# My Lenovo Laptop died this morning



## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

it ran slow yesterday so I was getting rid of any recent downloaded crap, about to do a CCCleaner analysis, up popped the battery low message and it just went off, no amount of button pressing would bring it back on, I even left it on charge a for a couple of hours, no joy, 19.65v coming out of the charger, so not that, n blue screen so not likely to be a software problem.

I went to PC world for a new one, I could only get a win7 one if I got a business machine, £100 extra FFS, Wee off I thought and went to Direct Laptops, pratt who served me said I have the every thing to replace yours, gave me a right pie of BS, totally ignored what I requested and sold me an i5 not i7, 4gb ram not 8gb, 500gb HDD not 1TB, and it was a bloody Win 10 machine, I paid for it went to the front to collect and they gave me this thing, that's not mine says I, well it's what you just paid for Sir, err refund please it is in no way what I asked for.

I then went to CCL, found a Lenovo as near as could on there instore computer system, got it home, & another pile of manure, keyboard feels like it not fastened in, slow as hell, sound is awful and the screen won't fold back enough for how I use it, it too is going back tomorrow, well pissed off with modern laptop, I looked at Win 10, tried messing with it, I could even get file manager up, POS in my opinion.

Barry is doing me a quote, but it may be a bit out of my reach so looking at used versions of the Z570 I already have as up til today it's been faultless.

I liked Lenovo as they have been very robust, this one is very plasticy and doesn't feel like it would take any abuse at all.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

Did I mention, it's damned slow too, Lizs i3 pees all over it.

The only good points is I like the power plug, one of the new rectangular ones, which seems more secure, and it has an anti glare screen.


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## TheNomad (Aug 12, 2013)

Ebay. 

Millions of used laptops on fleabay, at really cheapo prices.


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## talogon (Aug 12, 2009)

Kev I wish my Lenovo would die, but only because it's my work lappy. I have to say it is good and I do feel your pain.
Brian


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

TheNomad said:


> Ebay.
> 
> Millions of used laptops on fleabay, at really cheapo prices.


Try finding a Lenovo Z570, i7, 8gb ram though.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

talogon said:


> Kev I wish my Lenovo would die, but only because it's my work lappy. I have to say it is good and I do feel your pain.
> Brian


I wonder if the IBM connection has been lost.


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## listerdiesel (Aug 3, 2012)

I've always got on well with Acer lappies, got three now, all good for what I need.

Peter


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## cabby (May 14, 2005)

You have a PM.

cabby


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Just replied to your PM Kev but for the benefit of others. You are restricting your options with wanting a 17" screen to be honest and I struggled to find anything with Win 7 pro on i7". Battery power will be next to hopeless as well on most 17" machines.

I can still get plenty of machines with 7 Pro on either PC desktops or 15" laptops but 17" ones are a bit of an issue. 

To be honest with a laptop you really need to sit for 20 minutes and play with it. Make sure you like the sound, display, keyboard layout and weight etc. They are a bit of a personal thing and you have to live with it for at least three years (although mine never last that long as I wear them out PDQ  ).

Ebay, Amazon or some of the referb sites might be worth a punt but unless you have sat in front of it and tried it out when you get it home you may well (as you seem to have done here) bought something thats not right for you.

There is little to choose amongst the various brands now. I tend to use Acer because they have good battery life generally but I would always go for a minimum 6 cell battery. Most of the bottom end stuff is 3 cell. Its a biggie for me in the van and also if I am out all day working I dont want to fanny on plugging it in everywhere.

Buying a PC is easy as its just a box.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

listerdiesel said:


> I've always got on well with Acer lappies, got three now, all good for what I need.
> 
> Peter


I've had a few Acers, but this is my third Lenovo in a row, first one was stolen, insurance provided the last one, both really solid feeling fast & reliable machines overall.

*This one* should never have left the design stage, it looks okay, but it is cringe worthy to use.

Not sure what I'll have to get next.


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Kev_n_Liz said:


> I've had a few Acers, but this is my third Lenovo in a row, first one was stolen, insurance provided the last one, both really solid feeling fast & reliable machines overall.
> 
> *This one* should never have left the design stage, it looks okay, but it is cringe worthy to use.
> 
> Not sure what I'll have to get next.


