Thinkpads Forum

Howdy.

So, I bought a T420s motherboard on Ebay (to upgrade both the processor and video card as well as gain a virgin fan). It was sold as new, and I'd like to verify that fact. How could I tell? It does not have the official Lenovo FRU listed on it. It has FRU 63Y1744. Is there some way to check if it is refurbished? The mainboard looks too complicated to be reproduced by a third party, so I am assuming it's OEM.

Thanks.

sb

I don't think the market for reworked boards of that series has had any need to develop yet. I would classify the board as "Used." Sellers might sometimes say Seller Refurbished if they have tested it themselves and know it works.

There is now way to prove it is new unless it is in Lenovo Specific packaging with the official Lenovo security tape on the bag, but even that can be faked, as there are auctions just for the stickers. I guess look for dust around the ports would be the only other option. It is not probable that the BIOS will have any clues as to any previous use.

skinnersbane wrote: It does not have the official Lenovo FRU listed on it. It has FRU 63Y1744.

There's always more than one FRU for any planar.

Is there some way to check if it is refurbished? The mainboard looks too complicated to be reproduced by a third party, so I am assuming it's OEM.

Lenovo refurbs will have an orange sticker saying "certified reused part" or something along those lines. A brand new board would come in a sealed box, and likely cost as much as the laptop itself.

So, I'll just try to give it a nice stress test. As, a follow up quesiton: What sort of "burn in" programs do you guys use? Do you use anything to attempt to systematically burn-in or stress-test new parts?

skinnersbane wrote:So, I'll just try to give it a nice stress test. As, a follow up quesiton: What sort of "burn in" programs do you guys use? Do you use anything to attempt to systematically burn-in or stress-test new parts?

It all depends on what you specifically want to test, but Prime 95 (CPU/RAM, overall system health) and Furmark and/or Freestone (GPU) are my weapons of choice.

That being said, T420/s have not shown to be particularly vulnerable in any specific area, AFAIK...although they are fairly new machines to begin with.

OK, so I got this thing installed over the weekend and it's great. Since (as a linux user) I waited until now, I have Nvidia Optimus support (kinda)! I might try a burn-in next weekend, but for now, I am not seeing any red flags.

I don't suppose anyone around here knows how to get rid of the 2200 and 2201 errors on boot (unknown UUID/serial number, etc). At least they don't prevent booting like the did some years back, but it is annoying.

skinnersbane wrote:I don't suppose anyone around here knows how to get rid of the 2200 and 2201 errors on boot (unknown UUID/serial number, etc).

I figured it out