[ltp] Re: IBM/Lenovo policy on Linux ThinkPad support, vs. competition

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Fri, 13 Oct 2006, Pavel Machek wrote:
>  Bug: Fan control loop pulses the fan in an annoying pattern
>     * Severity: low
> 
> Ugly, and apparently fixed on new machines, and not too important.

I disagree.  This is the single most reported annoyance/issue with T43
ThinkPads in the mailinglists and forums.  People have returned T43
notebooks to IBM because of the fan noise... it is *really* annoying.

My T43 use suffers from it, so I know what I am talking about.  The fan
speed goes WAY up, easily making as much noise as a normal conversation...
It makes the ThinkPad useless in silent areas, unless you override the fan
using interfaces IBM never published in the first place, but which have been
stable for at least 7 years.

Then IBM goes and *screws up* the firmware fix that would resolve it?  They
probably closed the bug in their internal issue tracking system while at
it... so all T43 will remain annoying the crap out of their owners forever.
At least it doesn't destroy the batteries like the old 600 models did, but
still...

If I could bug someone at IBM about one single firmware bug, the fan noise
one *would* be it.

> If these are their most severe problems... I'd say they are doing
> pretty good :-).

Not so good, due to the T43 fan.  It really, really gets in the way of their
objective that users "enjoy a ThinkPad experience".

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh