
Lenovo Yoga computers have parts that explode - adammunich
https://adammunich.com/lenovo-yoga-computers-have-parts-that-literally-explode/
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Mo3
I have a Yoga 530 (ARR/Ryzen). It's absolutely great for the price. Obviously
it's not the same model as the author has, but to be frank that title is pure,
utter sensationalist trash.

~~~
bmer
Do you have problems with your wifi?

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XMPPwocky
AFAIK the wifi problem (in the case of the device I looked at, that manifested
as constant wifi drops unless the laptop was plugged in (frequent enough to
make it essentially unusable)) is just sort of a ...thing that one particular
model of defective Wi-Fi card will do. IIRC it's a Realtek card.

It seems like a software or driver problem, but no software fix seemed to
work. Only replacement with
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079QH5KW1/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079QH5KW1/)
solved the issue.

~~~
cjbprime
Huh, that's interesting. I once worked for a laptop manufacturer, and the
inverse problem (wifi only working when on battery) happened there -- it was
an issue of high frequency electronic shielding off the power supplies.
Something about how the modern auto-layout PCB software the ODM wanted to use
had no way to take shielding issues into account and would want to lay traces
in routes that an electrical engineer would never even consider.

I can't think how the inverse problem would happen, though. Maybe it's
software indeed.

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aloknnikhil
The site is suffering from Hacker News' hug-of-death. But it looks like it was
a genuine rant about a piss poor customer experience. I have had issues with
the Yoga too before where the display hinge malfunctioned but I had a much
better experience with Lenovo support. They replaced it for free even though
it was outside the warranty window (albeit by only a month). To each his/her
own. Recommending people to never buy a Yoga is probably a tad bit too
extreme.

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avian
Reminds me of the self-destructing speakers on the old Samsung Chromebook. Set
wrong mixer settings and they silently burn up. In my case they melted through
the case before I realized what was wrong.

[https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2012/12/10/how-to-fry-
spea...](https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2012/12/10/how-to-fry-speakers-in-
your-chromebook/)

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fyfy18
There are a lot of people who praise ThinkPads online, and that seems to
gesture into good will in general for Lenovo. Unfortunately a lot of their
cheaper computers are just trash. Even in the ThinkPad line they have now
introduced the A, L and E series that are more "affordable", but in reality
they cut a lot of corners that make the X, T and P series good.

~~~
gaspoweredcat
to be honest the budget thinkpads have always been crap (as have most of
lenovos non thinkpad laptops) its only the T/X/P/W models that were worth
looking at, its entirely possible the newer AMD ones are better than in the
past but i think AMD sill have a gen or two to go before theyre competitive in
the laptop market

still theres nothing out there id consider replacing my X1C with, its a
fantastic machine as was the first gen one it replaced, im not loyal to many
companies for things, if i think i can get better elsewhere i will but ive yet
to find a laptop that fits me better

good thinkpads are expensive (at least new, theyre very affordable
refurbished) but to me theyre worth it as they simply last longer, my laptop
lives a very hard life and im something of a cruel owner, lesser systems have
caved in from such a life in the space of 12 months. my X1C took 5 solid years
of abuse being hauled all over the world in an overstuffed backpack (including
glasses of orange juice, beer, JD and coke, Umeshu and coffee spilled in it)
the only issue it ever had was that a couple of letters on the keyboard
stopped working following the umeshu spillage, i could probably have cleaned
it up with isopropyl but i picked up a replacement for 15 quid instead

so yeah basically avoid the E/L/A series and maybe even the Tx95 (AMD) range
and youre likely to get a very good system (with unquestionably the best
keyboard on any modern laptop)

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pushpop
> _to be honest the budget thinkpads have always been crap (as have most of
> lenovos non thinkpad laptops)_

Depends how far back your memory goes. I don’t recall such issues when IBM
owned the brand.

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techie128
Lenovo seems to have gone down in quality. Their supply chain also doesn’t
seem to be doing too well. Orders for a lot of their models are delayed by 6
weeks at least. Those who got deliveries are complaining about poor build
quality, DOA and other issues. A glimpse through their forums will give you a
good idea of how broken things currently are.

~~~
gaspoweredcat
i think it depends on where you are, last year when buying mine id heard of
terrible delays that would no doubt be made worse by my ordering on black
friday, but 7 short days later it arrived with no QC issues at all, i can only
put this down to the fact that im in the UK and maybe the units sent here come
out of a different production plant

i had 2 systems from them last year and both were free of QC issues and
arrived within 10 days of ordering. we do pay for this privilege though as
thinkpads are drastically more expensive here than in the US (my X1C6 was
almost double the US price for the same model)

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novaRom
15-inch Apple MacBook Pro laptop, sold between mid-2015 to February-2017 have
similar issues:

[https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/aviation/457337-fa...](https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/aviation/457337-faa-
bans-some-apple-laptops-from-flights-over-fire-risk)

~~~
jakobegger
How is that similar? In the Lenovo case, it's a transistor that's failing, and
it doesn't sound like there's any immediate danger from it, whereas the Apple
laptop batteries are literally catching fire.

Yes, both are design defects, but that's the only thing these issues have in
common.

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mcurtis
As the owner of a Yoga 720-15, I can tell you that this laptop has had and is
still having so many hardware problems... In general, Lenovo isn't exactly
known for their QA process.

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input_sh
I have Yoga 920 that's close to the end of its two year warranty period. May
as well extend it just in case.

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csunbird
TL;DR : The audio speakers blows up just after warranty expires. Click-bait
title, not a safety hazard.

~~~
jakobegger
The speakers don't blow up.

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gaspoweredcat
nasty, i suffered a similar issue but on a much bigger scale on a bitcoin
mining asic, the explosion did some pretty brutal damage to the board

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adammunich
I fixed the website, why is the post flagged?

