Is there anybody who return T43 to IBM for the fan Problem?

[madmatrix]

I wanna send my T43 back to IBM for fix the fan's acceleration problem(pulsing). Is there anybody who has already done it? Can IBM fix this problem?

[christopher_wolf]

Not me; then again...I don't have the "Pulsating Fan" Problem or any other fan problem. Yet I don't suspect IBM can do all that much to fix it. Actually, it might be more useful and efficient is to order a Fan from IBM and do it yourself since that is probably what they would end up doing anyway.

[Domain]

After all this reading, I may just skip the hassle and go for a T42. I thought about getting the T43 and seeing what happens. If it were loud, they can repair or accept a full return, they pay for all shipping. Tomorrow I'm going to question Lenovo and see if they plan/have revised the fans. If they say yes.. T43. If not, T42.

I can't bank on having luck like Mr. Wolf here.

[Trip]

After all this reading, I may just skip the hassle and go for a T42.

If you do go that route, good luck. I tried to order a T42, but apparently Lenovo disagreed with me (actually, it Lenovo had supply issues with the model I ordered...) and they shipped me a T43. Gave me a good price on it, at least.

I can't say that the T42 I had was actually any quieter, but the fan certainly didn't run as much, and sometimes it would actually turn itself off. And the battery life was fantastic - almost 5.5 hours on a 6-cell. Of course, Guild Wars didn't look nearly so pretty...

I'm considering either sending this one back or calling tech support to see if I can get them to replace the fan (why spend money and possibly void my warranty when they could do it for me?). I'm just not sure when I'll have time to make that happen.

[christopher_wolf]

I don't think there is any real "Fan Revision" by the way. It seems that if this is more of a driver issue for some systems that, strangely enough, seems to not respond to a BIOS Update. It has been stated here that the later model T43s do not have a fan problem. Either way, IBM/Lenovo support won't know a thing about a "Fan Revision." Seeing as how they seem to think that the Problem isn't real at least on some machines. You actually get a 30-Day tryout period when you get your Thinkpad from IBM to send it through its paces; if you don't like it, you simply send it back for another. It might be worth it to try out the T43 for awhile to actually form your own opinions on it. If you don't like it, you can send it back for a T42. This is almost what I did, but I could touch and compare the T43 vs. the T42 at the TSW, and it turned out to be very helpful for me.

[wolfman]

Trip - just curious - what video card did you have in the T42? I play Guild Wars too and have been considering turning my R40 into a linux only machine and getting a T42 with a radeon 9600 graphics chipset. (I currently play Guild Wars on my desktop which I want to use as a server for the house as the ATI 7000 chipset in the R40 can't come close to handling that game).

Thanks!

[Trip]

My T42 just had the basic ATi Radeon 7500 Mobility. It may not be officially supported hardware, but it ran Guild Wars just fine at medium settings with no post-processing effects or AA. That game really doesn't demand a lot from the graphics card - your R40 is probably able to handle it too (but only just). A 9600 will do a great job with it.

[wolfman]

Excellent - thanks for the quick follow up. I'm glad to know it ran OK on the 7500 as the other model I was looking at has a Radeon 9000 with 32 meg...I think the 9600 w/ 64 is the way to go though (looking at T42 so I can transfer my RAM).

Thanks again!

[madmatrix]

Thanks everyone!
Anyway, after I read some topic simliar with mine, I thought it should not be the fan's problem. And someone gets the method to fix it. But I think I had better wait for some new message from Lenovo.

[hootpie]

I returned a T43 for the T42 I'm on now. I saved $140 and I couldn't be happier.

[madmatrix]

hootpie,
You returned your T43 and got the T42? I had thought about returning my T43 for other model. But now it's over the return time limit(30 days).
Anyway I must optimize my T43 now.

[denthorq]

I returned my T43 too and I'm very happy with T42

[Hopelessness]

Same here, returned the T43 right on the 30-day mark. I'd hardly say the T43 was bad, but this T42 is simply better on almost all fronts.

[christopher_wolf]

I wouldn't say that the T42 is better on all fronts; it wouldn't do as well as my T43 in my line of research. Besides, my T43 doesn't have that fan problem; and from the reported usage of Shimodax's Fan Utility, it seems as though other T42s have the fan always on problem as do other Thinkpads. ThinkWiki even has a section describing the "fan always on problem" across many Thinkpads.

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_fan_noise

It appears to me that the T43 is being scapegoated for problems that have been around for quite awhile now. I can say, right now, that I have yet to see the benefit of my friend's T42 over my T43. I enjoy higher performance when it comes to PyMol, MATLAB, and Maple along with the classic IBM dedication to quality.

This goes to show that it is user preference that eventually decides what you are going to like and get. *NOT* hearing about the "Oh the T42 is better or this and that" etc when comparing two systems that are pretty [censored] near identical when it comes down to it. I have yet to see a reason, well...a valid engineering reason anyway, as to why the T43 doesn't compare well to the T42. I find it very difficult to believe that a Thinkpad with the same Chassis, nearly the same System Board, same screen, same drives, and many other similar things can be so different than a previous model. Until I see a good reason, I am not going to go off saying what is better than what without a few benchmarks or specs. Also, people should be enjoying their Thinkpads, an added benefit , rather than trying to come up with points against this or that. Simple, get what you want and enjoy it.

[Hopelessness]

Ok, I was a bit overly broad there. It's hardly better on all fronts.

As far as the fan goes; At the moment, I still haven't had to return the T43 yet, I've got a few more days. My T42 arrived very quickly, so I've had both in front of me for a few days. They're both fairly recent models. 2668-75U for the T43, and 2373-M3U for the T42. Both are fully updated.

The T43 doesn't seem to run appreciably hotter, then again, the fan is constantly on at a low speed. In most enviroments, I can't hear the T43. However, in a quiet enviroment, where I'm often working, I can definitly hear the fan, and I've had it pulse occasionally, which I find extremely distracting. In contrast, during general useage the T42's fan never comes on at all. Under load, they both seem fairly equal. I didn't try manually controlling the fan on the T43, so I'm not sure what that would do for the comparison between them.

To top that off, the T42 seems to use about 3-4W less than my T43 under fairly conservative settings, which when both are undervolted results in a maximum of 4 hours for the T43 and around 5 hours for the T42. (These measurements are both on a 6-cell, CPU clocked down to minimum on each, brightness between half and full, wireless off, I found it easier to achive 5 hours on the T42 than 4 on the T43)

As far as performance, there are areas where a T43 probably has a fair lead. For what I've done with compiling, the change in drives between the models (5400 in the T43, 7200 in the T42) more than made up for the slower fsb and slower CPU speed (2 Ghz in the T43, 1.8 Ghz in the T42). Of course, this could be upgraded on the T43, but it gives a slight sense of relative difference. With the limited 3D testing I've done, the 9600 performs sufficiently better than the x300 in actual applications for me that yet again in that sort of thing the T42 matches or bests the T43 in performance. However, for anything purely CPU intensive, I have no doubt that the T43 has a significant advantage. I'd have to say that which is better entirely depends on the sort of usage.

[goran5]

Having used my T43p for about half a year by now and having read about the so called fan problem on this site in the beginning I can only say that this is not a problem. This is by far the best computer I've had.