T42p (2373-KTU) Fan Error & Systemboard failure

[ekcebiche]

Greetings to the board... this is my first post. I searched for pertinent topics and haven´t found any, so forgive me if this still is a repeat.

I´ve had my notebook for a few months (after having switched from the Toshiba Tecra line, grrrr). I use is fairly extensively, crunching spreadsheets, using application development tools and for communications. Wifi is generally always on.

Problem:
Laptop was reading a fixed wireless radiobase transmission rates when the fan stopped working. The machine turned itself off and now only shows "fan error" after the "thinkpad" boot screen. I am currently in Bolivia and have been doing what I can making calls and leaving the notebook with a certified IBM service center.

My request is if anyone can offer some advice as to how to get IBM´s best response. I´ve been given a 20-30 day lead time for them to source the required parts . this will kill my activities in Bolivia and come pretty close to crippling me! Man this is making me think how dependent we are becoming on PC´s and elcetronics/technology in general.

Any advice is well received and appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Mario

[none]

Welcome to the forum, and sorry about your situation there... Have you tried calling IBM support directly? If you have a T42p I imagine you should still have warranty on it... The warranty is international, and in most cases it's a lot faster to send it to an IBM service center rather than an IBM-certified service center (which would still need to order parts from IBM itself, just like you)... IBM warranty is usually very good, they do pay all the shipping.

[ekcebiche]

Yeah, not a good way to transition from Tecras to Thinkpads. I´ve spoken with support in the US where I purchased the the notebook but was told that it would need to be serviced where I was located. So it seems my situation is not so good. They have offered to hook me up with a "temp" unit while they wait for the parts top arrive... which I gues is OK considering the alternative. I still find it hard to believe the lead time support gives itself for sourcing spares. After pulling as many strings as I could, appears that many countries do not have logistics and invoicing systems integrated to IBM´s network, hence the inability to quickly check part inventories and solve this sort of problem. I remember when my Tecra 8100 HDD died on me, the local rep also didn´t have it in stock but turned it around in 3-4 days.

I am surprised to say the least, but at this point beggers can´t be chosers... so they say. They mentioned the cost of the systemboard is close to the cost of a new system, ans since I am past the point of returning the entire system for a new one, I wonder if there isn´t bureaucracy involved here?