From: STeve Andre' (andres_at_msu.edu)
Date: Mon Nov 04 2002 - 15:59:05 EST
Thanks for the words of encouragement, everyone. It helps.
I have now taken the keyboard off the Toxic ThinkPad.
I will first say that I *really* like the quality of the build in here
Thats good, if I am marooned doing my own repairs from now
on... But really, it does look good, and the keyboard came
apart with about 5 minutes of work, most of that finding the
screwdriver set for my Letherman.
I found the "biological hazard". There is indeed something there,
looking brownish. It does not smell. It does not contain hair. It is
not large.
When you open the keyboard up, there are two largeish aluminium
panels on each side of the unit. These are the covers for the two
ultra bays on each end of the ThinkPad. On the right panel, on the
extreme left edge, there is a stain there, .5 cm wide, and about 6cm
long. There is a matching stain on the bottom of the keyboard where
it rests. On the bottom side of the panel (closest to the front edge of
the unit), there is another stain, again about .5 cm wide and about
4 cm long.
Thats it, as far as I can see. Since the panel is the top of the ultrabay
and nothing is in the ultrabay currently, I can see no discolorations
there. Sitting between the two panels is a protectve sheet of plastic
that helps protect the system board below, and it has no stains on it.
No part of the system board that I can see has anything on it.
The "biological hazard", whatever it is, definitely looks like it entered
from the top of the keyboard, with residue resting on the bottom of the
keyboard which touches upon the two abovementioned ultrabay
panels.
I hope I've done an OK job describing what I'm seeing.
I am *stunned*. I honestly was expecting something with blue fuzz
on it, like what happens when you forget about something in the
fridge for six months, and discover a potentially new life form
happily growing on forgotten meatloaf. You know, something
with tenticles.
This isn't it. I need to go find a digital camera now. And I need
to contact this Mike person again.
--STeve Andre'
On Monday 04 November 2002 03:57 pm, Jane Loyless wrote:
> At 03:04 PM 11/04/2002 -0500, STeve Andre' wrote:
> >Well, I just got a call from a Mike at IBM, about my "offensive
> >or biological hazard" in my ThinkPad.
> >
> >I lose.
> >
> >He said exactly what the other people at IBM said: that something
> >(cat urine? cat hair?) was in my machine, and they would not deal
> >with this until it had been cleaned by someone else. After that my
> >unit would be repaired on a billable basis: my warranty is gone,
> >due to "negligence" on my part.
> >
> >The part that I found so interesting about this call was that it wasn't
> >helpful at all. No hint of trying to help the customer here.
> >
> >Wow. I don't think I can recomend ThinkPads any more.
> >
> >I am sad.
>
> Wow, indeed.
>
> Might try escalating it on up through customer care. Couldn't hurt,
> anyway. There used to be an e-mail address on Lou Gerstner's page, but I
> don't know if his successor has one.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Thu Jan 23 2003 - 09:59:35 EST