The name "Essential" should give it away Kev. Remember Fine Fare Yellow Pack Baked Beans? One of my customers bought one, felt like one of those toys out of a cracker. You get what you pay for really and an i5 laptop at that price is going to be crap.

What I will add though is that you find these days that a lot of new W7 machines are sluggish and a bit unpredictable out of the blocks until they get everything updated and for reasons I have not been able to work out you cannot force all the essential updates to run immediately. They seem to take a couple of days to sort themselves out and Ive seen them take 12 hours overnight to fully update.

I dont know if MS are doing this deliberately.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

barryd said:


> The name "Essential" should give it away Kev. Remember Fine Fare Yellow Pack Baked Beans? One of my customers bought one, felt like one of those toys out of a cracker. You get what you pay for really and an i5 laptop at that price is going to be crap.
> 
> What I will add though is that you find these days that a lot of new W7 machines are sluggish and a bit unpredictable out of the blocks until they get everything updated and for reasons I have not been able to work out you cannot force all the essential updates to run immediately. They seem to take a couple of days to sort themselves out and Ive seen them take 12 hours overnight to fully update.
> 
> I dont know if MS are doing this deliberately.


I see your point re speed, but the actual machine quality is pants, the keyboard moves about 2mm each time you press a key, and sounds like a snare drum, at the sides light shines through like it's not been assembled properly.

I'm using it for now, I have 13 days to return it, not downloaded anything but Chrome, just noticed it has Dolby, I suspect they just bought the rights to use a sticker though, I put a music CD in last night, and quickly removed it


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Kev_n_Liz said:


> I see your point re speed*, but the actual machine quality is pants,* the keyboard moves about 2mm each time you press a key, and sounds like a snare drum, at the sides light shines through like it's not been assembled properly.
> 
> I'm using it for now, I have 13 days to return it, not downloaded anything but Chrome, just noticed it has Dolby, I suspect they just bought the rights to use a sticker though, I put a music CD in last night, and quickly removed it


Thats why I used the analogy I did about Fine Fare yellow pack and being out of a cracker. The build quality is appalling. The chap I know who bought one is a farmer and he is just learning really. It never leaves his desk in his living room. If I had one of those slinging it in the car every day and battering it around in offices and what have you it wouldnt last a week.

To be honest I only use an i3 as my daily laptop. Its an Acer Aspire E5 571 15.4". It does however have 12gb of Ram and a 1TB hard drive which is over half full. I store loads of movies and series on it for use in the van so a 500gb drive would be no good to me and you cannot have enough RAM. For a laptop for my use I would rather have more ram than a faster processor.

Its built pretty well but there are design faults. The touch pad occasionally dies and has to be restarted and its iffy about certain USB devices. Its been back to Acer but its no better. I just live with it. Sound is good as is the display for watching stuff. Battery life is excellent.

As said, you need to play with one really before buying it.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

I did play with one, same model, that's why I bought this one, but lord knows what they'd done to make it play well in the store.

I didn't mention that my old one is in for repair as it might be a small problem, unlikely of course, but worth £30 for them to open it up and see, it's in good overall nick, so if it remains dead, I'll Ebay it as the screen, case keyboard etc is all good, so good for spares, I sold a really rough Fujitsu Seimens last year for £50, I ws going to bin it but used a free listing day, you just never know what people are searching for.


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Knackered laptops do indeed sell on Ebay. I often flog ones that have died or have been given to me. As long as your honest and up front that its fubared some tinkerer will pay good money for it.

The laptop I had before last was a three year old laptop which I dropped on a stone floor in an office and cracked the screen and knackered the hard drive. I had a go at fixing it myself but repairing laptops is a black art and not meant for the impatient and cack handed so I ended up putting all the bits in a box and flogging them on ebay. Still fetched £70.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

barryd said:


> Knackered laptops do indeed sell on Ebay. I often flog ones that have died or have been given to me. As long as your honest and up front that its fubared some tinkerer will pay good money for it.
> 
> The laptop I had before last was a three year old laptop which I dropped on a stone floor in an office and cracked the screen and knackered the hard drive. I had a go at fixing it myself but repairing laptops is a black art and not meant for the impatient and cack handed so I ended up putting all the bits in a box and flogging them on ebay. Still fetched £70.


