Today I feel like a very lucky guy–even though I just spent over a week without the use of my (previously) trusty ThinkPad T40, it's up and running again and better than ever with a brand, spanking new 100GB hard drive. I was able to keep working on my wife's A31, for which I'm very grateful, but 1) that's one very heavy laptop, and 2) I'd forgotten how much Windows 2000 sucks.
But I learned quite a few important lessons over the past ten days, and I thought I'd set them down here in the hopes that I won't forget them and have to relearn them, no doubt painfully, at some point in the future. So here goes:
- Hold On With Both Hands: My old ThinkPad T23 was heavy enough that I'd always have to use both hands to pick it up (and that's doubly true for the A31.) In contrast, the T40 is light enough that it's pretty easy to pick up with one hand. Unfortunately, it's just heavy enough that when it's open and lifted that way, the frame flexes a little bit, which can cause serious problems over time. (The X-series are so small and light that they don't flex when lifted, and the newer T-series apparently have a much more rigid internal frame that prevents any flexion.) This quite possibly caused (or at least exacerbated) the failure of my T40's system board.
- Always Call IBM First (Or, A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing): I initially thought the problem was related to my over-stuffed hard drive. Performance had slowed to a crawl, and I actually got (and proceeded to ignore) several warnings about the lack of available disk space (I said I'd get around to it, didn't I?) The day before it finally failed, I'd ignored the most severe warning yet, so I assumed that the subsequent failure to boot was my well-deserved punishment. I knew that upgrading to a larger drive wasn't going to be covered by my warranty, so I didn't bother to call IBM–I just found a local computer repair shop and asked them to take care of it. Herrick and his colleagues at Ameritech cloned my drive and installed the new one, only to realize that the problem wasn't with the drive at all–it was with the system board. The bad news: I'd wasted a lot of time by going to Ameritech. The good news: A new system board was covered by my IBM warranty. The lesson: Don't outsmart yourself–call IBM first.
- The On-Site Warranty Is NOT Optional: When I'd originally purchased the T40 through IBM's refurbished program, I debated whether spending a few extra hundred dollars for the on-site service warranty was really worth it. In the end, I decided to do it, and it was clearly the right decision. It took me a few phone calls to IBM to determine that yes, it was the system board, and no, none of their fixes solved the problem, and yes, they had the part but it would be a day before they could get it to the Bay Area–but once I jumped through those hoops, things couldn't have gone more smoothly. I was surprised and pleased to find that the repairman who came to my house was the same guy who had replaced a faulty display in my T20 at work about four years ago! He's a very cool guy–he arrived on an Aprilia, I think a Caponord–and we had a good discussion while he worked. We both agreed that the on-site service warranty is a great investment because 1) you really can't rely on local shops–the guys at Ameritech were nice enough (although a little slow), but they didn't even put all the screws back in when re-assembling my T40, and 2) when it's fixed, you know it's fixed–no shipping it back to the depot because they didn't do it right the first time.
- Don't Always Believe the Manual (Or Support): Once the system board had been replaced, I still needed to upgrade my hard drive. I bought a 100GB drive from Ameritech–the same one they'd initially cloned for me, but they'd already wiped it clean after determining that the problem was with the system board–and an EZ Gig Hard Drive Upgrade kit by Apricorn. Following the directions apparently allowed me to clone my old drive onto the new one successfully, but the machine wouldn't boot. I called Apricorn support, and they identified the problem, but their recommended solution sounded a little squirrelly. So I tried using some common sense, and it worked out fine. The bottom line: Don't boot and run the EZ Gig software directly from the CD, even though the manual advises you to do that for faster, uninterrupted cloning. And specifically on T40s, don't disable the Pre-Desktop Area in BIOS Security, even though Apricorn will tell you that's what you have to do to clone a bootable disk. Just run EZ Gig from within Windows–works like a charm. More gory details are in a report I posted to the ThinkPad Open Forum. Fascinating reading.
So now I have a very roomy, very fast and very quiet new hard drive in my comfortable, familiar T40, and I'm very happy, as they say. And if I do say so myself, I was pretty damn Zen about the whole mess. Things could have gotten very ugly, and I could have really freaked out about it, but, somehow, I didn't. Perhaps I've accidentally acquired some wisdom along the way. And to minimize the chance of future freak-outs, I'm taking one final lesson to heart:
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That A31 has served me faithfully for three and a half years now (knock on wood!), and it may be heavy, but it gets things done. Thankfully, this academic law librarian doesn’t have to do much laptop-lugging for her job. Unlike the rest of the South Bay commuters, I don’t have to work on Caltrain. I get to read books like a civilized person.
Far be it from me to impugn the honor of that A31–it’s a fine machine. But a man gets used to his own laptop 😉
Your CalTrain comment reminds me of something I read recently in the WSJ: A Japanese executive said that Americans on airplanes immediately get out their laptops and start working, while his compatriots in the same situation start drinking. Having never flown to Asia, I have no idea what Japanese executives do on planes, by and large, but give an American businessperson 10 minutes of peace and a chance to sit down, and the laptop’s coming out.