumping through some hoops, the machine was declared a "lemon" and they reissued him a brand new t41 or something like that. To date, he's had no problems with the new one.

I contacted the forum below. The guys there are really ThinkPad addicts. I'd post a note there. With the change to Lenovo, I'm not sure the contact people are the same. They will be able to tell you. The service people spun us in circles for about a month.

My daughter had one too that she had problems with. Her hard drive was killed by the then new "air bag." It did something to the hard drive. They repaired it, but sent it back without her wireless card, then tried to tell her she never had one. She had them look up the computer via the serial number and they then relented. Third time was the charm<g>. All has been well. My wife uses one too, and she's had no problems with it. Very nice unit. I love my Ti-Powerbook. Bit slow compared to the ThinkPad, but it's almost 3 yrs old and is marvelous.


>>http://forum.thinkpads.com/<<

Good luck with it, and don't take no for an answer. We didn't.

Frank

 

[Chrispy]

Hi,

I can sympathize with you. My son had a similar problem about a year ago. IBM service was terrible. I ended up contacting IBM, and after jumping through some hoops, the machine was declared a "lemon" and they reissued him a brand new t41 or something like that. To date, he's had no problems with the new one......

Thanks Frank. They said they replaced the motherboard so hopefully it will work now. I am upset tho because they said they were going to ship it with Saturday delivery if it did not ship by Friday (which is when it shipped out from service). Instead, they sent it overnight DHL with a Monday delivery!!! That pissed me off becuase I had a project to work on in InDesign and it is really slow on the Dell I'm using now. I wish my company had mac licenses so I could use a powerbook as well

 

[fjs08]

>>They said they replaced the motherboard <,

If it doesn't work, drop a note on the ThinkPads forum. They gave me an e-mail of IBM exec department. I got a call within 24 hours from a rep. I kept her phone number and e-mail. She was great. Got my problem resolved in no time. Plus IBM initially thought it could be the hard drive. So they sent me a new hard drive that I installed, which didn't work. I sent everything back to them, but somehow they lost the hard drive, and we kept getting billed for it. She took care of that too.

My calls to "service" were very frustrating. They knew nothing and seemed to do nothing. Used to be an IBM group, but now they outsource it somewhere.

Good luck.

Frank

 

[Chrispy]

>>They said they replaced the motherboard <,

If it doesn't work, drop a note on the ThinkPads forum. They gave me an e-mail of IBM exec department. I got a call within 24 hours from a rep. I kept her phone number and e-mail. She was great. Got my problem resolved in no time. Plus IBM initially thought it could be the hard drive. So they sent me a new hard drive that I installed, which didn't work. I sent everything back to them, but somehow they lost the hard drive, and we kept getting billed for it. She took care of that too.

That is amazing. They tried to send me a hard drive too but I already knew that was not the problem since I had an extra one around here. They also tried to balme the memory but I had that around to test as well. I really hope when I get it back it is repaired and looks like new. I need to find a way to contact someone up the chain of command so I can complain about this situation. My laptop was supposed to be shipping with Sat delivery and they didn't do that when they said they would. Just another annoying thing and I think I should get some type of compensation for it.

 

[fjs08]

>>I need to find a way to contact someone up the chain of command so I can complain about this situation. <<

A note to the thinkpads board will get you an answer. Those guys know ThinkPads, like the folks here know Macs. Both here and there are full of excellent people.

Frank