Re: Purchasing a laptop::Anyone fully satisfied with theirs?
On Mon, 20 Mar 2000, Heather wrote:
>I have to admit I've seen very few models with built-in ethernet as yet, and
>I'm personally dubious how much of an advantage that is -- in cost, some
>vendors charge enough premium for the uncommon feature it might have been
>cheaper to get a card, and I wonder if it would run cooler (though if that
> could be shown, it IS a win - pcmcia that are used a lot can get quite
> toasty warm).
That all makes sense. If you get a built in Ethernet then you just have to
make sure it's 10/100...
>When I needed warranty repair from them they were extremely freindly,
> offered to send me a new shipping box with protective sling, and got the
> laptop back to me with moderate speed.
>
>But the damaged floppy controller that they repaired fried itself out again
>in less than a month - when I sent it back again (with a long description of
>minutae of symptoms, as well as the comment I wanted to call it a lemonpad)
>they were really sorry, and they had a senior tech on it and all. It lasted
>several months on return but blew again. To summarize, they're friendly,
>they do it, expect your laptop to be out for a week or two - actually, the
>first time was faster - but if the problem is really weird don't expect them
>to be perfect.
Maybe this was a defective model and they could never repair it to a state
where it would be guaranteed to last. Sometimes these problems only show up
in the field.
>It's now the house token Windows box - we don't even try to use its floppy
>bay anymore. (I bought it a Imation pcmcia LS-120. Guess which OS does not
>support this widget :( last I looked. Device wedge and more than average
>difficulty getting to reboot due to interrupt blocking. Sigh. Visited
>David Hinds' forum, no-one had ever heard of the thing. waaaah.)
That's surprising. When I used the regular LS-120 drives a couple of years
ago Linux support was flawless. I wouldn't have expected it to be difficult
to modify the driver for PCMCIA...
>I know they'll repair it - my husband keeps saying I ought to send it in,
>definitely since I'm less dependent on it now - but I feel there's some sort
>of jinx on that floppy, so it's not going back in unless anything else on it
>breaks, or unless I get really bored and have nothing better to do. I'm
>working on the assumption that if it gets so hosed I need to install a fresh
>OS, I'm taking the drive out to do it anyway - so I don't need a floppy for
>-that-.
Send it in.
>> I will not surrender my hard drive to any technician. Also I lack an
>> official IBM receipt (purchased from Auction).
>
>Ahh. I purchased through CDW, so I was on file as a purchaser via a clueful
>Authorized Reseller.
>
>> I expect that IBM will provide appropriate warantee support, it should
>> just be an issue of how much time I have to spend argueing about it.
>
>I don't know if they'll consider it warranty anyway, but you can probably
>ask them to look up the device's serial number. And I feel confident that
>they'd be willing to repair it for money if it's not under warranty.
The date of manufacture is clearly printed on the bottom of the case (less
than a year ago - the warantee is apparently 3 years). Also this type of
machine wasn't in production for very long, just from the specs they will
know which 6 month period it was made in.
--
My current location - X marks the spot.
X
X
X
Reply to: