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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.
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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.
I'd think that was because the majority of them are integrated. Personally, I've never seen a laptop with a removable/replaceable video card.
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.
For the models which don't have the video chips integrated into the motherboard, Dell sells the video cards for their laptops. There's no universal standard for how to "do" laptop internal components (unfortunately), but I have personally replaced the video card with an updated one from Dell twice now. =) (then I got a notebook that you couldn't do that with, but that had good enough video that I didn't care. XPS M1210... tasty =))
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Remove the Greed which plagues mankind.
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.
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.
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.
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.