Sent X60s in for repair, have doubts...

Question

Hello all, I signed up here to ask this question. First, I will give background information. 
I've had this X60s for almost three years now, and up until last Saturday it worked fine. It is a Core Duo (not Core 2) model that came with 1GB of RAM. Since I leave the more intensive tasks like gaming to a desktop, I was hoping to use this machine for at least another two years, and when I bought the Thinkpad brand, I had every confidence it could do so. On Saturday, I packed the laptop into my bookbag with a few other things and travelled with it for about an hour, something that I do often. Upon removing the laptop from my backpack, I noticed it would not turn on, and none of the indicator lights would turn on, despite having battery pack, AC adapter, or both attached. I was quite certain that the power-button trick would work, however, it did not. There was no external physical damage to the laptop, and reseating the memory didn't help either. I was getting ready to take it apart until I called Lenovo and found out I was still under warranty. At the time I assumed that the depot technicians probably have far more experience dealing with Thinkpad laptop issues than I do, so I decided to send it in for depot repair.
Lenovo sent me a return box, which arrived on Tuesday. I arranged a pickup same day. The box arrived at the EasyServ center in Memphis, TN, on Wednesday morning, 9AM. On Wednesday evening, the status changed from "Being repaired" to "Hold for customer information." I found out about this the next day at work, so I thought it odd that they didn't bother to call me if they needed information from me. On Thursday, I called them, and the rep told me it wasn't a "customer information" hold, but instead an "engineering hold," which, from his explanation, roughly meant that whoever's working on it now has no idea how to fix the problem, and they need to ask better people.
I said fine, and didn't have an opportunity to check the status until now. To my surprise, it was on "Being repaired" status for a whole of three minutes on Thursday before it went back to "Hold for customer information." Again, I didn't receive a call actually asking me for information, so I'm assuming that this is again an "engineering hold."  There's no way for me to find out for sure since the depot is on holiday today, and the non-depot reps have no idea what's going on in the depot. It is very discouraging to discover that my machine spent only three minutes of an entire business day possibly being reparied, and the rest "on hold" for mysterious reasons. 
I realize that the depot promises a turn-around time of 5-7 business days and I am still short of that time, but I have read horror stories of laptops being returned still broken, or with even more problems than it started out with. On the other hand, a few of my closer friends also own Thinkpads, and their experience with depot repair have been quite good: 1 day turnarounds in some cases. However, an important distinction is that all of their problems have already been identified by the user before sending it in, i.e., need new LCD/keyboard/battery, etc, and were not nearly as blanket as "it won't turn on."
It goes without saying that I would like to have my laptop back in working order as soon as humanly possible: I am away from home and most everything I own for 3 months due to work, and hence it is my only computer (talk about a great time to break down): I am now actually accessing the internet from a local library, where I can do nothing but browse the internet. So my question is, for those who have sent their laptop in for problems like this, where the issue is not user-diagnosed, what was your experience? Can I expect the technicians at the service depot to be competent enough to actually fix this problem, or will I endure an endless cycle of "holds for customer information" and, in the longer run, "send it back in"? My (pre-2007 purchase) warranty states that the machine can either be repaired, replaced with a "functionaly equivalent" one (at Lenovo's discretion), or if both are impossible, returned for money from where I purchased it. Who is the judge of the possibility of repair?
Thank you for reading. Any advice is appreciated.
Message Edited by slu on 07-03-2009 11:18 AM

Answer 1

most likely they don't have the parts in stock, so they will have to ship it in from somewhere else, this could take couple of days to couple of weeks, depending on the availability of parts and where it is shipping from. But if they don't return it to you within two weeks, you could ask the Lenovo whether a loan laptop can be offered till the broken laptop is repaired. You have to call Lenovo to discuss the available options. 
I have a X60s and X60, both works great, the X60 is from cousins whom pretty much shattered the magnesium chassis, when he accidentally threw against the brickwall... it is still ticking along fine, apart from the cosmetic damage.  
Regards,
Jin Li
May this year, be the year of 'DO'!
I am a volunteer, and not a paid staff of Lenovo or Microsoft