The new W500 display died today!

[Greg Gebhardt]

Picked my 2-3 month old W500 from the table today and sat down in the easy chair and plugged in the power and opened the lip. Noticed some horizonal lines a single pixel high moving from one side of the screen to another when it awoke from sleep.

In the next 5 minutes it got more pronounced. Even changed resolutions and rebooted to only see teh lines get more and more intense and the screen get darker, then color start to distort and it darkened to the point I could not longer read it. I shut it down.

Logged onto Lenovo site and filed a service request and as they are not open on Sunday, they indicated I would receive a call on Monday.

My question is, I have removed the battery and the hard drive and put it back in the box it was shipped in. Is it correct to remove the battery and hard drive? Not crazy about sending it in with my hard drive and as I am sure this is a hardware problem, likely fryed video section.

Anyway, from you past experience, do I keep the hard drive or ship it with the laptop?
How long is the average time from sending it away to getting it back?

I love my Thinkpads but I will have to admit this has caused me to loose a little bit of confidence in the brand.

[archer6]

Picked my 2-3 month old W500 from the table today and sat down in the easy chair and plugged in the power and opened the lip. Noticed some horizonal lines a single pixel high moving from one side of the screen to another when it awoke from sleep. In the next 5 minutes it got more pronounced. Even changed resolutions and rebooted to only see teh lines get more and more intense and the screen get darker, then color start to distort and it darkened to the point I could not longer read it. I shut it down.

My question is, I have removed the battery and the hard drive and put it back in the box it was shipped in. Is it correct to remove the battery and hard drive? Not crazy about sending it in with my hard drive and as I am sure this is a hardware problem, likely fryed video section. Anyway, from you past experience, do I keep the hard drive or ship it with the laptop? How long is the average time from sending it away to getting it back?

I love my Thinkpads but I will have to admit this has caused me to loose a little bit of confidence in the brand.

While this is certainly not the type of experience that any of us enjoy, the good news is that I have have always enjoyed exemplary service from the facility in GA. It's the same for Lenovo as it was for IBM ThinkPads and they do a great job. Furthermore while I can empathize with your comment on losing some confidence, I would kindly remind you that it's simply a faulty component and a reflection on nothing more than that. Just one defective component out of thousands. The vendors that Lenovo uses are very reputable and yet not perfect. It's a mass produced device which is why they offer a warranty. In terms of time, again they are very fast. The variables that are involved hinge on availability of the part, and their present workload. In my experience the turnaround time is a matter of just a few days.

It's customary to keep your battery and a/c adaptor, but include the hard drive. It's Lenovo's procedure.

Once it's back and operating properly it will be nothing more than a blip on the radar screen and I'm confident you will be very happy. At the end of the day I would much rather have to deal with a Lenovo warranty than that of any other notebook mfg.

Cheers

[erik]

It's customary to keep your battery and a/c adaptor, but include the hard drive. It's Lenovo's procedure.

lately lenovo has been recommending users keep their HDDs, too.   in fact, they even launched a program where you don't even need to return your HDD if it's determined to be faulty.

[Greg Gebhardt]

Well I argued with the nice people from India saying that it was nothing but a hardware problem and had nothing to do with the screen going bad but they kept to their script with a vengeance. It was everything I could do to just understand what they were saying and the volume level from India makes me press the phone so hard to my ear . . . . .

Well, anyway, the box is on the way but the damage is done. Even though this was just a blip on the radar, according to another poster, when I got off the phone with service I went directly to the Apple site and ordered a new MacBook Pro 15 with two extra chargers and 3 year warranty! Their screens are so much better that my W500 is makes me sick! This is a big step for me but I have used this machine with bootcamp and Vista Ultimate and it is a screamer. 2.8 processor, 4 gb ram and 320gb 7200rpm drive.

When the W500 is returned from repair it will go directly to eBay.

[Greg Gebhardt]

An update

Thinkpad arrived back to me today. One day shipping to Atlanta, one day for repairs and one day to return it to me. Outstanding service but I already invested in the new MacBook Pro 15 with the 2.8 processor and installed Ultimate 64bit and all is good for me. This think is fast and the screen is . . . well it is way better in my opinion.

[Greg Gebhardt]

Another Update:

While I love the Apple hardware, I can not get used to the touchpad and sodl the MacBook Pro 15.

New X301 is on the way. Maybe 2nd time around is the charm! (VBG)

I miss my Thinkpad and am glad another is on the way!

[ssdaytona]

I don't know about that choice. The X300 was horrible for me. Screen was just a piece of junk.

If you have to get back to a Thinkpad I figured you would get a T or W series. Not the X300.

I have a T61p 4:3 and just ordered the MBP.

[Greg Gebhardt]

I don't know about that choice. The X300 was horrible for me. Screen was just a piece of junk.

If you have to get back to a Thinkpad I figured you would get a T or W series. Not the X300.

I have a T61p 4:3 and just ordered the MBP.

Though the MBPro 15 had a brighter display I hated the shiney screen and the resolution was no better than a ThinkPad.

I found my X301 screen to be much better than my previous W500.

If you like your T61, you need to stick with it as nothing is worth looking at compared to the oldder screens