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Not wanting to make you feel discourage but here's the long story on my experience with the 760ELDs: I got this machine since it was the only thing available with reasonable price and delivery time from CompUSA. The first unit showed up without the correct power cord or the Lotus suite CD-ROM. It also had a few bad pixels on the LCD display and does not want to talk to my Practical Peripherals Proclass v.34 PCMCIA fax modem if I put it in suspend/resume mode. I'd have to reboot the machine to get it to recognize the card and this is the same for a 3COM 3C589 PCMCIA Ethernet adapter. Both of these cards worked fine with other Toshiba notebooks and I've tried to upgrade the firmware on the cards as well as on the IBM machine and the same problem still occur afterward. IBM tech support didn't really have a good answer except to say that it could be incompatible with the notebook???? So I managed to get it exchanged for another unit which did come with all the right accessories and also has a slightly newer manufacturing date. I also replaced the Practical Peripherals modem with a Hayes Optima v.34 PCMCIA modem and it seemed to work better with the IBM machine. It also behaved better with the 3COM card eventhough I didn't make any changes. The machine worked ok except that I have to save my work quite frequent since it tends to lock up for some unknown reasons and I've tried to upgrade all of the firmware and drivers that I could think of. I've even re-installed Win95 a few times just to make sure that it's setup correctly and got the latest service pack installed as well. It also does not allow me to hot swap the CD-ROM and floppy drives in contrast to the user manual. So I ordered the external floppy attachment through CompUSA and it hasn't show up after 3 months. Well, things got worse as I travelled with this machine. It constantly locked up whenever I picked it up and move it around such as from the desk to my lap or just hitting the backspace, return and cursors keys sometimes. This problem is quite easily duplicated by just moving it around. I contacted IBM and was told to do the self test in continuous mode and then call back if there was any problem. I also removed the extra memory card just in case it caused the problem but that was not it. When I called them back 2 days later to follow up and gave them the incident number, they didn't even have the number in the system and suggested I send in the machine for repair since they haven't heard of this problem before!!! Since I bought the machine with extended warranty support from CompUSA, I contacted them hoping they would be able to help but they said my machine is still covered under IBM warranty so they'll have to follow IBM support guidelines. So much for that!!! Anyway, they said I'd get a shipping box to send in the notebook for repair in a couple of days. Four days later, a person from TSS (IBM support) showed up at my office for a on-site service call. However, he was expecting to be fixing a Lexmark printer and not a Thinkpad but asked to look at the machine anyway. He couldn't even dis-assembled the keyboard assembly and gave up after one hour. It seemed they have mis-communicated and he couldn't tell me what to do next except to give me a number to call and find out. When I called this number, the person at the other end promised to have another rep come by and pick up the machine the next day. Afterward, he called back and asked if I could ship it to them instead. I packed it up and sent it to the TSS (IBM Easyserv) depot overnight for a 72 hours turn around repair and included some instructions for how to contact me via email, pager or phone and what the problems were since I needed it back in a hurry. I had to call them twice a day and endured long holding times to get status of the repair and was told that they had so many of these high end machine in repair that no one was assigned to fix it until three days later. Once it was assigned to a tech, he told me that this is quite a common problem and the system board needed to be replaced. The bad news is that the board is not available and he would have to wait between 3-5 days but somehow he got a board later that day and put it in. He promised I would get the machine back the next day before 10am and I was glad to hear that. Well, around noon the next day, nothing showed up so I called them to find out what was going on. I spoke with one of the customer rep and she said that she would find out. Two hours went by and she called back to leave a message that the machine would be shipped that day and I should get it the next afternoon. Since I was going out of town the next morning, I called her back and left a message in trying to reroute the package to where I was going to be but she never returned my call. I called FedEx to have this done myself and they promised to have it delivered at the new address the next day or the day after and charging some more money for it. I got to the hotel the next afternoon and found out the package dind't make it so I had our shipping people called FedEx to get the status. The FedEx woman said it went to the original delivery address but they still have my package and would send it to me the next day. However, I later found out that they actually dropped off the package at my office earlier and didn't even know it. So much for those FedEx commercials you see on TV!!!. I finally got the notebook back the next afternoon and turned it on to see if things were really fixed. After the self test, I got a screen that I never seen before and the machine refused to boot up. I called IBM and found out that the machine couldn't find any bootable devices based on the error code and asked me to check for the drives presence. It turned out that the hard drive had came loose for some reasons and had to be pushed back down. I thought this is going to work but found that the machine still have the same problem as before in addition to a new one. No matter what I tried, Win95 or DOS/WFW could not see the PCMCIA controller at all. I had this problem before and was able to fix it by removing and re-installed Win95 drivers but not this time. Again, I called IBM to explain the situation but the person I spoke with couldn't offer any help but gave me another 24 hours support number to call. I called this number and got someone whom asked for my phone number and said he'll call me back in 10 minutes. Well, half an hour went by and nobody called so I decided to call again. This time, the phone just rang for about 10 minutes and I hang up. When I tried again a minute later, a recording came on and said they were closed. The next day, I called the TSS depot to discuss the problem and the only solution they could offer is to have the machine send back in. For what I just went through, it was not what I wanted to do unless they can give me a loaner unit or have it replaced with another one which they said no. They transferred my call to a tech rep who was supposed to be able to help but all she did was to ask me the basic information and said someone would call me back in a couple of hours. A few hours went by and I got another call which again just to verify the machine serial number and such but no help and a promise to be called back. At about 11:30 that night, a rep called and again was stumbled by the problem and couldn't help since he was a hardware person and suggested that I call the regular support line. I got a hold of a person at the support center and explained to her what I had done trying to fix the PCMCIA problem and dind't even want to mention about the lock up problem. After searching their problem database, she cound't find any solutions so she talked with someone else whom gave the standard suggestion of getting the latest drivers and see how it works (like the "take two of these and call me in the morning" type of responses). I asked her how I could do anything since I can't use the PCMCIA modem and don't have access to a external modem at the hotel but didn't get a reply. So I went back trying to hack it by re-installing a bunch of differrent drivers and finally got it to work. By this time, it was about 12:30 AM so I guess Friday the 13 did have some effect on the machine. I got on the IBM web site and downloaded the drivers they suggested and installed it but I don't think it made any difference since there were no Win95 drivers. I even went to the IBM booth at Atlanta N+I '96 last week and talked to one of their booth staffers but she couldn't offer any immediate help except to took down my information and promised someone would call. I'm trying to work with the CompUSA account rep right now to see if he could get me a replacement but am not holding my breath since they don't seemed to be able to deliver either. I work for a Ethernet equipment manufacturer that offer 24-hours advance replacement for everything from a simple $20 transceiver up to a $5000 RMON probe with no questions asked during the 5 years warranty. We also offer 2 hours response time if you login to our Web site and request support or sales information. I'd be glad to get rid of this "junkpad" and tell everyone I know not to buy one of them because of what I've experienced. Are you having second thoughts about your Thinkpad yet? -- ------------------------------------------------------ | John Pham Phone: (800) 422-7044 | | Lantronix (714) 453-7107 | | 15353 Barranca Parkway Fax: (714) 450-7226 | | Irvine, CA 92718 Email: johnp@lantronix.com | ------------------------------------------------------