PSA: Lenovo ships machines with parts that can't be freely updated or replaced

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9768386

by jimktrains2 • 11 years ago

9 23 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I have an E545 and my wireless networking card is extremely flaky (30sec of connectivity, 2 minutes of connecting at the worst; 30min connected, hours of the prior at the best). I've tried updating drivers, reseating it, &c and nothing works. I got a replacement card from an old Dell Latitude, put it in and got: "1802 - Unauthorized network card"

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/ht001309

Their FCC excuse is utterly laughable because other manufactures don't require their computers to have white listed parts.

I wish I knew how low the Thinkpad brand has sunk under Lenovo before buying this machine. So, just a PSA to others out there. Lenovo is no friend of yours.

NeutronBoy• 11 years ago

Many manufactures, including Dell, have been doing this for a while.

sp4rki• 11 years ago

Well you're in for a world of pain my brother. Here's a list of other brands that do this: HP, Toshiba, Dell, et al. The excuse they give, albeit stupid and useless IMO, is a valid one. This used to be easy to maneuver around by just flashing your BIOS, but with UEFI and encrypted BIOS' this has become an uphill battle.

That being said, Lenovo still makes great machines (their keyboards destroy everything from the Dell XPS to Macbook Pro and everything in between) on which you can service their internals by yourself - just not the WiFi cards which require whitelist authentication.

It's not like you can't change the card though... just google what cards you CAN swap to and buy one on eBay.

jimktrains28• 11 years ago

I shouldn't have to buy special hardware when I have perfectly fine hardware at my house. Vendor lock in is dangerous and nonsensical.

How is their excuse valid? A certified stock machine ceases to be certified when unverified hardware is used. However all WiFi cards must pass FCC certification separately, that is not Lenovo's responsibility.

SamReidHughes4• 11 years ago

What is the danger and how is it irresponsible?

tadfisher• 11 years ago

IBM also did this. My X31 can attest to that.

joshuapants• 11 years ago

I wish I knew how low the Thinkpad brand has sunk under Lenovo before buying this machine.

The BIOS whitelist goes back at least to the T61, if not further.

brudgers4• 11 years ago

The whitelist exists because Thinkpads have various certifications for companies and organizations that require them...e.g. a military use where the entire system needs to be certified for obvious (in the sense that security may dictate that a machine cannot have arbitrary hardware installed) reasons. It's the tradeoff one makes for a laptop that is of sufficient quality that it can be certified.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad#Use_in_space

Over time, alternative bios's with different whitelists often become available for Thinkpads. Not sure if this will live through UEFI.

Good luck.

jimktrains28• 11 years ago

And the stock hardware is certified, why must it prevent me from working on my own machine.

brudgers4• 11 years ago

Because some certifications require limiting the range of possible changes. An obvious example would be a user swappable encryption chip. Allowing that would defeat the purpose if certifying the system for encryption in environments requiring certification for encryption. So the encryption gets baked in to the hardware. The hardware whitelist is just an extension of that feature set. Sure, not everyone needs that feature set. For most of them, though, the feature set is neutral at worst. People for whom the feature set creates a problem are a corner case. Those for whom it is a serious problem have purchased the wrong product or may need to tether an external device.

philipov• 11 years ago

Funny that you mention Lenovo, because they also come with built-in adware: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/researcher-discover...

Vendan• 11 years ago

Heh, I had a dell from years ago with the same thing, and I had a CD with the hack on it. Every once in a while, if I let the battery get too dead(Like the os shut itself off then I left it like that for 2 days), I'd have to dig that cd out and "fix" the bios. Really frustrating, but this has been going on since laptops first had those wifi card thingys.

PSA: Lenovo ships machines with parts that can't be freely updated or replaced

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