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Notebook PC Manufacturer Who Will Sell Parts?
gp310ad asks: "Fujitsu refused to sell me a basic part for my P2120 notebook PC. The part is the small daughter board which bridges the external charger to the internal circuitry. It is approximately two square cm with two connectors mounted. There are no passive or active electronic components on the board. I was told that I would have to complete Fujitsu technical training before I would be allowed to purchase this or any other part that requires removing more than two screws. According to Fujitsu, the hard drive (three screws) is 'not a user replaceable part'. Which brings me to my question — I am in the market for a new notebook PC and would like to know which manufacturers are 'end user friendly' when it comes to out of warranty repair parts. The model and features will be determined by what is available within my budget. However, I do not want to be stuck with an out of warranty machine from a manufacturer who will not sell parts."
It's pretty hard to believe, but Dell may be just what you're looking for. I own an E1505, and they're actually sending me the Bluetooth module that goes inside the laptop, presumably in some socket on the motherboard, to add myself (and I purchased from Dell Home). At work, they just sent me three new motherboards and heat sinks, plus a bottle of thermal paste, to fix some OHCI issues I was having. They're brilliant, very trusting in the end-user installation department.
They sell their parts with or without the training. I picked up a few parts myself for a T40 Thinkpad which had a bad network board (wired and wifi), and a broken PCMCIA slot cover. They have full video's and instructions on how to disasemble thier Thinkpad series, from removing the keyboard, to replacing the steel cage that houses the removable media bay.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
IBM.
The Thinkpad division apparently takes serviceability VERY seriously. They sell every single sub-assembly down to individual types of screws. I personally have ordered several tiny parts to replace in my Thinkpads.
I'm not sure what the contact points are for IBM Parts now that it's Lenovo. Previously you could call a number and order nearly anything that had an FRU number.
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Years ago, we always had problems with Fujitsu/Siemens stuff. We had staff who bought their own notebooks, and then they were horrified at the replacement costs for parts, like an external floppy.
I've not had experience with HP for parts, but I know that I've had an easy time with Dell. I was able to order a replacement keyboard for my laptop, with minimal hassle (and that was in Switzerland, replacing a US keyboard with a Finnish one). Other places I've worked, we had it pretty easy getting replacement motherboards and so on.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
Believe it or not, alot of the parts in a mac laptop can be bought from dealers and people who fix them. Most want to install them but alot of repair sites will sell the parts to you direct.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
I second the opinion that IBM/Lenovo treats in warranty and out of warranty users very well. Sure they'll sell you every part for your expired laptop, but in warranty treatment is equally good for those first few years of new laptop goodness.
This (related question) came up in some other thread and I didn't have an answer:
Can you buy laptop graphics cards?
If so, where?
I'd think that being able to upgrade the video card would be a nice selling point, but AFAIK, nobody sells just the 'mobile' video card.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
HP is fairly effecient and willing to sell you just about any part from a laptop. Some of the prices might be high for some things, but they'll sell you just about anything, from an upgrade part (buying a DVD burner if your laptop came with only a CD burner) to buying something as simple as a replacement power-button bezel like I recently did.
Toshiba is pretty good about selling parts too. But there are limitations. Toshiba CPU fans and hard drives don't last very long (about a year for each, I switch to Seagate for hard drives). What really sucks about Toshiba is when you have to replace something like a hinge for the display. They have so many combinations that finding the replacement can be difficult if not impossible.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
I've been keeping a 7 year old HP alive for the past few years. For some stupid reason. Point is they never give me a problem when I order parts.
You can get components for these from the manufacturer. And they do not make any assumption about your competence level. Not too cheap, but I think the prices are still reasonable. I also think you can get the service manual online.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I was happy to see IBM / Lenovo getting the support they deserve in this thread. I'm typing this on my IBM T42 which is currently running on several user-replaced parts (by me). Breakage was due to droppage twice, (this is my travel laptop and takes a beating daily) but it did survive a 17" monitor falling on it from ~8" above. I'm an engineer but I support all the laptops in our (small) company and all I order nowadays for new employees is Lenovo laptops. (note: I don't have any more issues with Lenovo than the older IBM thinkpads)
IBM / Lenovo provides detailed disassembly guides which are easy to find on the web. They detail (with pictures/illustrations) how to strip any of their laptops down to bare plastic.
I also like how they label the screws on the bottom so you immediately know which to remove first. For instance, 3 screws have a little pic of a keyboard next to them. Remove these and the keyboard comes out. Also each screw hole in the bottom has a '1' '2' or '3' next to it. A sticker on the bottom has full-size images of each screw with a '1' '2' or '3', so you can immediately find what length screw belongs in each hole. If you have ever had a pile of screws you need to put back in your laptop this feature should be immediately attractive.
This is my 3rd Thinkpad and I have torn all 3 apart multiple times. I have also torn apart Toshiba, Dell, HP and find the Thinkpads to have been the cleanest looking inside and easiest to work on. Also, if you get a chance, pull the HD out of a Thinkpad and notice how thin, light, and well-designed the carrier sleeve is that holds the drive and protects (insulates) the exposed PC board which is attached to the bottom of the actual drive. Clean and precise! The whole inside of Thinkpads are clean like that.
No doubt I like working on Thinkpads the best, and have probably fixed (torn apart with the hope of figuring out what is wrong) > 50 laptops over the last 10 years.
Btw I don't work for IBM/Lenovo nor even in the computer/electronics industry.
Over the years I have bought an internal video cable, hinge parts, rubber feet, backlight inverter, and a DC-DC power converter board, for about 5 different out-of-warranty PowerBook models. I've been successful at buying parts from Apple dealers, even Best Buy. Watch out, though, some dealers add a huge mark-up to parts and others will try to sell you on overnight shipping for a part that isn't really that crucial. Some dealers have even printed out portions of the official repair manuals (although I found most of the data I needed online, hehe). Some dealers will only sell you the parts after you can verbally prove that you're not going to destroy your Macintosh in the process. YMMV. There are several online Apple Parts dealers, some specialize in used or cheaper-than-Apple replacement parts.
Not sure what your location is, but we have a place in Columbus (OH) called The Laptop Guy. I had the exact same problem (charger daughterboard issues) with my Dell Inspirion 8200, and they said they could order the part for me if I wanted. If you can find a small repair shop (even some larger places like Microcenter are sometimes really helpful - found me a Winbook mini-pci wireless card that worked in the Inspirion) they might be willing to order and sell you the part.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
I can confirm that Lenovo still sells older Thinkpad parts. I have placed 2 orders (for older Thinkpad parts) from Lenovo in the last month. Both times they estimated 2 weeks to ship, but actually shipped the parts within a few days.
if you can't find it between Ebay and Froogle, it doesn't exist (or at least it's not for sale ANYWHERE) I've gotten super specialized computer repair parts through one of the two for years and never been able to not find something. Make sure you try searching with any serial #'s found on it.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I have an old pentium3 gateway laptop. I have a processor to put in it, but I have no idea where I would find the thermal pad it needs, so it's just collecting dust right now. Does anyone know where you can find this sort of thing?
Asus sells replacement parts for many of their notebook models online at http://estore.asus.com/shop/category.asp?catid=363 . They also sell barebone laptops under the 'Built on Asus' name, where you supply your own CPU/RAM/HDD/DVD/WiFi.
I'm not sure about the US, but here in Australia a manufacturer refusing to sell parts of their machines to the general public would run a pretty good risk of breaching the Trade Practices Act.
They'd just sell the parts at a ridiculous price, of course.
I currently have a Thinkpad, but my previous laptop was a Sony Vaio. The electronics are still good, and are available through the numerous online part vendors.
http://servicesales.sel.sony.com/web/index.jsp
http://www.impactcomputers.com/
Many of the mechanical parts have broken over time. I had to replace the touchpad, keyboard. and screen hinges. You also shouldn't judge the quality of the laptop by the parts that broke on me. I was not delicate with this laptop, and this all happened after 6-7 years of use.
As long as there is a clip mechanism for the heatsink to be held in place (and the heatsink makes full contact to the processor), you can use thermal paste instead of the pad. The only reason most laptops (and desktops) even use thermal pads is because it is a lot more difficult to mass produce the PC with using thermal paste (i.e. there is a lot more "art" involved in using paste, applying the correct ammount, not too much or too little, spreading the paste evenly across the processor and/or heatsink). Because there is next to no skill needed to slap on a thermal heat pad (all they have to do is make sure it is alligned on the chip), it is much faster and thus cheaper to use the thermal pads on a production line.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Did you try to find a repair shop for the brand? How about buying a "for parts" notebook on eBay? I buy upgrades and parts by eBay pretty often, it's not hard, illegal or very risky, and most of my computers are pre-merger Compaq business computers.
I had to replace three items on my old Toshiba laptop over the time I had it: fan, battery, and harddrive.
The first was the fan, and I was very impressed with the way Toshiba handled it. They didn't fuss or anything, they just asked which part I needed, said how much it cost, and asked if I wanted it shipped or if I wanted to pick it up at a distribution center. That one took I believe 8 screws to replace (4 on the fan and 4 to get the cover off).
The battery was a no-brainer of course, hardly worth mentioning.
The third to go was the harddrive, after I'd had the laptop for nearly 3 years. Not only did they replace it (without having to ship them anything but the harddrive itself), they did so for FREE because they said it was still under WARRANTY. And I thought all I had was 1 year parts and labor.
All in all, a great job on Toshiba's part.
I had an Averatec notebook. While they mainly stay to the small footprint type laptops, I've found them to be exceptionally reasonable with pricing for additional parts. When I upgraded, I decided to sell my older Averatec notebook but it needed a new keyboard as I had worn some of the keys down pretty well. They sent me a replacement part keyboard (with instructions) for less than $15 including shipping.
I've also found Compaq and HP notebooks fairly easy to get parts for. Considering a lot of their laptop models you can order online are "built to suit", you can pretty much count on parts being available. However, documentation is a pain and on my R3000 custom spec laptop, I've been having a hard time finding documentation on how to access the SECOND memory slot on this laptop. Note, I tried disassembling it myself... only to find it's hidden in between two separate motherboard parts and a metal shield that was oddly difficult to figure out how to remove. I ended up giving up and just hoping that I'll never need to replace the 1/2 gig stick that occupies that slot. Keep in mind, I've completely disassembled and rebuilt many laptops in my time, but the Compaq I have now is certainly one of the more nuttier/more difficult to figure out ones.
...when I went to work at a brokerage a few years ago. We went through training together, and I knew from the beginning that her accent would be a problem. Bright person, of course, but the accent was strong. When we got out to the floor, almost no customer would talk to her, and apparently some would be abusive to her, because she quit in tears a few days into the real job.
It's not always funny.
Not only will they usually refuse to sell parts, but they don't provide driver updates to things like the onboard ATi video (and you can't get them straight from ATi because Acer modify the parts). As far as they're concerned if the old drivers passed QA at hardware release time they're perfect and any updates for any reason are unnecessary.
*gag*
Same with the other hardware on their machines, but most of that can be found on the chipset mfgr's sites with enough work.
Toshiba has always been great for getting parts of machines that are reasonably new, even quite a few for old machines.
I've never had a bit of trouble from them.
You can even download maintenance manual pdf's for free that show you where those 100 little screws go back in!
Hey Fujitsu, I will never buy a laptop from you based on this!
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
I posted the parent (AC) to this thread, so if you happened to see it, you already know I like Thinkpads.
I found your warranty story interesting since I experienced the same thing under Lenovo approx. 1 month ago. Being so satisfied w/ their help in the past, I called up the 1-800 number for Lenovo (which you can find in 1 minute on their website) and said I spilled some pear juice in my keyboard, and that I wanted to buy another one. The first thing i said was that it wasn't a warranty issue. The service rep said my machine was still under warranty, so they would ship me a new keyboard for free; of course it arrived next-day FedEX, they literally didn't let me pay for it.
Like you said, they did that for you 10 yrs ago and you're still satisifed... I have ordered tens of thinkpads for people and consider it a favor to them. I always pay for the 3-yr warranty (now that Lenovo calls it an option) and consider it a deal.
By the way, that 1/3 can of bartlett pear juice in my T42 keyboard... as it happens there is a tube which connects to the aluminum tray which forms the base of the keyboard and routes out the bottom of the case. It's not very large (probably 5mm internal diameter) but is designed to route liquid out the bottom of the machine. Immediately after the spill I turned the machine upside down for 5 minutes then tore the machine apart down to plastic. Only one small area of the MB actually got wet... nearly all of the juice was either routed out the bottom or was contained in the keyboard tray which is designed to hold liquid much like a refrigerator shelf.
rereading this sounds like I work for Lenovo... I don't (but do work half-time as an IT consultant in CA).
Which manufacturers do sell barebone notebooks at a resonable price?
Is assembling one's notebook a good approach for avoiding paying the Windows tax?
Consider looking at non-mainstream, customizable notebooks, known as whitebooks. These notebooks are often made by the same manufacturers as those of Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and other brand names. There are only a handful of ODMs (original design manufacturers), the companies that actually make the notebooks, in the world, the two largest being Quanta and Compal; ASUS lags behind them but is making its way up to the top three.
With whitebooks, you will never get a laptop cheaper than through, say, Dell, but you will get much higher quality components for the buck, greater customization options, excellent warranty options and of course, you can buy the parts! Whitebooks are normally purchased through notebook resellers. My favorite is PowerNotebooks.com, but there are plenty of others such as ProPortable.com.
Current models to check out would be the Compal HEL80 and HGL30 and ASUS S96J and W3J. Check out the reviews and the forums at NotebookReview.com (better known as NBR). That site was a tremendous resource for me and helped me decide on the Compal HEL80 for myself.
It's such a fine line between stupid and clever.
Avoid Panasonic. I absolutely adore the Toughbook sitting in my lap, but the pinouts for the internal connectors are apparently lost in Amelia Earhart's logbook or something. eBay is the best place to find parts, because Panasonic doesn't sell jack shit direct to anybody. It's depressing.
My dad broke the USB jack on his old Thinkpad, and I recently tore it down to the bare motherboard. The construction was nowhere near as elegant as the Toughbook (like 5 different types/lengths of screws, as opposed to 2), but the whole teardown process is documented in drooling-idiot detail in a PDF on IBM's site. Of course, when I got inside, I found that the USB jack does not in fact match any of the ones I can get from Digi-Key, so it was all pointless anyway. I got to marvel at some absurd IBM engineering though, like the rotary heatpipe fitting to send CPU heat up behind the screen. A cast metal chassis would be so much simpler...
From what experience I have, neither HP nor Fujitsu-Siemens are worth shit as far as their laptops or support for the same go. They do not ship individual parts, take ages to do simple maintenance, and the boxes don't hold up very well. I recently worked in technical support for a major university who sold/loaned students laptops. By far, the Fujitsu-Siemens models caused the most problems, HP in a close second, then Lenovo, then Dell. And Lenovo/IBM and Dell were by far the easiest to get support for.
Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
This is a very curious development actually, because back in the days of mainframes, ICL always saw themselves as the main competitor to IBM, and they were doing very well indeed for a couple of decades. Then their fortunes reversed and they got bought out by Fujitsu.
;-)
... Maybe it's a domino effect among the corporate giants of Japan.
Well now IBM have a very open philosophy, and that extends to their spare parts division. Aparently Fujitsu have the exact opposite as their business plan, "To Not Sell Product". I'm placing my money on IBM.
Sony's gone down the pan, the Fujitsu empire seems to be lining itself up for suicide next
This may be a dumb question from the question being asked, but looking over the companies being listed as "good" (IBM/Lenovo/Dell/HP) which are people finding to be bad (including of course Fujitsu)?
Except Australian 240V 50Hz AC 15V 5A Adapters....
In the school I work at, everyone has 3 year-old Satellite A10s, and the minimum wait time through Toshiba is 4 weeks.
Naturally, we bought two floating spares, then swap them out whenever a warranty is required.
"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan
Fujitsu most likely fobbed you off because they do not have the logistics in place to ship 30$ parts around to individuals, so they claimed you need to be a rocket scientist.
Do you also commonly contact manufacturers to actually buy your laptops? Most manufacturers are not direct seller (dell is an exception). Manufacturers sell to distributors (and in case of parts, to certified repair centers), and that's where you have to ask for your parts.
Ask a certified, independent Fujitsu repair center - they most likely are happy to sell you any part, plus you get someone with a clue to help you make sure you get the right part. At least that's how it works over where I live. If I call fujitsu direct, they are not interested in helping you. However, if you call any number of local shops who repair Fujitsu laptops, they can get you any part for a reasonable price.
This thread got me thinking about upgrading my Thinkpad and I ended up finding some LILO/GRUB advice for configuring the 2nd HD adapter that fits in the expansion bay to work under the 2.4 kernel.
n t.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-50366
:)
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/docume
Regardless of the utility of this specific information, I'd like to see more ~mainstream hardware companies standing behind Linux like this. In the meantime, I'll be ordering up a Thinkpad X60s tonight
I've replaced the IO board in my Fujitsu-Siemens Computers laptop. You can get parts from: http://www.servicesource.co.uk/
Is it feasible to build a laptop from scratch, or rather, from individual parts? (Starting with a pile of sand wouldn't be so good.) I've looked into buying individual desktop parts like hard drives and CPUs, but having bought a laptop a few years ago, I like its convenience and the concept of using up a small fraction of the power.
Revive the Constitution.
I work for an engineering company and a case like this recently came up.
The customer (who happened to be an engineer himself) wanted to buy a replacement gear wheel but we do not class it as a user servicable part, the reason being that if you install it incorrectly, stall the motor and burn your RV/Caravan to the ground (yes, it should be fused, but how do we know you havn't covered it in tinfoil after the last failure), your gonna phone us and say 'You told me to do it!'.
You just don't see this side of the argument because they are too busy suing McDonalds for making their coffee too hot.
No trees were harmed in the posting of this message. However, a great number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
Actually, though your mileage may vary I think the Fujitsu problem is really a problem of Fujitsu. Most notebook manufacturers will provide you parts with the caveat that if you're not out of warranty already you will be after you install your parts. In my life I've gotten replacement parts easily from Dell and Apple both. HP used to be great, but given all the reorgs lately I don't know what the hell's going on over there any more. IBM I found to be a pain to deal with, but selling you parts is not against their policy so they WILL do it grudgingly if you just tell them you're taking full responsibility for the laptop.
:)
Basically, I think your problem is actually a problem with a single manufacturer. Most manufacturers tend to be pretty good about it.
Having said that, despite having replaced small fiddly parts in Powerbooks in the past, when I got my Macbook Pro recently I bought the extended warranty with it so I wouldn't have to worry about it for another 3 years
That sums it up right there. I work as a service provider for Dell, btw. But I have worked on IBM as well.
I will say, without a doubt, IBM has (or had, don't know after the buy out) the BEST online manuals for replacing parts that any laptop. With Dell, I have to go to the DCSE page and log in to get any documents, its all open with IBM.
That being said, many MANY of Dell's parts can be interchanged between different brands of there laptop. Consequently, it makes the parts cheap to pick off ebay when the warranty expires.
