Thinkpad t60 motherboard pictures show problematic designs

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arthurcorell · #1 Post by **arthurcorell** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 4:52 pm

I was going to buy one T60P. But I changed my mind after I read this article.
If you bought your T60/T60P less than 30 days, may you want to return it !!!

Please see the following link:
http://hard.newhua.com/info/12897-1.htm

Sorry for my english. But I really want to help those T60/T60P owner. The article is talking about the new owner found that there is a Yellow jumper wire in the back of the motherboard which includes T60 and T60P. They had been asked a professional laptop repair engineer who told the media which is meaning a defective designing !!!

After I post this as above, I found another link, and I use the same subject !
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=51477

Kel Ghu · #2 Post by **Kel Ghu** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 4:58 pm

Well... I dont know what to say... I am soon going to change my keyboard (chicony to ALP), so I'll tell you if there is such thing in my T60p.

Anyway, even with that, I wouldnt return my T60p. Thinkpads are just the best laptop I have ever used. And if I really had to change, it would be for a MacBook Pro... But... I just can't buy Mac...

And even if there is a problem in their design... I don't care as long as my T60p works. And if there's a problem, IBM/Lenovo has the best service. Last time I had my computer repaired in 3 days. No other compagny can do better.

arthurcorell · #3 Post by **arthurcorell** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 5:01 pm

I am not meaning that you have to return your laptop. I just thought that I was very disappoint with IBM. I hope they will have a recall or replacement the mb. Then I will order one for my own !

#4 Post by **BillMorrow** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 6:01 pm

looks like our friends from singapore are back..
EDIT: no, i was wrong..
i just had a telephone call from this poster and i am returning this to the T60 forum..
i DID ask the man to use a lower level of rhetoric..

so, this one is my error..

#5 Post by **GomJabbar** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 6:21 pm

What's the matter with yellow?

When I used to work on my own TV's, Stereos and such (albeit blindly), I saw this sort of thing all the time. Perhaps it's not common on laptops or modern circuit boards, but I personally would not be overly alarmed about it. I guess I would rather not see it, but I don't consider it as a big deal.

darrenf · #6 Post by **darrenf** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 6:50 pm

Why does a patch reflect poorly on Lenovo? Would you rather they avoid the fix/improvement so that you could have a blemish free pc board? I'm sure the change will make it into the next run of pc boards so if you're worried about poor soldering or something just wait but jeesh to get your hair tussled over a 3" piece of buswire is beyond silly.

-darren

wpwood3 · #7 Post by **wpwood3** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 9:50 pm

This is common practice in the industry. In a prior life I worked for a large company that manufactured medical imaging equipment like CT and MR scanners. We routinely had wires like that on our circuit boards.

#8 Post by **archer6** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 10:30 pm

wpwood3 wrote:This is common practice in the industry. We routinely had wires like that on our circuit boards.

I agree with you, this is exactly correct.
It's a very good solution to resolve a very small issue. I would not even give this a second thought.
The area I focus on is functionality. If it works properly, I have nothing to worry about. If it doesn't, that's why I buy & use ThinkPads, terrific service and repair.

christopher_wolf · #9 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 10:46 pm

If it works, why not? I have taken apart many laptops and other systems to find similar stuff inside that had no adverse affect on operation.

What do you think the traces on the Mobo are? Just wires, they only look different; they can succumb to the same mechanical forces as that yellow wire would. Board bending, twisting, etc...And if a system is treated like that, chances are something else will go out first, or the owner needs a sore lesson in how to value a system.

#10 Post by **BillMorrow** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 11:05 pm

eric (arthurcorell) sent me a private email with a better link..

this is my reply:

***BEGIN***
eric..

that yellow wire is what is called an "engineering change"..
like the poster who responded in the link "it happens all the time"
it happened on the early 770 model thinkpads..
i would say that your post and others is much ado about absolutely nothing..
i would not worry about that change at all..
***END***

i had friends who ran a PCB rework business in mountain view (c. 1976) and they did reworks on mil-spec boards..
if memory serves me there were the same engineering changes on those as well..

again, its nothing..

Greg Gebhardt · #11 Post by **Greg Gebhardt** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 6:40 am

I have always wondered why people are SO critical and continue to try and find fault with the ThinkPad hardware. It seems some here live to spew this cr^p.

Charles Mann · #12 Post by **Charles Mann** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 9:04 am

After a 30 year career with IBM, engineering changes to circuit boards were a way of life. When engineers design a circuit board, it is nearly impossible to foresee every condition that will ever be presented to that design. Therefore when that change is needed, the “yellow wire” is applied to the existing boards to allow their use in the production cycle. Hence engineering change numbers are applied to circuit boards, as they are manufactured, to show their level in the ongoing design process. In software or application development, this process is called “bug fixes” or “patches”, you could look at these changes as the “yellow wire” wire applied to programs. Frequently these corrections to code are added to enhancements, and called upgrades.

Charles

jinnix · #13 Post by **jinnix** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 1:17 pm

My friend passed me the original post in Chinese. I work with PCB all the time and our company's board did not have this kind of thing often. So to me, I needed an answer from experts to confirm if this is common and whether or not it is an indication of quality. That is why I posted the link in notebookreview.

Certainly I agree nick-picking this kind of issue is overly critical. But I guess people have high expectation of thinkpads, and therefore they do care if certain things indicating poor design pops up. Especially after Lenovo purchased the thinkpad business, there would be more people becoming skeptical about the future quality of thinkpads. I personally own many thinkpads and would not care if that yellow line is there in all the thinkpads I have owned.

lithium726 · #14 Post by **lithium726** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 2:02 pm

Who cares as long as it works?

Phantom Gremlin · #15 Post by **Phantom Gremlin** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 4:13 pm

jinnix wrote:Certainly I agree nick-picking this kind of issue is overly critical. But I guess people have high expectation of thinkpads, and therefore they do care if certain things indicating poor design pops up.

Looking at ECO wires is a very very superficial way to analyze design quality.

Have you done a design review of Intel's and ATI's chips? Do you know how many undiscovered or ignored bugs are there? Hint. Here is the latest publicly available "specification update" for the Core chip:

ftp://download.intel.com/design/mobile/ ... 922202.pdf

There are 34 identified items, most of which are marked "No Fix".

Here's a typical one:

AE13: IFU/BSU deadlock may cause system hang
Problem: A lockable instruction with memory operand that spans across two pages may, given some rare internal conditions, hang the system.

Intel's fix is essentially "don't do that".

Intel's products are extremely high quality. I use them every day and wouldn't hesitate to buy more. And yet they sell the chip knowing it has "bugs" in it.

IBM, Intel, and now Lenovo, have "brand names" that build up value over a period of years or decades. If you trust the brand, then you should let those companies worry about how to build the products. They have many people working there who worry about these things each and every day.

astro · #16 Post by **astro** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 5:17 pm

This tells me two things:

1) At least one classic project delivery risk has been realised. Let's see, what could the risks be?
- RISK#252: New architecture increases risk of design issue, mitigated by testing
- RISK#253: Compressed delivery timeframe reduces design and test time, increasing likelihood of RISK#252

2) That Lenovo are willing to dramatically slow down their production line (have a look at the shipping thread), which means losing money and irritating their customers, just to ensure that they ship a product which meets their standards.

On the strength of 2) alone, I am more confident than ever in purchasing a Lenovo Thinkpad.

#17 Post by **draco2527** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 5:56 pm

I disagree with the "not a big deal" issue!

I think it is a big deal, since something was not working properly and they fixed it...

darrenf · #18 Post by **darrenf** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 10:02 pm

draco2527 wrote:I disagree with the "not a big deal" issue!

I think it is a big deal, since something was not working properly and they fixed it...

IF the wire is meant to fix something that is indeed "not working properly" then the concern should be for people whose boards lack the fix, not those who have it.

-darren

Website · #19 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 10:07 pm

draco2527 wrote:I disagree with the "not a big deal" issue!

I think it is a big deal, since something was not working properly and they fixed it...

Pay close attention to your last three words..."they fixed it".

This would be along the lines of the T30 ram slot issue, EXCEPT that they apparently caught it before it got out.