I have two here to go on when I get round to it, an Acer Aspire, with AMD Sempron in it, drive went kaput, never got round to fixing it, scruffy but would still work, okay for mechanics with old diagnostic apps etc, or simple letter writing, had XP on it, Also have HP something or other my neighbour gave me when I couldn't make it run right, it boots up but runs very slowly, had Vista on it, now has Win7, but I'd wipe it and sell it as running but with no OS, I have a few bit's of USB stuff, remote keypads etc, I must get rid of it while it's all in decent nick, I might freecycle the Acer.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

I'd be open to suggestions for which would be the best laptop for what is now mainly internet usage, fast opening and scrolling of pages, is there an optimum internet chip?

I'm in favour of loads of RAM, !tb drive, not SSD because of cost, 15" screen minimum, No sure what to do about Graphics, on board or fancy add on types.

On this one I scroll down the screen and it's jerky, can take a little while to actually move, where I'm used to instant, pages take an age to open and this is an i7 with 8gb RAM.


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## randonneur (Jan 25, 2007)

We are on our 2nd Toshiba, both have been great. Prior to that we had a Compaq but it was returned to be repaired so many times we vowed never to have another one.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

Tis a very sad day, the old Lenny was goosed good and proper, it's mummy board had got to the great laptop heaven.

Gorra new un though, sadly it is "gifted"? with Windows 10, so I am going to have to give it a proper chance.

New one is another Lenovo, ideapad 500, i7 12gb RAM expandable to 16gb, 1tb hard drive, 15.6 screen and is livery white in colour.

So far I'm coping with Win 10, PITA at first, but as long as I can do what I need to do, I'll leave it as is

Only been on it about 30 mins, and it seems to be faster than the old one.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/compu...eapad-500-15-6-laptop-white-10137915-pdt.html


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

I'm a bit confused, I know I've only had Win 10 for an hour, but apart from the bloody awful blue box icons, which can be removed or resized with a right click, I'm not having any problems with it, still bloody annoyed it has been foreced on me, but the dreaded Cortana or whatever it's called has not made an appearance yet, Edge has been dispatched in favour of Chrome.

So what is all the fuss about, or is it lutking waiting to pounce on me.

I would like to find if there is a way to make it look more like Win 7 of course, perhaps there is a setting so to do, or a third party GUI which actually works.


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Windows 10 is ok Kev. Its just the way its been forced onto users that I think a lot of people have been annoyed with. Well that and the fact there have been a fair few horror stories about stuff not working but thats upgrades of any OS for you really.

I upgraded a really old Core 2 Duo with just 2gb of Ram the other day which was originally XP Pro to Windows 10 just to see if it would work. Its just the machine I keep in the corner for recording my own music and amazingly it runs perfect. I am quite impressed really with the performance. Useful for support as well as it means we have XP, W7, Win 8.1 and now W 10 in the office. Good deal on that laptop by the way.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

barryd said:


> Windows 10 is ok Kev. Its just the way its been forced onto users that I think a lot of people have been annoyed with. Well that and the fact there have been a fair few horror stories about stuff not working but thats upgrades of any OS for you really.
> 
> I upgraded a really old Core 2 Duo with just 2gb of Ram the other day which was originally XP Pro to Windows 10 just to see if it would work. Its just the machine I keep in the corner for recording my own music and amazingly it runs perfect. I am quite impressed really with the performance. Useful for support as well as it means we have XP, W7, Win 8.1 and now W 10 in the office. Good deal on that laptop by the way.


I was going to downgrade it to Win 7, but if it behaves I'll leave it as is.

Old one is going on Ebay as soon as I find the orignal box etc, it's a good spec so if someone has a duff screen etc, it should fetch good money, which will offsett the cost of this one, which by the way was only £50 more than an otherwise identical i5, it has a very solid feel to it unlike the pile of crap I returned this morning.

Btw, dunno if you deal with this outfit but they supplied the one I took back, http://www.techdata.co.uk/


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