T420S is Randomly Shutting Down
Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2014 9:04 am
Hi,
Trying to troubleshoot a frustrating issue with a refurbished T420S that I recently purchased from the Lenovo outlet. I bought the machine for my mom at Christmas, and everything worked great for the first few months. Recently, the machine began exhibiting odd behaviors, popping up messages saying that a USB device on the system was not recognized, even when nothing was connected to any of the external USB ports. The screen then began randomly displaying static and often times when the static would happen, the machine would also unexpectedly shut down. I have already placed one service call, and the technician replaced the keyboard as well as the motherboard. I was pretty confident that we had seen the last of the issue; However, it’s unfortunately still occurring.
The problem is that it’s so random! Yesterday, I did a clean reinstall of Windows, spent several hours playing with the machine, installing updates, etc., and it worked fine. Gave it back to Mom last night. She used it throughout the evening and it worked fine. This morning, it crashed on her again. She is using the same power supply and isn’t connecting any devices to the USB ports. I’ve run most of the Lenovo hardware diagnostics I can find and they all check out.
At this point, I guess I have no choice but to send the machine back to Lenovo; However, I’m very afraid that they’ll get the machine, put it on the bench, and it will work fine. The issue only seems to occur when someone is using the machine. We can leave it on for hours on end, overnight, and it’s still up and running when we come back to it.
What is Lenovo’s policy on refurbished machines if they seem to be lemons? It does have a one year warranty. Do we just need to keep playing the service call game until they get it right, or do I have any other recourses?
Thanks,
Trying to troubleshoot a frustrating issue with a refurbished T420S that I recently purchased from the Lenovo outlet. I bought the machine for my mom at Christmas, and everything worked great for the first few months. Recently, the machine began exhibiting odd behaviors, popping up messages saying that a USB device on the system was not recognized, even when nothing was connected to any of the external USB ports. The screen then began randomly displaying static and often times when the static would happen, the machine would also unexpectedly shut down. I have already placed one service call, and the technician replaced the keyboard as well as the motherboard. I was pretty confident that we had seen the last of the issue; However, it’s unfortunately still occurring.
The problem is that it’s so random! Yesterday, I did a clean reinstall of Windows, spent several hours playing with the machine, installing updates, etc., and it worked fine. Gave it back to Mom last night. She used it throughout the evening and it worked fine. This morning, it crashed on her again. She is using the same power supply and isn’t connecting any devices to the USB ports. I’ve run most of the Lenovo hardware diagnostics I can find and they all check out.
At this point, I guess I have no choice but to send the machine back to Lenovo; However, I’m very afraid that they’ll get the machine, put it on the bench, and it will work fine. The issue only seems to occur when someone is using the machine. We can leave it on for hours on end, overnight, and it’s still up and running when we come back to it.
What is Lenovo’s policy on refurbished machines if they seem to be lemons? It does have a one year warranty. Do we just need to keep playing the service call game until they get it right, or do I have any other recourses?
Thanks,