Thinkpads Forum

when i purchased my new t42 (23744WU) a couple of days back and got it home and i faced a black screen with the only words "fan error" at boot time and the system automatically shut down. this hapend abt 10 times. i gave a 30 min gap and tried again but this time it worked and has been working ever since.
can it hapen again ? wht cld be the problem ? mine came with onsite(9*5 next business day) 3 year USA warranty.
shld i be alarmed and call the ibm service guy or is it normal.
is it indication for future problems. wht is the solution in these cases.

thanx in advance.

I would definately report it to IBM. Could be a small defect in the fan, maybe some foreign elements jammed in the fan.

People pay high $$ for these machines. They are supposed to work.

Call service, the last thing you want to do is roast your system by ignoring a colling problem, it shortens the life of the machine,

I'd be careful. I had the error after nearly three months of use. It never booted past the Thinkpad boot screen. Now I'm waiting 30 days for a replacement motherboard. SOL!!

mine is onsite warranty. i reported the matter to ibm and within 1 hour i got the CPU replacement and the next day i got the CPU fan via dhl express.
on the cpu box i see the label "serviceable used part" and i contacted ibm to ask wht this means and they say it may not be a brand new part. so it means it is a refurbished part ?
can i demand ibm that they give me brand new part as it is possible that i get more problems with a part that is refurbished.
why does ibm give me a used part for replacement in my brand new laptop. can i refuse to have a refurbished part as replacement?

thanx
junkie

Junkie,

Read the terms of the warranty, IBM can send you "serviceable used" parts as replacements.

Regards,

James

For what it's worth, refurbished parts are often not refurbished. I bought a refurb HDD from Dell's outlet some years ago when my Latitude CPi had a complete drive failure. Even though the box was labeled refurb, the drive was sealed in new packaging and had obviously never been used (contrast to the refurb replacement Western Digital sent me a couple weeks ago - the drive had more than a few scratches in its exterior and the label was a bit beat up!).

Even if the CPU is used, I don't think its cause for worry. CPUs have no moving parts and are not prone to failure. I am wary of used drives of any sort, but not of solid state electronics. They generally either work or they don't.

junkielover wrote: why does ibm give me a used part for replacement in my brand new laptop. can i refuse to have a refurbished part as replacement?

thanx
junkie

They usually give you non refurbished parts.