Long back-and-forth with Lenovo... any suggestions?

Question

Below is a excruciatingly detailed record of my long struggle with Lenovo's customer support regarding my T61, for which I purchased a warranty that is good until June 26, 2010. This is the result of painstaking documentation all along the way; I have the actual case reference numbers and serial numbers, etc., if it would help anyone from Lenovo who happens across this.
On Monday, April 27, 2009, my T61 (7662-CTO) began
experiencing persistent crashes. The machine would give me a BSOD
(Blue Screen of Death) on occasion while in Windows. Despite repeated
installations of my graphic card's drivers (for the Nvidia Quadro NVS
140m), the problem continued to worsen. Eventually, the machine
refused to even boot up, throwing out a 'memory parity error' BSOD
soon after the Windows boot-up screen. Even my attempts at
reinstalling Windows (Vista Home Premium x86) did nothing to correct
the issues. It was increasingly apparent that I was facing a hardware
problem.
Since my machine remains under warranty, I called Lenovo's tech
support. After a bit of redundant troubleshooting (he asked me to
reinstall drivers that I had already installed multiple times), the
support agent agreed to send out a box and have the machine shipped
out to EasyServ in Tennessee. Reluctantly, I agreed and sent the box
off. This was Lenovo case reference number 1.
The service was amazingly quick, as I had the machine back in just
over 36 hours. That I appreciated. I was less grateful for the state
of the machine upon its return. True, the BSOD/graphics card issues
had apparently been addressed; the form letter returned with the
laptop claimed that EasyServ 'Quality Technician' A. Rios had replaced
the 'PLANAR CARD ASM EXTERNAL VIDEO' --part number 41W1489. Glad to
have my machine back for work, I once again reinstalled Windows Vista.
Yet I soon realized that the machine had another serious problem.
Putting my T61 into sleep was a risky proposition; within several
minutes, all indicator lights would blink off, and the machine would
offer no signs of life. Pushing the power button did nothing.
Replacing the battery did nothing. Whether plugged in or not, the
machine refused to respond. Repeated power button pushes would
occasionally rouse the machine to 'life,' but as soon as it dropped
into sleep mode again, it would eventually drop dead.
Increasingly unhappy, I called Lenovo support again. They apologized
for the continued faulty hardware and sent out another overnight box
for the return freight to Tennessee. I dutifully shipped the T61 out
again--this was case reference number 2. Once again, the machine
zipped through EasyServ very quickly. It came back 2 days later, with
a "Repair Action Report" form that indicated that M. Anderson had
service the machine. Checked off were boxes for "system board/planar"
(though what exact part was replaced was not indicated this time),
"updated BIOS/embedded controller," and "performed PC Doctor
diagnostics to ensure hardware functionality."
Assured that my problems were (finally!) fixed, I set to reinstalling
Windows. I did all the little software installations and tweaks that I
need to get work done on my new machine. But once everything was set
up, another problem popped up its ugly head. When I did anything that
required some processor power (say, watching video online or running a
virus scan), the machine would mysteriously and spontaneously freeze
up and drop itself into sleep mode. When roused from its stupor, the
machine would immediately give up and return to sleep. Aggravated, I
tried yet another fresh install of Windows and was astonished to find
out that Vista refused to install properly, citing an 'incompatible
hardware' error.
Needless to say, I called Lenovo support once again (case reference
number 3). The first technician I spoke to demanded
that I remove the hard drive I had placed into the machine with the
one originally shipped with the T61. I protested that this was the
Seagate Momentus 7200.2 (200 GB), and it was unlikely that it was the
source of the problem (since the original hard drive had been the
Seagate Momentus 7200.1 (60 GB). But apparently having no choice, I
gave in. We ended our call, I opened up the machine, and swapped hard
drives. I also went ahead and pulled out the extra RAM I had put into
the box--anticipating the next technicians' likely protests. When
Windows gave me the same errors as before, I called Lenovo back. I
explained the whole situation, going back to the video card
replacement that started the whole series of issues. When I explained
how I had attempted to reinstall Windows, the technician repeatedly
asked me if I had changed the boot order on the machine. "No," I
answered. "You don't actually need to. The BIOS throws up a 'Press any
key to boot from the CD/DVD drive' prompt." There was a short pause.
"Did you change the BIOS boot order?" I rolled my eyes and eventually
capitulated to the technician's request. After thus proving that I
actually did know how to boot from my DVD drive, the technician asked
about my installation disc. "You don't have the Rescue and Recovery
discs?" he asked, obviously confused. "No," I answered. "The only disc
I received with my laptop was a clean Vista install/upgrade disc."
There was a long pause, after which the technician insisted that I use
the Lenovo-issued R&R discs.
After receiving said discs through UPS (4 days later), I tried things
again. The Lenovo R&R program was able to successfully re-image my
hard drive with Vista Home Premium. But the odd spontaneous sleep
problem remains. Determined to receive the 'incompatible hardware'
error I had received before, I tried reinstalling with the vanilla
Vista disc; this time, the installation proceeded without a hitch, and
this is the OS that's installed now on the machine. Yet the sleep mode
problem remains. After monitoring system temperature during
high-intensity computing (i.e. running virus scan, Windows Defender
scan, and HD online video all at the same time), it seems likely that
