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).However, just today after I got home from class, I hit resume and the usual desktop bounced back up...after less than 5min of replying to an email, the screen completely froze. Not only the screen, but Ctrl-Alt-Del was not working, nor were the keys 'beeping' when I hit more than three at once...my only option was to hard reboot. It booted normally, but shortly after logging in to windows, the same thing happened.
I rebooted about 10 more times after this, with varying degrees of success - sometimes it would completely freeze during the windows loading screen, other times I could open up an email or the browser before it locked up. However, what made the experience all the more weird was the fact that a couple times after locking up, the screen would either black out, display vertical lines for an instant before blacking out, or slowly become more and more washed out until it turned completely white!!
Absolutely the weirdest experience I've ever seen. What made it worse was when I started having lockups when accessing the BIOS, and in the pre-windows command menu...sometimes the fan would max out and stay at full blast until I held the power button for five sec.
Well, I broke down and called IBM cust. service, was promptly in touch with English speaking technicians who actually knew what I was talking about. We tried to hook it up to an external monitor but to no avail. They decided that it was a fried board (or video card), and that I should send it in (it's under the standard 3-yr warranty, as I bought it in June 2004). The box is on the way.
I will post updates as to how the process goes (ie. turnaround time, any damage, other issues, etc.) for your information. As per the advice of others in this forum, I will remove the HD, battery, and CDRW/DVD drive from the system before I ship it.
However, this experience was made painless by the fact that my school has a loaner program for those who purchase their computers through the bookstore - within an hour of getting my case # from IBM, I had checked out an identical model Thinkpad, and it was simply a matter of switching the hard drives out before I was up and running again! How about that for service!
Couple of questions - how should I pack the Thinkpad in their supplied box? Do they include packing materials? Is it secure enough to keep my investment safe? Should I include anything extra that is not asked (ie. a letter, receipt of purchase, etc.)?
