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
