From gabru@comsec.net Thu May 17 13:10:43 2012
Subject:RE: Slightly OT: Lousy Lenovos...me thinks we was robbed!!! Re: VB3 and PC3

I am still using my X61t ThinkPad and it has been excellent as have all of the ThinkPads I have owned over the decades. That said I believe they have
lost the top notch service and construction that the IBM/ThinkPad was known for. I doubt I will continue with this brand as they have become a consumer
throwaway product like most of the other laptops and workstations out there today. I always paid a premium for the IBM and wan never disappointed but IBM
no longer has anything to do with it. Quality control is fading as dollars get tight and competition get harder. We see the result even in the multitude of issues
with these new clones. The state of the art is not what it used to be.

From: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of jukefox
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 12:52 PM
To: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CWSG] Slightly OT: Lousy Lenovos...me thinks we was robbed!!! Re: VB3 and PC3

--- In CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com, "raisindot" > wrote:

> My brand new $1,500 Lenovo laptop crapped out on me last year after just three months of use--while I was just sitting at my desk. Hard disk failure, no warning whatsoever.

Lenovo, despite the fact that the company founders and their designers are comprised of portions of the original IBM Thinkpad team, seems to cut lots of corners in the manufacturing process these days and source some pretty cheap Chinese parts...in fact, their entire line seems to be of Chinese manufacture.

I've been using a Lenovo ideapad (with an i7 processor, 8 gigs of ram and a 3/4 terabyte hard-drive running Win 7 Pro) for a couple of years now and have lived through multiple hard-drive crashes and blue screens, MOST, I believe, attributable to excess heat and inferior components.

Lenovo's customer service/tech support has been practically non-existent and, what little is there has been abominable. Their on-line "self-help" tools will not even identify my machine most of the time. I wound up having to navigate through all of my machine's issues on my own. Fortunately, I grew up with this technology and was able to recover the system without their help.

My Lenovo's original hard drive was a Seagate. While Seagate used to be a great drive manufacturer, the current crop is made in China and seems to have a much higher failure rate than did the original Seagate drives. My first drive crashed just out of warranty. I replaced it with an identical Seagate, which lasted about 5 months before it crashed too.

I'm on my 3rd drive now (this one's a Hitachi, made in Indonesia) and, unlike the others, I have had no blue screen issues or hangs/freezes due to drive i/o (and, by extension, OS) considerations, despite the fact that all three drives are identical by specification, other than manufacturer...same size...same speed...same buffer.

Additionally, I added a cooling pad which, when on, has completely eliminated spontaneous shut-downs, which will still occur when the additional fan is not engaged, due, again, to what I perceive as a design flaw causing inadequate heat-dissipation and, as a result, protective thermal shut-downs. (This will happen on my wife's Toshiba Satellite notebook from time-to-time as well, which is also an i7-based Win 7 box, although she has not had any drive-crash issues. She experiences no such problems when the Satellite is on a chill-pad. Perhaps the i7 is just too hot of a processor for reliable notebook use?)

The DVD RW in my ideapad (also of Chinese manufacture) has also been highly problematic, despite it being the top-of-the-line of Lenovo's options at the time. The issue with it seems to be a combination of the hardware and firmware, as well as Lenovo's native applications, which don't help matters at all. The manufacturer is a division of a division of a division of Sony and seems to be an obscure OEM factory (or a number of them operating under a very loose umbrella) in a large industrial city on the Chinese mainland. It has been impossible to obtain firmware updates for this device and Windows' own drivers recognize it only as a CD-ROM drive...although my audio and video software will usually write to it (even when Lenovo's own software will not). It still fails to read many DVDs, primarily data DVDs (as opposed to video DVDs), but has no problems writing both.

Additionally, wrist-pressure on the space below the left keyboard panel will from time-to-time activate "ctrl" options, resulting in sometimes unpredictable actions while typing or using the built-in Synaptics pad. I almost always have to use a remote wireless deskset when performing critical tasks, particularly when working with Adobe Creative Suite applications and when redrawing waveforms in various audio manipulation aps. This would seem to indicate even more inattention to detail on the part of Lenovo, in designing a machine that does not secure and isolate internal components adequately to avoid interaction with normal pressure on the case itself.

