| From: Peter King via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | I have a Lenovo Legion T5 desktop (tower configuration) with Ryzen 9 cpu, Which processor? That gives me an idea of its age. Which model of T5? Lenovo type or model number or whatever they call it is fairly precise. | which has given me all sorts of trouble over the past year and a half; it's | already been sent back to Lenovo once after the power supply / motherboard | went completely dead, and in the months since it intermittently locks up when | I fire up X. Is it still under warranty? Is this a model that officially supports Linux? Nevermind, I was thinking ThinkCentre. I don't imagine Lenovo supports Linux on Legion. Lenovo usually makes available a "Hardware Maintenance Manual" that explains a lot of things. But then if you are reading Reddit, you are probably a few steps ahead. | Well, just a few days ago with no warning it froze at boot with | the message 000135 that *all* of its internal fans had failed (!); a reboot | got that down to only the CPU fan failed; when I told it to ignore that the | computer finally booted up and runs sort of okay. If the CPU cooler fails, I imagine that the CPU will shut down. I don't think modern desktop processors can run without a fan. | By "sort of" I mean that | the CMOS memory seems wonky: it won't keep track of the date or time. That might be a matter of replacing the CMOS battery (normally a coin cell). But they usually last longer than a warranty. | Plus it | still sometimes locks up when I start X. Are you still using X? What distro are you using? Perhaps you have an NVidia GPU and are running the proprietary driver. I'm the unhappy state of using X on my desktop for that reason. | Google -- mostly Reddit -- tells me | that the fan problem is probably a BIOS/motherboard issue, apparently common | in this model after about a year. Some people claim a BIOS update fixes it, | most people say it doesn't, My superstition is to update firmware. | and BIOS update for Lenovo products under Linux | are a pain. I don't know about Legion. You probably have a Windows license. Did you wipe it to install Linux? (I always make my systems dual-boot.) It is often easier to get hardware support if you can run Windows for the duration of the support call. | I could send it back to Lenovo. Again. That's what I would do if it is still under warranty. | But I am inclined to just replace the | motherboard instead, to swap out the proprietary Lenovo 3716 MB for something | else. According to Reddit again, the Gigabyte B550M is pretty much a drop-in | replacement, though you need to add a CPU fan. I don't know how to verify | that it will work, though. I'm pretty sure that it is simpler to buy a complete new box, with a warranty. Skilled human time is fairly expensive (yours or a technician's). There are a lot of ways that this could go wrong. For example: a proprietary Lenovo power supply might not power a different board. A new power supply might not fit in the case. Those are true of Lenovos that I have (I don't have Legions). | But more importantly: I am way too busy right now to do the replacement | myself. So, does anyone have any recommendations for good reliable computer | repair work, someone or some company I can just take this to and tell them to | do it? I am located in the Junction. I used to use A2Z Computers, which was | great, but that business didn't make it through the pandemic. I suppose I | could take it to Canada Computers or someplace like that, but I though their | work was only just adequate and priced high at that. | | Any common wisdom about who might be good for this job? Thanks! Random people on the list might be. People with store-fronts should be too expensive but they might not be.