Question about TP E520 series

[toshex]

I am interested in buying an E520 ThinkPad but whilst looking for info and reviews on it, I have stumbled upon some users that have had a bad luck with some of the laptops failing in the first year after purchase.

Mainly it seems that Lenovo had some bad luck with third party EEPROM chips used in Think and Idea models made between September and December of 2011. A person posted this as being an official announcement:

Lenovo has identified an issue which affects a portion of Think and Idea systems that were manufactured between September and December 2011. The issue manifests as early life failures of the EEPROM chip and results in the system failing to power on or boot up. Not all of the systems manufactured during this period of time are affected. This is an industry component issue and is not limited to Lenovo. The solution is to replace the system board.

Now I live in a country where I can only grab a ThinkPad from a retailer, who doesn't offer more than one year of warranty and they say that the current batch of ThinkPads they got were delivered just a few months back, but I insisted they check the manufacture date and they said that they have been manufactured on the 25th of December 2011 (apparently some stickers show 3 digit dates?) but either way if the numbers in question are 11/12 no way it's november 2012, so it has to be december 2011.

So, my questions are:

How accurate and how widespread is/was this problem with EEPROMS in ThinkPads?

Has Lenovo fixed/withdrawn the faulty models after they have concluded it is an actual problem?

If the ThinkPads that are for sale here are indeed manufactured towards the end of December 2011 how likely is it that they could be part of the faulty series?

If so should I still consider getting one, or is the risk too great?

What I'm most appalled by is getting an E520 that fails to power on (dies) just after the warranty expires (the retailer here does not offer a warranty extension above that 12 month one).

Please, any answers and/or additional info would be extremely helpful. I really want to get a ThinkPad for my budget, but after reading all that I started doubting whether I should risk it.

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the forum.
Maybe you should look at what is available in our Marketplace forum, plenty of well-priced used machines, and quite a few new ones as well, lots of them better than your intended E520.
Not everybody ships to Europe though, and if they do, it might be expensive.
But I would assume that "buying here + shipping" would still be cheaper than buying in Macedonia (€650 = $850).
The Edge is not considered a real Thinkpad though, and therefor has very little interest here.
Check the Edge forum: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewforum.php?f=60 and see for yourself.

I can't answer any of your EEPROM questions, though, never even heard of that problem.
On IBM and Lenovo laptops, the manufacturing date has always been shown as: YY/MM (year first, then the month), so 11/12 would indeed be 2011/December.
Haven't seen any 3-digit dates, but if they exist, they may be in one of the following forms:
11/123 (2011/day 123 = May 3rd)
11/123 (2011/week 12, day 3 = ~March 27th)
Can you show us a link to a Thinkpad with such a 3-digit date?

[toshex]

I called the sales rep and he told me its manufactured at a precise date of 25th of December of 2011. So perhaps it wasn't a 3 digit date, and some of the other methods you suggested for providing a precise day.

Either way maybe this topic should be moved then to a place with more edge users, since that info i encountered (and I also searched for it to see if it's had a big fuss over) is perhaps the only thing preventing me from getting the edge. Also I mind the little things like some major keyboard key flaws (fn and ctrl swap, and print screen between rctrl and ralt), and lack of usb 3.0.

Love the pointing stick nipple thing though, shame only lenovos have it nowdays.

I prefer new machines for the safety in warranty the seller provides though. I'd get a dell since they got 5year warranty but I rather hate glossy finish, and they a bit heavier. Still I might not have a choice.

[RealBlackStuff]

Have a look at this post: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=103444
They link to a Lenovo document in which they announce an E530 for June 2012.
In the BIOS there should be an option to swap Fn/Ctrl.
If not, Middleton makes a BIOS for all laptops, that could be applied to yours, whatever you get.
To search this forum, use this instead of the Forum's own search: http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q ... as_qdr=all

[toshex]

Thank you for the replies, I'll look around.