#20 Post by **draco2527** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 8:50 pm

tfflivemb2 wrote:
draco2527 wrote:I disagree with the "not a big deal" issue!

I think it is a big deal, since something was not working properly and they fixed it...

Pay close attention to your last three words..."they fixed it".
quote]

I guess I did not state the "facts" properly!

It is a big deal! but not for the reason mentioned....

There was a design flaw, and they corrected it! The BIG DEAL is that they FIXED IT before shipping the units out, and then having to "RECALL" them and causing untold grief on customers.

I also think it is a BIG DEAL, because they are paying close attention to what they are doing and offering!

and NO, I do not think it is a BIG DEAL that it has an engineering revision; in the older days before surface mount a board could be "filled" with these, and as demonstrated by this picture; it is still in use(to a much lesser degree). If the board looked like an octopus (wires all over the place) then I might be concerned, one, two, three or four leads on the motherboard would not worry me at all..............

darrenf · #21 Post by **darrenf** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 9:06 am

draco,

Sorry for my reply. I didn't read your post in the way you meant it -- thanks for the clarification.

-darren

Website · #22 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 9:15 am

draco2527 wrote:There was a design flaw, and they corrected it! The BIG DEAL is that they FIXED IT before shipping the units out, and then having to "RECALL" them and causing untold grief on customers.

Am I missing something? I have heard/read anything about them recalling the boards as a result of this modification.

JHEM · #23 Post by **JHEM** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 9:22 am

tfflivemb2 wrote:Am I missing something? I have heard/read anything about them recalling the boards as a result of this modification.

The OP meant that the problem was fixed WITHOUT having to resort to a massive recall.

Regards,

James

Website · #24 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 9:26 am

Are you sure...that isn't how I read it. AND if it is what the OP meant, then how could that be a big deal? (Not trying to flame, just trying to understand)

JHEM · #25 Post by **JHEM** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 9:37 am

He's saying, IIUC, that it's a "Big Deal" (i.e. laudable and worthy of praise) that the correction was made without having to make the owners suffer.

Regards,

James

Website · #26 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 9:49 am

GOT IT. S/he is missing the word NOT:

There was a design flaw, and they corrected it! The BIG DEAL is that they FIXED IT before shipping the units out, and then NOT having to "RECALL" them and causing untold grief on customers.

(emphasis and word added)

JHEM · #27 Post by **JHEM** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 10:03 am

tfflivemb2 wrote:GOT IT. S/he is missing the word NOT

Well, it's inferred in the tone of the message. But adding the word "not" removes any ambiguity.

Regards,

James

Website · #28 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 10:08 am

Sorry, I can be quite literal and miss the subtones of a message. Too many years in law, I guess.

darrenf · #29 Post by **darrenf** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 3:31 pm

[Grammar Hijack]

Breaking out the conjunction(s) in the OP's post, the OP said that it was a big deal that they fixed it before:

1. shipping the units out, and
2. then having to "recall" them and
3. causing untold grief on customers.

Nitpicking, it's probably appropriate to eliminate the first "and," eliminate "then" from the second clause and change the preposition at the end of the sentence from "on" to "to" but none of those changes impacts the meaning of the sentence. Adding a "not" before the second clause in the conjunction would change the author's meaning.

I never let something trivial like this die.

-darren

[/Grammar Hijack]

#30 Post by **draco2527** » Mon May 01, 2006 11:15 am

darrenf wrote:[Grammar Hijack]

Breaking out the conjunction(s) in the OP's post, the OP said that it was a big deal that they fixed it before:

1. shipping the units out, and
2. then having to "recall" them and
3. causing untold grief on customers.

Nitpicking, it's probably appropriate to eliminate the first "and," eliminate "then" from the second clause and change the preposition at the end of the sentence from "on" to "to" but none of those changes impacts the meaning of the sentence. Adding a "not" before the second clause in the conjunction would change the author's meaning.

I never let something trivial like this die.

-darren

[/Grammar Hijack]

Dude! Can I email you when I need help with a paper! Kudos...

Thinkpad t60 motherboard pictures show problematic designs

Thinkpad t60 motherboard pictures show problematic designs

Not a big deal...

Re: Not a big deal...

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