there is some sort of overheating issue. The machine (specifically, the "ACPI Thermal Zone," according to the temperature-monitors program I used) occasionally leaps to 97 degrees Celsius and higher, and this seems to correspond
to the shut-downs.
Eager to avoid another EasyServ roundabout, a new technician and I agreed that taking the T61 to a licensed Lenovo warranty service provider would probably be the best option. He offered the Duke Computer Repair shop as my first option. "Great!" I thought, "I'm a Duke student; this should be relatively painless." What the Lenovo rep. DIDN'T tell me was that Duke charged $90 to work on any machine that wasn't bought through their Computer Store. I discovered this when I drove to the Duke repair shop and talked to the people there (who were, admittedly, apologetic and very willing to offer advice). Not excited about shelling out cash to have my warranty honored, I opted to take the laptop to the next nearest authorized Lenovo warranty service provider. This was a 25-minute drive for me, but I had few other options that didn't involve a $90 service charge. Choice received the machine in on Tuesday, May 19th.
The Lenovo-approved warranty service technician here was remarkably helpful and engaged. He WAS able to reproduce the problem; the laptop aborted into sleep when the CPU was pushed, just as it did for me. Roger also ran a full diagnostic, but his diagnostic did not return any hardware failures that he could replace. He 'discharged the capacitors,' holding the power button down for a full 30 seconds (a process similar to what brought the laptop out of its dead state under case reference number 30TQLB5 above. This seemed to resolve things, he explained, and he encouraged me to take the machine home and see how things went. Unfortunately, the issue persists; pushing the CPU to 100% drops my T61 into sleep mode, often repeatedly
I called Lenovo again. The technician demanded that I install the Power Manager and power management driver from Lenovo before we proceed any further. I resisted, convinced long ago that the machine was suffering a hardware issue, NOT a driver issue) and asked to speak to the technician's supervisor. He said, "Fine," and abruptly dropped me to being on hold. Fully fifteen minutes later (I timed this), another technician picked up, entirely unaware that I had spoken to anyone else or that I was "waiting" for a supervisor. I do not know if I was actually in queue to speak to that first technician's supervisor, or whether that technician had grown tired and decided to relegate me to hold music limbo. The second technician decided to open a new case (my fourth case reference number). He, too, demanded that I install the relevant drivers. Relucantly, I hung up and installed the driver and Power Manager utility.
The problem persisted. In fact, after the installation, the machine went into sleep twice during the startup process--before I even reached the Vista desktop. I called Lenovo back. Running through his protocols, the technician asked whether I had updated the BIOS (the second EasyServ service had done this, and I had double-checked this when I got the machine back). He asked again whether I had actually installed the Power Manager and power management driver. I had. The technician then gave me the equivalent of a shrug. "We could send it back to the depot," he offered, referring again to EasyServ. When I explained (again) that the Lenovo-approved warranty service provider had run all the relevant diagnostics, found no replaceable part, and acknowledged that a problem remained. When I asked the technician on the line about a possible system replacement, he was quick to claim that his department--the system support specialists--could not do this. He shrugged me off and suggested that I call the sales department about any sort of replacement or refund. "And will they have access to my case reference information?" I asked, incredulous that he was referring me to sales--two full years after the machine's actual purchase. "I don't know," he answered. "All I know is that I can't do anything else."
It has now been three and a half weeks since my machine first began having major issues. This laptop has been to EasyServ twice and come back each time with new hardware-related issues. It has been taken to a Lenovo-approved warranty service provider, who acknowledged and reproduced the problem but was unable to repair it. I have called Lenovo's customer support number at least a dozen times and spent HOURS giving case reference numbers, explaining and REexplaining my issues, and waiting on hold. I have gotten little actual work done in these past weeks. I have reinstalled or reimaged Windows at LEAST 10 times. My school fieldwork requires me to have a working machine. I also enrolled in lynda.com's online tutorials for the month of May (through Duke University), but these extended, unresolved problems have cost me dearly. If there is anything that anyone on these forums can do, please help. Help me get my warranty honored. Please, help restore my faith in the Thinkpad legacy.
Thanks for your time.
Matt Hauger
IBM/Lenovo customer
Durham, North Carolina
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Answer 1

TPFanControl reads the temperatures reported by your ThinkPad's "embedded controller"--which controls the fan speed. You can use it just for monitoring temperatures, you don't have to control the fan with it (read the documentation for the config file).
RMClock, among other things, plots cpu frequency, voltage and temperature vs. time. This can be useful to observe when your cpu is throttling itself to avoid overheating. You can also use RMClock to undervolt your cpu to lower temperatures. But you shouldn't have to do that to prevent the problems you're having.
mprime in torture test mode will stress your cpu and memory. You can run this while monitoring your system temperatures. At the very least, running the mprime torture test should quickly tell you whether your unwanted sleep is indeed correlated with cpu activity.
Results of Your Ideal Business-Class Laptop survey, concluded 2009-07-29.
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