Mismatched serial nos., specs etc.
Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 5:08 am
Oh dear, another sinking feeling from frequenting that famous auction site.
I have received a T60 with a serial of 2008-Y57 on the base, a serial of 2007-F4G in the BIOS and a motherboard with GMA950 integrated graphics. According to Lenovo's product number checker, this should not be possible.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... ry=2008Y57
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... ry=2007F4G
The vendor is saying he thinks the machine is just ex-corporate and that he hasn't done any Frankenpad fabrication.
Is this possible? Does this matter? The machine was or could be cheap, as the vendor has offered me a rebate to take it down to £125 delivered ($196 at today's rates), or a return with postage reimbursed.
This is for a machine with a 100GB Seagate 7200 rpm disk, a single stick of 1GB RAM, and SXGA+ screen in reasonable condition (no dead pixels, one slight flaring/pressure mark near the bottom left). It has only the 32-bit Yonah 1.83 GHz CPU, but I could upgrade to a T5600 for £25 or a T7200 for ??? if I want to go 64-bit. It even passed Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage, although there is no recovery partition. Cosmetically, it appears OK, although when I removed the palm rest to check the RAM, it did feel very flimsy - is this normal? The part number for the palm rest was 26R9377 #2-2. There were lots of scratches on the underside, as if somebody had been doing a lot of scraping - why? Another thing bothering me is that the stickers on the bottom are all very worn, and one of them is covered in Greek lettering (why Greek, when I am in the UK, dealing with a UK-based seller?).
I went for a T60 because I just want a trouble-free machine for my mother for light use - browsing, email etc. It is close to Christmas, and this is supposed to be her present. Should I return it? I'd rather avoid the hassle in a way, and the difficulty of finding another SXGA+ at this price.
What would you do?
Is there any other cross-checking I can do, e.g. with the system board no. or the UUID or something?
I have received a T60 with a serial of 2008-Y57 on the base, a serial of 2007-F4G in the BIOS and a motherboard with GMA950 integrated graphics. According to Lenovo's product number checker, this should not be possible.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... ry=2008Y57
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... ry=2007F4G
The vendor is saying he thinks the machine is just ex-corporate and that he hasn't done any Frankenpad fabrication.
Is this possible? Does this matter? The machine was or could be cheap, as the vendor has offered me a rebate to take it down to £125 delivered ($196 at today's rates), or a return with postage reimbursed.
This is for a machine with a 100GB Seagate 7200 rpm disk, a single stick of 1GB RAM, and SXGA+ screen in reasonable condition (no dead pixels, one slight flaring/pressure mark near the bottom left). It has only the 32-bit Yonah 1.83 GHz CPU, but I could upgrade to a T5600 for £25 or a T7200 for ??? if I want to go 64-bit. It even passed Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage, although there is no recovery partition. Cosmetically, it appears OK, although when I removed the palm rest to check the RAM, it did feel very flimsy - is this normal? The part number for the palm rest was 26R9377 #2-2. There were lots of scratches on the underside, as if somebody had been doing a lot of scraping - why? Another thing bothering me is that the stickers on the bottom are all very worn, and one of them is covered in Greek lettering (why Greek, when I am in the UK, dealing with a UK-based seller?).
I went for a T60 because I just want a trouble-free machine for my mother for light use - browsing, email etc. It is close to Christmas, and this is supposed to be her present. Should I return it? I'd rather avoid the hassle in a way, and the difficulty of finding another SXGA+ at this price.
What would you do?
Is there any other cross-checking I can do, e.g. with the system board no. or the UUID or something?
You're right, warranty is not an issue.