X120E dead system board & intl warranty woes
Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 7:28 pm
After 6 months my X120E died. I bought it in the US in April. The lead time from Lenovo was too long so I had to buy a pre-configured one and the only one I could get with short lead time was an E-240.
The computer died while I was in the US, but was leaving for Japan within 2 days. I called Lenovo in the US and they said to use the intl warranty and repair it in Japan because they can't ship internationally. I called Japan and they confirmed that there was no problem in sending it to them for repair. They warned about keyboard replacement and OS issues; obviously not an issue. (However, if you look up the X121E for sale in Japan then you can select English keyboard and English OS!)
So I have it picked up by a courier. They call me back a half week later and say "your computer needs a new system board but we cannot obtain one in Japan so we can't fix it and we will return it to you". I talked to the US and they are baffled by this response. How hard is it to get a system board from China?
Does anyone have any suggestions? They sell the X121E in Japan so there should be a number of system boards that would work with this unit. I think I am facing typical Japanese "never think outside the box": if we can't get the system board specified in the book then we can't fix it. There is already a replacement FRU for the specific system board from 04W0366 to 63Y1638. I couldn't find the latter reference on Lenovo's website.
Any suggestions? Or has anyone else had international warranty issues?
Re the unit. I guess that I got what I paid for. The unit saw limited use. Only when I travel. Well, I guess that's close to 50% of the time. So about 3 months of regular use before it died. I am typing this on a 3.5 year old, rock solid T61.
The computer died while I was in the US, but was leaving for Japan within 2 days. I called Lenovo in the US and they said to use the intl warranty and repair it in Japan because they can't ship internationally. I called Japan and they confirmed that there was no problem in sending it to them for repair. They warned about keyboard replacement and OS issues; obviously not an issue. (However, if you look up the X121E for sale in Japan then you can select English keyboard and English OS!)
So I have it picked up by a courier. They call me back a half week later and say "your computer needs a new system board but we cannot obtain one in Japan so we can't fix it and we will return it to you". I talked to the US and they are baffled by this response. How hard is it to get a system board from China?
Does anyone have any suggestions? They sell the X121E in Japan so there should be a number of system boards that would work with this unit. I think I am facing typical Japanese "never think outside the box": if we can't get the system board specified in the book then we can't fix it. There is already a replacement FRU for the specific system board from 04W0366 to 63Y1638. I couldn't find the latter reference on Lenovo's website.
Any suggestions? Or has anyone else had international warranty issues?
Re the unit. I guess that I got what I paid for. The unit saw limited use. Only when I travel. Well, I guess that's close to 50% of the time. So about 3 months of regular use before it died. I am typing this on a 3.5 year old, rock solid T61.