Thinkpads Forum

I received a new T60 two days ago. Today I got a call from a very polite Lenovo gentleman in Toronto who told me that they had shipped me something wrong. An unspecific "old version of a component that would affect performance". To make it right they're shipping me a new machine in 1-2 weeks at which point I ship my current one back to them.

I'm impressed that they'd be so proactive about a problem like this and the demeanor of the guy who called me. Much less impressed that the problem exists, of course, not to mention the hassle of having to reinstall everything on a new machine.

Anyone else had this happen?

They prob shipped you a higher-end version of the one your ordered?

nelson wrote:I received a new T60 two days ago. Today I got a call from a very polite Lenovo gentleman in Toronto who told me that they had shipped me something wrong. An unspecific "old version of a component that would affect performance". To make it right they're shipping me a new machine in 1-2 weeks at which point I ship my current one back to them.

I'm impressed that they'd be so proactive about a problem like this and the demeanor of the guy who called me. Much less impressed that the problem exists, of course, not to mention the hassle of having to reinstall everything on a new machine.

Anyone else had this happen?

Hmm, makes you wonder what the component is. We likely have it in most of our systems.

What's the model you ordered and what's the one you have, and which model are they shipping you?

Maybe they shipped you something that they should have not - like a core 2 duo machine . Better make sure what they want to get out of your hands and back into the hands of Lenovo . lol.

I was going to accuse you all of being a suspicious lot, then I got to thinking; at no time did the guy on the phone say there was a performance problem, just that performance was affected. So I took a close look and discovered that the X1400 in my machine is reporting 512 megs of video RAM; a lot more than the 128 megs that were specced. So now my suspicion is they shipped me a better part than they intended.

I'd be a nice guy and just return it, only I've spent hours setting up this machine and "moving in". And the new machine hasn't arrived yet. If the only problem is I got a bit more video RAM than I paid for, well, it seems to me Lenovo ought to just suck it up and accept the loss rather than inconvieniencing their customer.

I do fear that there's something actually wrong with the machine though, something I haven't noticed. But the Lenovo sales rep who called me in the first place seems to not want to return my calls. At this point I'm tempted to leave a voicemail saying I'm going to refuse shipment on the replacement. But honestly I'd just like this to be resolved neatly. Any advice on what to do?

PS: I ordered a 2613ECU with 2 gigs of RAM. This is the model with 14.1" widescreen and the X1400 video card. That's what I got, except the video card is reporting more RAM than expected. RAM, CPU, network, everything else is as I expected. I didn't order aany upgrades from the stock 2613ECU other than the RAM, so I don't think anything is missing.

I'm pretty sure that 512MB is reported because the extra memory is shared with the primary system memory. You have 128MB dual-ported video memory and the rest is available from from your 2GB.

Nah, Lenovo doesnt ship a system with an x1400 and 512MB of video RAM. ATI HyperMemory takes system memory and uses it as graphics memory, and sometimes reports more memory than the card really has. The systems ship with 128MB of memory. Anyways, since the graphics cards are built into the system board, even if they took the system back from you, they dont sell a 512MB model, and so it wouldnt be any use or value to them.

Oh, that makes sense. I was wondering who'd be crazy enough to build a laptop video card with 512 megs of RAM and why Lenovo would have one.

So I'm left with a machine that seems to work fine and Lenovo telling me there's something unspecified wrong with it. Guess I'll have to accept the swap. What a nuisance.

nelson wrote:Oh, that makes sense. I was wondering who'd be crazy enough to build a laptop video card with 512 megs of RAM and why Lenovo would have one.

So I'm left with a machine that seems to work fine and Lenovo telling me there's something unspecified wrong with it. Guess I'll have to accept the swap. What a nuisance.

Remember though, since its unlikely that you have a better graphics card, whatever they want to fix is probably a genuine problem, so you might find the new system runs faster.

nelson wrote:Oh, that makes sense. I was wondering who'd be crazy enough to build a laptop video card with 512 megs of RAM and why Lenovo would have one.

So I'm left with a machine that seems to work fine and Lenovo telling me there's something unspecified wrong with it. Guess I'll have to accept the swap. What a nuisance.

I would place some trust in the system. Though not a perfect system (whos' is?), I'm thinking that there is a valid reason they have contacted you. Perhaps they got a bad batch of some part or subsystem component. Considering how easy it is for the "public" to post things on the internet, perhaps they are simply being careful and choosing to not disclose what the part is. Besides I would not care what is, as long as I was getting a brand new ThinkPad!

It is at their additional expense to take the time to contact you, execute the RMA on yours, and ship you a new one. I don't think they would ask for yours back just because they "gave away" a more expensive component. The cost to them is too great to go through all the paperwork, shipping, restocking etc.

So in my opinion it's worthwhile (even though you've moved in to your new ThinkPad) to go along with this effort on their part. A nuisance...yes, however once done and you have this behind you, most probably you will be very happy that you did.

nelson wrote:PS: I ordered a 2613ECU with 2 gigs of RAM. This is the model with 14.1" widescreen and the X1400 video card.

I can't find the 2613 series in the August TABOOK. Is this a CTO model?

I know I've been away from the boards for a while but I haven't heard of a widescreen T-series. Also, the x1400 comes with 128M RAM which should double to 256M with Hypermemory (although I don't have an x1400 to confirm this).

Is this a Z-series model?

-darren

Google says it is a CTO t60.

The 2613ECU is what you get when you configure a T60 with the ATI x1400 graphics card and the T2600 CPU. BTW, I was able to confirm with Sandra that the card really has only 128 megs of video RAM.

Today's adventure was finding the setting that says "no, don't turn off my WLAN every 3 minutes". What were they thinking?!

