On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:42:00 GMT, jeff@nospam.com wrote:

>i have an older lifebook and just found out that it will cost between
>$200 to $500 to replace the $5 CMOS backup battery. fujitsu's
>documentation said that it may have to be replace after 3 to 5 years,
>which is reasonable to me but what is not reasonable is to design it
>so that it costs $200 to $500 to replace it.
>
>i can not recommend fujitsu as a source for laptop computers due to
>their design philosophy for replaceable parts.
>
>a "very unhappy" N3010 owner (but it has a very nice display)
>
>(i was just "unhappy" when i discovered that the N3010 had a design
>flaw that caused the mother board to over heat - i worked around that
>with a combination of a temperature measuring program (non-fujitsu)
>and blowing out the hot air discharge vents every once in a while when
>the temperature gets above normal. all this was no thanks to fujitsu
>who insisted that there was no problem and provided no help is solving
>it. so i guess i also can't recommend fujitsu due to their lack of
>support of their products, even when their is a design flaw!)
>
>(btw, the letter "I" key on my keyboard has stopped working does
>anyone know how it might be fixed? i hate to think what fujitsu would
>want for that)
>
>(i guess that i should mention that the hard drive failed as well but
>replacing that was straight forward and with a disk image back up i
>had made. i was going again very quickly for about $100 and my labor)
>
>would apple do this kind of thing to their customers? i am thinking of
>switching to a macbook pro and i am hoping that i will get a better
>product and better support then fujitsu provided, and easier CMOS
>backup battery replacement. comments?

Dream on. I've never seen a laptop with a cmos battery that a user
could find.