In fairness, this box has not crashed due to drive issues since I installed the Hitachi 750GB drive, but despite the fact that this machine is now functioning seemingly reliably as a multitrack DAW (I do not notice any latency whatsoever when running VSTis, nor when multi-tracking)/off-line video editing machine, I seriously doubt that I will ever purchase another Lenovo of any sort, particularly for running processor-intensive applications. Although it would probably be ok running a small-footprint VSTi such as VB3 without requiring additional cooling, I probably wouldn't risk it. (FINALLY...an ACTUAL CLONEWHEEL REFERENCE!)

Like Seagate, Lenovo was a pretty good brand at its inception. I fear that, also like Seagate, cost-cutting (through greed?) has resulted in making the primary adjective now associated with the brand "inferior."

--- In CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com, "raisindot" > also wrote:
> Even before it died (and even after it came back 'fixed') it still would occasionally lock up or crash or flash a blue screen of death without warning. No different than any other desktop or laptop I've ever owned. Just the nature of Windows.


I do not see the occasional lock-ups, crashes or blue-screen errors I've experienced on this machine as being any part whatsoever of the current "nature of Windows," particularly as experience shows otherwise. Windows 7 Pro has never been the cause of any of the problems I have experienced. The executive summary of my issues includes only two elements: 1) HEAT and 2) INFERIOR HARDWARE. When a hard-drive will not keep up with system demands (in my case, evidently due to system overheating caused by a CPU on steroids, which in turn causes parts to swell and overheat even more due to friction, in conjunction with a cheap drive with poor resistance to overheating), I/O errors can (AND WILL) stop it on a dime...no warnings...no apologies...and sometimes with irreparable damage to drives that can result in data loss (although I was able to recover MOST of my data).

CPU thermal problems are not the fault of Windows. Hard drive I/O issues are not the fault of Windows. Either can cause one to re-discover the inherent joy/wonder/horror and OMG moments characterized in a single "Blue Screen of Death" moment.

Realization, denial, acceptance, grieving. Recovery? Only when fortunate...and often only after investing many hours (sometimes days) in the process.

Hard drive crashes have happened to me under OS10 as well. Getting everything back up and running (and trying to recover "lost" data) on a Mac is no more fun than it is on a Windows system. Sure, you hear about it less frequently...there are still fewer macs in use in the world today (and an increasing number of PCs in audio/video/graphics production these days...formerly an almost Apple-exclusive environment), and devout Mac-oids seem far less likely to talk about it...presumably out of fear that admitting that crashes can happen to them too may somehow diminish the inherent sense of superiority many tend to hold as being "Mac users," rightly or wrongly. The boxes are typically more expensive (= better?) than PC's of similar capability.

That said, it is difficult to deny that Apple has better potential for quality control in the manufacturing process (all more or less "in-house") than the plethora of "licensed" PC box makers, although this advantage would seem to be deteriorating more and more through Apple's use of virtually the same processors, memory, etc. in their latest generations of boxes as those used by PC manufacturers.

Hey, as a user of both (with a preference for neither), I can't fault other users...we all have to believe in ourselves and our motives behind causes we support, no matter how irrational...it's hard-wired into our DNA. Creating great stuff on a Mac is no more gratifying to me than creating great stuff on a PC, and I find neither experience preferable to the other, given equitable boxes. They're merely tools that do the same thing...sort of like a 3/8" box-end wrench from Craftsman and a 3/8" box-end wrench from Snap-on.

Of course this is all merely my $0.02 based upon my own personal experience with the referenced brands. There is no intent to disparage anyone, irrespective of race, religion, sexual orientation, operating system/computer brand preference or on any other basis.

As always, your mileage may vary.

Best,
Fox

PS: Lots o' stuff covered here...please be considerate of others and trim aggressively if you choose to reply!

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