4 ms·

Especially since Lenovo had full disassembly and replacement instructions for quite a few (all?) ThinkPads for years now. There maybe others but Lenovo is the o

by foepys 4y ago

Especially since Lenovo had full disassembly and replacement instructions for quite a few (all?) ThinkPads for years now. There maybe others but Lenovo is the one I know about. Just last week I upgraded the memory in mine, no repair kit required, just a simple screwdriver.

raisin_churn 4y ago
I've been fixing ThinkPads since the IBM days (my first laptop was a 770x), and I seem to recall reasonable documentation having been available then, too. Or it's possible that it was just so easy to do the most common things (eg separate labeled RAM covers set into the bigger bottom cover) that I never even bothered looking for repair docs and I'm conflating their availability with their lack of necessity.
bayindirh 4y ago
All products from HP, IBM/Lenovo, Apple and others have these instructions. The matter is not presence but availability to consumer. I've used a (presumably leaked) 2008 MacBook Pro 15" service guide to disassemble, mend the bent case (due to a bad fall), change the hard drive with a SSD, and put my machine together.
- AshamedCaptain 4y ago
  > All products from HP, IBM/Lenovo, Apple and others have these instructions. The matter is not presence but availability to consumer. I think this is unfair, because precisely what the OP is saying is that in e.g. Lenovo products these instructions have been readily available for customers, sometimes even in the very product manual itself. I have an HP tablet from around 5 years ago where the disassembly instructions came with the printed manual. Also, it requires about 3 tools only, all of which are so standard that except for a suction cap I think they are almost in every household. Compare to this teardown of a much thicker laptop... even for replacing just the battery, I wouldn't have the tools, much less the balls to do it. It's not a surprise that iFixit still gives them a rather low "5" score.
  - bayindirh 4y ago
    I don't think I'm being unfair to OP, because I'm not putting a counterargument on the table. I just say that these guides are always produced, but not generally made available to consumers, and that's bad. I wish every electronic equipment is shipped with a User's Guide and Service Manual out of the factory. However, both to protect service businesses and due to more integrated nature of newer devices, self-service is becoming more impractical every day. Hope right to repair changes that for the better. Also, there was an Ask HN about "Declination of Everything", and people objected vehemently. Why we are having this debate now, if nothing is declining?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
titzer 4y ago
There are some Lenovo models with RAM soldered into the logic board. I have one. It's a brick now because the memory started failing.

by foepys 4y ago

raisin_churn 4y ago

I've been fixing ThinkPads since the IBM days (my first laptop was a 770x), and I seem to recall reasonable documentation having been available then, too. Or it's possible that it was just so easy to do the most common things (eg separate labeled RAM covers set into the bigger bottom cover) that I never even bothered looking for repair docs and I'm conflating their availability with their lack of necessity.

bayindirh 4y ago

All products from HP, IBM/Lenovo, Apple and others have these instructions. The matter is not presence but availability to consumer. I've used a (presumably leaked) 2008 MacBook Pro 15" service guide to disassemble, mend the bent case (due to a bad fall), change the hard drive with a SSD, and put my machine together.

AshamedCaptain 4y ago
> All products from HP, IBM/Lenovo, Apple and others have these instructions. The matter is not presence but availability to consumer. I think this is unfair, because precisely what the OP is saying is that in e.g. Lenovo products these instructions have been readily available for customers, sometimes even in the very product manual itself. I have an HP tablet from around 5 years ago where the disassembly instructions came with the printed manual. Also, it requires about 3 tools only, all of which are so standard that except for a suction cap I think they are almost in every household. Compare to this teardown of a much thicker laptop... even for replacing just the battery, I wouldn't have the tools, much less the balls to do it. It's not a surprise that iFixit still gives them a rather low "5" score.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  I don't think I'm being unfair to OP, because I'm not putting a counterargument on the table. I just say that these guides are always produced, but not generally made available to consumers, and that's bad. I wish every electronic equipment is shipped with a User's Guide and Service Manual out of the factory. However, both to protect service businesses and due to more integrated nature of newer devices, self-service is becoming more impractical every day. Hope right to repair changes that for the better. Also, there was an Ask HN about "Declination of Everything", and people objected vehemently. Why we are having this debate now, if nothing is declining?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

titzer 4y ago

There are some Lenovo models with RAM soldered into the logic board. I have one. It's a brick now because the memory started failing.