Gotcha. Judging from that link I'm guessing you meant "high-resolution" rather than "widescreen."

I'm very curious to see what they send you as a replacement.

-darren

D'oh, you're right. 1400x1050, which is 4x3 not widescreen. Sorry for the confusion. I'm expecting they will send me the exact same machine as a replacement. If not, well, I'll be even more confused than I am now.

You're going to take it apart and photograph the motherboard for us to make a comparison, right?

-darren

Mmm, no screwdrivers. I'm afraid of even smudging the thing since I know it's gonna be returned. But I'll happily do a detailed comparison with software tools. I'm good at using cpuz and Sandra; anything else I should check with?

My guess is they're giving me a remodulated flux capactior; the tachyon emissions have been interfering with the positronic gravity matrix.

nelson wrote:Oh, that makes sense. I was wondering who'd be crazy enough to build a laptop video card with 512 megs of RAM and why Lenovo would have one.

So I'm left with a machine that seems to work fine and Lenovo telling me there's something unspecified wrong with it. Guess I'll have to accept the swap. What a nuisance.

NVidia, that's who.

Personally I would not ship the laptop back until I had a replacement tested and working in hand. They are inconviencing you because of thier error. Since he wil nto return your phone calls I would play it safe and make sure you get your product. If you wait a week or so they will wait, it was thier fault and you "NEEDED THE LAPTOP" for work etc and was not at a position to go without one. that is the reason you purchased the laptop right? to use it. They Don't know what you use it for nor the citicality of the work being done. Thats just my two cents. If they shipped my the correct laptop and i could verify it i would ship the laptop recieved in error back no problem. This is all assuming that the shipping is done on thier dime. If it was not i would call them up and have them send me a pre-paid box to return it in. I deal with those boxes every week.

semaJ

semaj wrote:Personally I would not ship the laptop back until I had a replacement tested and working in hand. They are inconviencing you because of thier error. Since he wil nto return your phone calls I would play it safe and make sure you get your product. If you wait a week or so they will wait, it was thier fault and you "NEEDED THE LAPTOP" for work etc and was not at a position to go without one. <snip>

If you reread the first post, it says that the OP doesn't haven't to send it back until AFTER the replacement arrives, which will be in 1-2 weeks.

The x1400 has 128 mb dedicated, and 512 mb hypermemory. This is standard.

Couldn't you just swap hard drives? Then you would not have to setup the new computer.

carbon_unit wrote:Couldn't you just swap hard drives? Then you would not have to setup the new computer.

I was just thinking the same thing...they are CRUs, which means that the end user can replace them on their own.

I asked the guy on the phone (the one time he'd talk to me) about swapping hard drives and he said "no". Three years ago I would have chalked this up to general "don't let the customer touch the hardware" caution. But these days with the amount of trusted computing, fingerprint crap, and hardware-locked "activated software" I could believe that the thing wouldn't boot with a drive swap.

It seems absurd for them to expect you to reload the machine. Truly odd.

Unless the drives are different, swap the drives -- I doubt anyone will even notice. Any Lenovo drive installed in your machine inherits the full warranty of the machine so having a different S/N won't matter for you if you have to make a claim.

-darren

Maybe it is a widescreen T- series that they sent you ... better check with a tape measure .... lmao . http://www.laptoplogic.com/news/detail.php?id=1256
Bet you took another look at your screen to see if it is not a widescreen ....

In case you're following along, I still don't have a T60 I can use. If all goes well I may have a working T60 on August 28. That's 45 days after I placed the order, 28 days after they charged me for it.

I haven't been using the T60 they sent me since the main thing I need to do with it now is load software on it and there's no point since I'm going to have to ship it back. The salesman who initially contacted me about the swap and then didn't return a phone call for 10 days finally called me back to say "oh yeah, we really do have to exchange that system, but I cancelled your replacement because you told me you weren't sure you want to swap it. But now we won't honor the warranty, so you really have to swap it, and will get a replacement to you ASAP". Mind you, he cancelled the order without ever talking to me, and all my messages to him were "I really would rather not swap this, please call me and tell me what's wrong". And ASAP turns out to be "another two weeks".

He did have more information about what was wrong. Something about a "problem with the optical drive and hard drive that may affect performance in the future" and that they shipped something like 16 systems with this configuration problem, were having to replace all of them.

At this point I'm pretty unimpressed with Lenovo's customer service to me as a retail customer buying a single machine. I'm just hoping I get a machine that works soon, because I'm about to need it to be my only computer for several months.

i

gearguy wrote:

nelson wrote:(1) I was wondering who'd be crazy enough to build a laptop video card with 512 megs of RAM and why Lenovo would have one.

So I'm left with a machine that seems to work fine and Lenovo telling me there's something unspecified wrong with it. Guess I'll have to accept the swap. What a nuisance.

NVidia, that's who.

(1) Or anyone who works with scientific visualization, or 3D CAD/Modeling/Intense Graphic Animation..... More than just playing Doom.... someone who wants a graphic workstation / thin notebook as their primary computer, till they can build a dedicated render machine and afford the additional software licenses....

Not all of us use compters in the same way.

(2) I'm not sure if *you* are required to suck up *their* mistake.... ask for more info on this.... really.... you shouldn't have to eat the time you spent setting up the machine just because they f*cked* up the order.... that's like double jeopardy.....

nelson,

I feel for ya man. This is truly odd. It might be worth writing the president (the address is on the website -- perhaps someone else can provide a link) to voice your displeasure. Lenovo threatened to pull your warranty if you don't cooperate *and* is making you reload your system? It almost sounds like someone is pranking you.

-darren