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IBM ThinkPad 560

The IBM ThinkPad 560 series was among the first thin laptop computers

I have owned two IBM ThinkPad laptop computers, a 560E and a 560X.  Both required repairs. 

The 560E came with Windows 95 and after a few months of usage started acting up. The problem details are long and boring, but many calls were made to IBM tech support eventually just trying to decide if the problems were with the hardware or software. Since, IBM makes the hardware, they of course, tended to blame the software. In fairness to IBM, Windows 95 invites blame. However, the problems continued even after installing Windows 98 on the machine in another partition. Eventually some symptoms convinced IBM that hardware might be involved and they agreed to look the machine over (it was still under Warranty). IBM replaced the motherboard and the problems went away. 

The 560X ThinkPad had much more specific problems. I couldn't keep time. Every now and then the time of day would be off by a few hours. No big deal. It would also totally lose track of the time. At least half a dozen times the BIOS complained at boot time that it had no idea what the current date and time was. I was presented with a BIOS screen for telling it the current year, month, date and time. Again, no big deal, but the machine was just over a year old when it started exhibiting these timekeeping problems. In contrast, I still have a Dell Latitude laptop computer that was purchased in the summer of 1995, over 5 years ago, and it never lost track of the current date or time.  

In the middle of August, 2000 the 560X ThinkPad again lost track of the date and time. However this time, the BIOS screen where you fill in this information did not work.  I had no choice but to reboot again -- a disaster. It did not boot and did not complain about the time. It just spit out a couple error message numbers (not even messages in English, just numbers) and then the screen went black. Being an old hand with flaky ThinkPads, I knew that pressing the F1 key and holding it down while the machine is powered on, brings you to a special BIOS debugging mode. In this mode, you can run BIOS tests of the various components of the computer with no involvement from any pesky Microsoft operating system. The system at this point was so badly off that it could not even invoke the BIOS debugging mode. If it ever gets that bad, the manual says to send it in for repair. 

I had purchased a service contract on the machine and the servicing company replaced the CMOS battery. At the time it needed the battery replaced, the machine was less than two years old.