It's why I get Dell, even if it is a bit pricy. The warranty is worth it and after it expires, parts can be had cheap of ebay.
...over the last 5 years or so, Dell has been really great about shipping me parts and not GOUGING me for them when things are out of warranty.
Unlike HP, who wanted $800 for a motherboard for a unit they were selling for ~$900.
Hint to HP: I threw away your computer and bought a Dell. I hate being gouged...almost as much as I hate computers that melt their motherboards because of poor design. You may think of me as a consumer, but I do have a pain threshold, and you do have competition.
A while ago, I was working in a small firm and we had a Dell laptop come back from the field missing an Enter keycap. I called Dell up to see if they could send me the key and they flat out refused. I asked them if I could purchase a replacement keyboard so I could just pop the key off of it and pop it on to the laptop. They said that that was acceptable but it would invalidate the warranty.
Trying to go up the chain to someone with common sense failed. My only recourse was to ship it to them, have them "repair" it by replacing the keyboard and then ship it back. Before sending it to them I removed all of the keycaps and left a note stating that the next time I needed a replacement keycap that I would have it stocked.
I've had better experiences with Dell customer supprt and I've had much worse but this is always one of my favorites.
I've bought replacement parts for IBM (Lenovo) and Sony laptops direct from the manufacturer before. I've heard good things about Dell also, but Alienware turned me down for a replacement keyboard. Marc
GOOD ANSWER. Mod parent up.
Realize that the people at Fujitsu are dedicated professionals -- dedicated to work-avoidance -- and because they work for the company they are at the top of the work-avoidance hierarchy.
The work avoidance plan that is typical in situations like this is that the main company licenses a limited number of other companies, and it is those companies that might stoop so low as to actually serve the customer. The trick is to find one of those other companies that will sell for a reasonable price rather than 30% of the cost of a new laptop.
If it really is impossible to buy after-market parts for Fujitsu products, then certainly don't buy from Fujitsu.
--
Humor and Tragedy in Bush Corruption
Also, I don't agree with the people who are saying to get involved with Dell Hell because it is possible to get parts.
My experience with Dell is that there is a social breakdown happening there. It's not nearly as bad as the one the U.S. government caused in Iraq, but it is bad enough that you might want to save yourself from grief.
There are sometimes weird phenomena where two negatives cancel, leaving a positive. Sometimes companies become so crazy that employees decide to treat the customer right just to get a break from the craziness.
On the other hand... if you want to buy yourself a higher place in heaven because you have had so much pain on earth, you could buy a Dell laptop pre-loaded with AOL software from TigerDirect. Not sure that's possible, but if it is, you could walk through the Pearly Gates without even talking to St. Peter.
Good info. Mod parent up. Works exactly as he says, in my experience. If there is no clip, you may be able to improvise something that keeps the heat sink firmly pressed to the processor.
--
George W. Bush comedy and tragedy
Believe it or not, alot of the parts in a mac laptop can be bought from dealers and people who fix them. Most want to install them but alot of repair sites will sell the parts to you direct.
I can't let this slip. You're completely WRONG. You're talking about places like PBfixit, and sure, you can get parts there if you feel like paying +400% markups for USED parts (because they buy old Powerbooks and such, and rip them apart. NONE of their parts are new, because NOBODY CAN GET APPLE PARTS. This is pretty important for things like screen clutches.) They're not a viable option, sorry.
First off, there are VERY few Apple "dealers" left, because Apple sends stock to Apple Stores, refuses to let dealers sell below Apple prices, etc. Remember back when Apple dealers were suing Apple? Yeah, they're mostly all dead now.
Second, Apple will not sell you any parts. There is ONE exception: in-warranty iMacs have a couple of components which are "user-serviceable." If it's out of warranty, you're shit out of luck- the machine has to go in for service and Apple charges a non-refundable, not-applied-towards-repairs $250 "diagnostic" fee.
A friend is an Apple employee (ie, works in Cupertino) and when I've asked if he can get parts- the answer is "nope. I can take my machine to the repair desk and they'll fix it, but I can't get parts."
This is a complete reversal of policy- I remember in college ANY certified technican would get a CDROM parts catalog on a regular basis in the mail, and could order almost ANY part for any machine.
Please help metamoderate.
Thanks for mentioning the T42 replacement battery issue with Lenovo. Given that I order all the laptops in our company, which happen to be IBM/Lenovo T-series machines, I took great interest in this. After reading your text I confirmed the Lenovo website indicates the batteries are 'not available'. In response, I just got off the phone with Lenovo technical support because I wanted to know the story.
As it turns out, he said the batteries are available and will continue to be available. He said the current backlog is several months for shipment due to all of the recent recall problems, and that I was better off ordering the batteries somewhere else.
In effort to try to ensure he was correct, I said I would like to order one anyway, even if it is a >2 month wait. He took my order and emailed a confirmation already.
Given these findings, it seems the batteries will continue to be available. Thanks a lot for calling this to our attention.
Not completely related, since its not a laptop but a company I do consulting work for have a 3com 16 port switch, that when first purchased sat on a desk in the "server room" (read beside a photocopier in a closet). Well we finally upgraded to a rack mount for their servers and i went to mount it on the rack only to find.................no brackets. Having owned this for about 4 or 5 years, I figured that best case I might find some generic parts, worst case, I get out the dremel and start hacking at a metal plate to make my own. Turns out 3com still had the part number listed for the bracket mount on their support page, and so I called them. The rep I got was super nice (at 5 to 5pm on a Friday afternoon no less), i gave her the part number for the switch, she confirmed the bracket sku, and asked for a mailing address. I gave it to her and asked how much for shipping and the part. Nothing. Not for the part or the shipping, and it was next day UPS to Canada. Doing a quick google for the policy on 3com's website, I got this:
i ption/index.html
http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/warranty/descr
(the 16430 would fall under the 2 year unmanaged switch category).
So not only was everything free, and fast, but the warranty is more like a suggestion guide to the reps. FYI I even flat out stated, "I lost my rack mounts when we moved the office to another building a year and a half ago, can I even order just the mounts?"
all in all, 2 thumbs up for 3com.
Besides the parts you often need repair instructions. Here are free repair tutorials and upgrade guides for laptops and notebooks from almost any manufacturer.
I guess it's an anti-karmic payback. I just had a session with IBM/Lenovo tech support that was the exact opposite of anything in my previous experience.
One of my machines is an R-40 - a 2723JBU, used primarily by my wife. Its three year warranty expired earlier this year. The battery started failing to hold a charge, so, I replaced the three year old battery. When that didn't fix it, I replaced the charger. When I still had a problem, tonight, I called Lenovo.
Ooops.
After punching in my machine type, I spent more than 20 minutes on hold, then was connected to IBM Canada...who listened to my story, then said, "Hey...let's switch you to someone in the States who can help you. A few minutes later I spoke to a quick succession of people who passed me from number to number, each with a lengthy list of menu options, and a long recording about the SONY battery problem.
Finally I reached hardware support, now in Atlanta (instead of North Carolina?). After reaching back for a 15 year old phone number (the one with which I'd started my IBM account) they found my customer information.
I was told that yes, it sounded like a system board problem. No, I couldn't extend the warranty after it expired. The charge to repair: somewhere near $575. I asked, well, when you have it, can you upgrade the hard drive, which is only 20 gig? No, I was told, that's your problem. Just pull the chip and put in a new one.
I explained, reasonably patiently, that I wanted a hard drive, not RAM.
No, said my rep, we don't do that either. You can buy a backup drive and a new hard drive, and do it yourself.
I think I started this piece of the thread by saying I hoped Lenovo would keep up IBM's superb level of tech support for Thinkpads. Well...I guess I'm not getting my wish.