Thinkpads Forum

Hi all,

This is my first post on the forum; this seems like a very knowledgeable place.

I plan on purchasing a T61p for college next year, and I have enough money to basically have it be fully loaded. But, I would like to save some cash by doing some of the upgrades myself. For instance, instead of purchasing like 3 gigs of ram from Lenovo when configuring my laptop, I'd like to purchase it from like newegg and install it myself.

My question is this: if I install components not purchased during laptop configuration (RAM, hdd) would I void the warranty? If so, is there any way around this?

Thanks!

Welcome to the forum!

You will not void your warranty by adding, changing, or re-arranging your ram.

You could change your hard drive too without any trouble.

Brad

awesome!

however, if I had to send the computer in for repairs or something, would I have to swap out all the after market parts?

Well, the general advice given regarding sending one's machine in for "depot" warranty service is to take off everything possible that is clearly not involved in whatever problem you are sending the machine in for. For example, it is generally a good idea to remove the optical drive, hard drive, ram, and battery before sending the machine in. The reason for this is that: 1) The depot can be sloppy at times and misplace or forget to return all your components with your machine; and 2) They have a predilection for trying to solve problems by re-imaging the hard drive (and thereby wiping out your data) if it is available.

In any event, any aftermarket non-Lenovo components would obviously not be covered by the Lenovo warranty so there would be no point in sending those things in with the machine and also you would not want to give them any excuse to blame your problem on aftermarket stuff which even if not true could delay your machine getting repaired.

pae77 wrote:Well, the general advice given regarding sending one's machine in for "depot" warranty service is to take off everything possible that is clearly not involved in whatever problem you are sending the machine in for.

In fact, item #5 in the FAQ has been the standard advice for about as long as there have been ThinkPads.

I hate to dig up an old post, but I feel it's best to avoid creating a new thread if possible. I just bought my T61p and I want to know what I can do that will not void the warranty. I've read through many posts and it seems that some (like T60 users) are replacing their CPU, which voids their warranty, but by keeping the old processor and restoring it when there's a warranty problem, the warranty is valid once again?

Without questioning why, will taking apart my laptop void the warranty? One of the main reasons is that I want to apply AS5 thermal compound on my cpu and gpu (is this even possible, or does the gpu have a thermal pad?). Many people are doing a bunch of things with their laptop and I'm assuming it won't void warranty.

Is there a link which clearly defines what voids the warranty? What about my credit card extended warranty (Visa)? I only have the standard 1-year warranty and will extend it through my Visa card.

Sorry for the long post and I appreciate any help!