I have an IPC Powernote S, which I have been running Suse 9.1 on for nearly a year. About six months ago, I made it dual-booting with Windows. In this time, the inverter board has crashed and been replaced three times (inder warranty). Last week, I lost patience and demanded a replacement machine. Now the same thing has happened again. IPC insist that they do not recommend Linux, and I am sure when I call them tomorrow they are going to say that it must be my fault, as this is a "new" machine. I am not convinced that the innards aren't just transferred from the old machine anyway, but my question to anyone out there is: Is it possible in any way that the fact that I am running Linux or Linux/Windows dual-booting is causing this inverter fault?

When some manufacturer or support organization states that they do not recommend Linux then ask them for the exact reason for this. Linux should not be able to damage most hardware. One possible exception would be a display which could be damaged from incorrect X system configuration. I have never heard of a power supply being damaged by Linux.

Look in your warranty. If it doesn't say that running Linux will void your warranty then they have no valid reason to refuse warranty service. Note that your warranty might say something like running any non Microsoft operating system would void the warranty or they could say that running any operating system that was not preinstalled would void your warranty. Other than that I don't see how they have any valid reason to refuse service.

I have personally experienced similar problems with hardware over the years. You have to consider that most field service technicians are not engineers. They are to hardware what script kiddies are to network hacking. They have their script. If they follow the script and the problem recurrs they don't have the knowledge to diagnose the actual problem. You have to be willing to talk to their manager, and that person's manager, and so on until someone is willing to look past the scripts and diagnose the problem. Calling local business organizations and newspapers can be helpful. Don't be overly polite with them. At some point you have to present a problem that they are willing to work extra hard to satisfy.

Next time you want to purchase a computer you might want to consider purchasing a different brand. I've had excellent experience with Toshiba telephone support and repair service.

I think he meant the LCD inverter, and I think they're BSing him. There's nothing Linux or Windows could be doing to keep blowing it AFAIK. It's probably a good idea to check your power adapter anyway though, especially if you used same one on both units. If not then perhaps it's a general line condition problem (i.e. bad ground, sages, spikes, surges, etc...).