T61: Paid $1,800, suffered for 6 months, only to have to spend $100 on XP to (hopefully​) make it functional​. Let's hope I don't mess it up and void my warranty :)

Question

Dear Community:
Here is the saga of me and my T61. I have tried to love my T61, and it has broken my heart.
Last spring, I was accepted to law school, and I began searching for a notebook computer. If you know nothing about law school, you should just know that we use our computers in every class, every day. Knowing that I would need something reliable and hardy, I asked consulted with my friends in engineering. Unanimously (with the exception of the occasional Mac fanboy), they recommended the thinkpad. It's tough as nails, they told me. It will last me for years, they said.
I ordered my T61 in May. It was caught up the the shipping problems, and took over a month to ship. No big deal. I was annoyed by having it take so long to ship, but I was not peeved too much.
Since then, I have been in hell. From day one, this machine has crashed daily (running Vista Home Premium). It crashes when I search the internet. It crashes when I type in word. It crashes when I play freecell. An honest estimate is that this computer will crash at least once every three hours. I'm sure that much of the blame for this goes to Microsoft, but I hope that you can sympathize with my plight.
Even if we look past the crashes, and that everything runs slowly with Vista, I've had my host of hardware problems. The screws that hold the palm rest on back themselves out about once a month. It's a minor gripe that I should have to tighten screws on my laptop, but it honestly concerns me that I should even have to take a screw driver to it.
Also, there has always been a sizable patch of dead pixels (About the size of a "b" in Times New Roman, 12pt.) on the right center portion of the lcd. They stare at me every day. They anger me every day.
My T61 has already been in for service once for a fan that stopped working. I was the only person without a computer in class that week. Sure, it wasn't much fun trying to take notes by hand, but I can live with things like that. They happen. I'm honestly impressed with the turn around time and the courteousness of the tech that helped me over the phone.
Last week, I tried to watch a DVD. Something must seriously be out of balance in the DVD player because the noise from it vibrating drowned out the speakers so bad that I couldn't understand the dialog in Michael Clayton from about six feet away.
Yesterday, I was finally pushed over the edge. With only 5 word documents and one pdf file open, IT LOCKED UP IN THE MIDDLE OF MY CRIMINAL LAW EXAM! I lost an hour worth of work on a three hour exam. I imagine that to someone not familiar with law school, I sound like a neurotic tool for freaking out about this, but I almost broke down and cried right there. We're graded on a strict curve, and I have a tough enough time making grades having to compete against my capable class mates. I hate that I'm going to receive a worse grade than I should have because I also had to compete against my laptop.
I feel like I have been lied to. I bough a think pad because I was told they are bullet proof, and this machine has turned out to be a complete lemon. I've babied this machine, searched diligently for patches that would help the system freezes, packed it in a padded laptop bag every day, and it has done nothing but hurt me every day. How can I obtain a refund so that we can part friends?
Best,
John
Message Edited by Jpx72x on 03-20-2008 08:53 PM

Answer 1

Jpx72x wrote:
From day one, this machine has crashed daily (running Vista Home Premium). It crashes when I search the internet. It crashes when I type in word. It crashes when I play freecell. An honest estimate is that this computer will crash at least once every three hours. I'm sure that much of the blame for this goes to Microsoft, but I hope that you can sympathize with my plight.
(snip)
Yesterday, I was finally pushed over the edge. With only 5 word documents and one pdf file open, IT LOCKED UP IN THE MIDDLE OF MY CRIMINAL LAW EXAM! I lost an hour worth of work on a three hour exam.
given your experiences with daily crashes, why would you entrust your thinkpad to survive a three-hour exam without crashing or locking up?   if your thinkpad is to be used in a mission-critical environment then why not instead use a proven OS such as XP or server 2003?   i sympathize with your overall experience but, with all due respect, fail to understand why you wouldn't be more proactive in finding a solution to your above problem–especially as a law student who is learning to analyze and interpret our nation's legal system.   i apologize if i sound overly critical here but if i were your professor and you came to me with the same story above then i would ask the exact same questions.
it sounds like all of your problems can be fixed.   crashes and lockups can be fixed by installing vista clean or by switching to XP.   dead or stuck pixels in your display can be fixed under warranty if the defects meet replacement criteria.   screws backing out of your palmrest can be fixed under warranty by replacing the palmrest and associated screws.   and, the DVD player, if defective, can also be easily replaced under warranty.
i doubt lenovo will buy back your machine because of the aforementioned issues but i'm sure that their service department can make thinks right one way or another.
i hope everything works out for you.   good luck.
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