Thinkpads Forum

I have seen a lot of T6x users having trouble with the faulty NVidia chip. I would like to inform you all that Lenovo is still replacing these laptops free of charge. Even if it is out of warranty. After some research I found that mine to was affected and instead of replacing it my self I decided to call Lenovo and give it a shot. Heres what happen

1st call to Lenovo: CSR asked for basic info about me and my laptop. Said this has been locked after I gave him the serial information and couldn't do anything about it though someone will call within 24hours to help me. Waited 30 min and received a call asking what I would like to do with my computer, like upgrade it. I told her I was having problems. After being placed on hold for about 5 min she told me the ticket request was inputed wrong and would have to transfer me to Lenovo tech support. (I guess I called IBM tech support to begin with? idk) Basically she transferred me to a automated prompt and after hitting 0 x100 I didn't get a human. Hung up

2nd call to Lenovo: I found the number to Lenovo tech support and followed the prompts I believe it was 1...2...2. CSR asked if this was an existing case and I said yes but after giving all the info I had he couldn't find. So he made a new ticket request. Then he asked me what was wrong so I told him and I was like I know its out of warranty by 2+ years but I thought I would try. He said well trying doesn't hurt and where will I be sending a box to repair you T61 free of charge to you.

Hope this helps all the stranded T6xers out there who don't know what to do. My advice is be patience, nice, and if the CSR is not going to replace it try calling again and get a different CSR

Nice information, thanks. What were the symptoms on your machine, and what did you tell the CSR the problem was?

I told him the screen sometimes would turn on and sometimes would just be black. Also when it does power on I had garbled text and sometimes half the screen was a solid color and the other half was another solid color. I then also told him I tried to hooking it up to an external monitor and I had blue vertical lines running up and down my screen and that was it. He asked me where to ship the box to and also gave me a case number for future reference. Again not bad for being 2+ years out of warranty. My only concern is that they will replace it with the same MB which may or may not fail down the road. But hopefully after multiple fixes down the road with the same problem I might be upgraded to a new ThinkPad. Who knows?!

I'm sure this information will help many folks with the same problem. Thanks again for sharing it.

hack2010 wrote:I would like to inform you all that Lenovo is still replacing these laptops free of charge. Even if it is out of warranty. After some research I found that mine to was affected and instead of replacing it my self I decided to call Lenovo and give it a shot. Heres what happen

I have the same issue with my out of warranty T61. I called to my regional Lenovo support (Russia) and got an answer that they have no information about such problem and no information about such replacement program and I should repair my notebook by myself.

When did you make 2nd call? There is information that replacing program already closed. Isn't it? Is there any official information on Lenovo site about this replacement program?
Could you please provide me with phone number you called?

I called about an hour after my first call. The number I called was 1-800-426-7378. This is the USA support number. I have not found any evidence saying that this replacement program has been closed nor have I seen anything related to this on the lenovo website. I did forget to mention that I told the rep I found some information on my problem in a official Lenovo support forum.

Would you be willing to give out the ticket number for your successful request? Then other people could phone in to lenovo support and, if given the run-around, could point out to them that they had definitely been doing replacements etc for this problem.

I dont mind but I just got my box and will send it either thursday or friday and once I see it being shipped back to me I will give you guys the number. Dont want to jinx anything yet

I don't care what you do via PM or email, that's your business, but we'd appreciate it if you did not post Lenovo case or ticket numbers on this forum.

How widespread is this problem? I've had my T61 for 3 yrs and never had any issues with the display..

thx.

Just for openers: www.nvidiasettlement.com
For some obscure reason Lenovo is not included, although nearly every nVidia T61 develops these problems.
It was just rotten chip design by nVidia.
Your machine WILL suffer from it too, eventually.

Why Lenovo is not included in this nVidia settlement? though it is well known more T61's are affected!

uberT wrote:I've had my T61 for 3 yrs and never had any issues with the display..

I've also had mine for 3+ years, used daily and have also played some games on it and it's still working perfectly. I guess we are both in the lucky minority.

If the board ever fails, then I will probably replace it with an Intel board or maybe find a T400 board with switchable graphics and slap it inside.

Hello everybody!
I just want to say that out of warranty motherboard replace program works in Russia.
I have T61 3+ years old with nvidia chip problem occured a week ago. Called to support and Lenovo Russia recognized this issue and pushed authorized service center to repair.

Just an update my machine was repaired and is now working 100% I was even told that they replaced the keyboard, palm rest, and wifi card. I don't know why they replaced the wifi card because I did not have one in there when I sent it in oh well . Now its time to upgrade the LCD to wxga+ from wxga. Any problems I am going to run into? I search the forums and only came up that if its not a certain FRU you could have EDID issues but the one I bought matches. If anyone knows something I don't let me know. Thanks!

Just a few days ago I've discovered our R61 machine has the infamous Quadro 140M too. Yikes!. The laptop is almost 3 years old, still under extended warranty. Surprisingly, everything works fine for now, but the machine has been used mostly for 2D CAD, docked on external monitor.

What are my options or what do you suggest? The community seems to have a consensus that it's not if, but when the card will fail...

guys, may i know in detail what is the sympthom ?

i have t61 with quadro140m. been using about 3years+. it's all start with a freezing display and bluescreen.
now if i connect it into external monitor it will displaying the bios with a red line dot all over the screen.

and it's showing nothing in my lcd screen.