Lenovo Thinkcentre

I just got one of these to go into a classroom as it was on offer at Misco and looked a good deal. We are looking to replace around 70 curriculum machines and I was looking for small footprint jobs so we can cram more into the space.

So far, I've been quite impressed with the Thinkcentre, it seems sturdy and well constructed. I some how cocked it up whilst trying to image it so I reinstalled XP and the Lenovo site was a dream for finding and downloading the drivers.

So far, I've had a quote from Misco for the M55 Dual Core version at £275.00.

Has anyone any longterm experience and comments regarding the Thinkcentre?

Thanks.

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Originally Posted by laserblazer

I just got one of these to go into a classroom as it was on offer at Misco and looked a good deal. We are looking to replace around 70 curriculum machines and I was looking for small footprint jobs so we can cram more into the space.

So far, I've been quite impressed with the Thinkcentre, it seems sturdy and well constructed. I some how cocked it up whilst trying to image it so I reinstalled XP and the Lenovo site was a dream for finding and downloading the drivers.

So far, I've had a quote from Misco for the M55 Dual Core version at £275.00.

Has anyone any longterm experience and comments regarding the Thinkcentre?

Thanks.

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We have about 20, excellent machines. no probs.
We enquired to dabs about these. They said that if we ordered >50 they could get them direct from lenovo without windows licenses. Save you money if you already have windows.

The Lenovos seem ok to me, nice and sturdy machines, but they are as ugly as anything (depending on what model you go for). Also, i tried to find the NDIS2 DOS drivers to boot with ghost, i couldnt get any of them to work. Another minus for me.

They bought the buisiness from IBM, they are essentially IBM laptops and built like brick S**t houses. We have three that I have bought for various family members, all without fault. The oldest is an original IBM from around 2001 and is still going strong.

We have 60 ThinkCentre A60 (type 9374) also from misco @ £195 each.

They have been up and running a year past easter. 2 x harddisks have failed, both western digital drives, and both replaced with seagate drives.

First time I phoned Lenovo got asked the usual name etc said we are a school and had 60 of them, harddrive has failed, they asked are you sure, yes, can you restore it blah blah, tried all that from hd/cd/network it doesn’t work, hmm ok could you swap a drive from another just to make really sure, will it affect the guarantee of the other machine if I open them up?, no, ok I'll swap and phone you back. Called back - PC working with new HD, OK you happy to fit a new drive, yes, no problem we'll send one out the old drive must be given to the courier when they deliver the new one. Second time...harddrive is broken, ok we'll send one out.

No hassle but I suppose its much cheaper for them sending a £30 HD rather than an engineer.

And they talked english not indian/polish english....real english :)

We have about 50 Thinkcentre 8320s. They're absolutely bombproof/floodproof/kidproof. Had them for nearly 4 years and would buy them again.

We sell the M55 Dual Core for £274.00+vat but Free delivery and can really recomend the system for not only great build quality but also functionality and speed,

Let me know if this deal sounds any good as we have 85 in stock as of today,

I have around 150 Thinkcentres now, they so far have been excellent currently we have A53 and A55 specs in desktop and tower varient and I am about to buy 30 or so M55 hopefully in the next month or so.

So far they have been very robust and I think out of the 150 we have had one that had a hard drive problem that was fixed real quick by the support team. The warrenty service is excellent. You register the problem online so you can track what is happening and the guys on the support line I have spoken to have been really good and seem to know what they are talking about. The support is still carried out by IBM so you talk to IBM guys and everyone I have spoken to has been english. I have to say most my dealings with support have been issues with my lenovo laptops and dodgy batteries.

As you have said already its a dream getting drivers from the website. Looking back at what we used to have (local company build) I don't know why we put up with the shoddy build quality. The lenovos are just so reliable, I can't even remember when we had to last go and fix a hardware problem with a thinkcentre.

Thanks everyone. :)

A tale of caution...

We bought hundreds of these machines last year and were so impressed with the way they held up against the waves of impish abuse from our lovely children when invest in hundreds more this year.

However those machines in that batch that were used for admin use (support staff) are slowly dying off.
We have had 10 that are a year old all fail with the same fault in the last month, previous to that I dont think we have had one problem.

The fault is such that it would seem that the machine is on but it not sucking enough juice to power anything connected to the M/board except the processor fan. A change of power supply did nothing to solve it and after removing different things (memory/cd drives etc) it worked temporarily (almost loaded windows) but returned shortly after leading us to assume it is a M/Board issue.

Currently we have 5 away with Lenovo repair centre in Stirling (quite a distance from here in Dorset) and I have 5 sitting on the floor next to me ready to send away.

Unusually none of the year old batch that were used in classrooms have failed with this fault.

If anyone has experienced anything similar I would love to hear from you.

what model was it that is having the problem???

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Originally Posted by TronXP

what model was it that is having the problem???

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9389-CTO

M55e correct?

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Originally Posted by TronXP

M55e correct?

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Yes I believe so.

I stress they have been fine for a year and then a sudden epidemic hit. I would advise getting more than a 1 year warranty.

our M55's have 3yr onsite warranty. We've had some for over a year but haven't noticed any problems. we have about 35 in total.