T40 repair or replacement?

[hhmcsv]

Hi Group!
My trusty old T40 2373-19G from 2003 is starting to show serious illnesses, and I suspect that the end could be near!
For over a year, I have had the dreaded USB2.0 --> USB1.1 issue, which was doctored by the PCMCIA-card workaround.
But now and then, the screen starts to go blank when the base is twisted, and I suspect that this is the first symptom of the ATI video card disease

I'm still pretty happy about the machine, so I see my options as follows:

1) A refurbished system board is obtainable here for about USD 250
2) I could be temted to try the R51 motherboard exchange to get an Intel video chip - if I can find one!
The above options I find a bit complicated by the fact, that I will have to obtain a diskette drive to be able to adjust serial numbers etc. Apart from that, will a new system board work "out of the box" ?
3) The system board reflow? - will that cure both diseases?

Any suggestions to help my choice would be much appreciated!

But then there is the option of jumping to a new T400 / T500, which I might get with Windows 7 as I do not fancy Vista! - but the T40 may not last that long. And, of course, a new one would cost above USD 1700 here.

[craigmontHunter]

I reflowed my t41, and fixed both the graphics going blank and the usb problem - BUT - a month after the graphics started to display the normal symproms, colourful screen, so I had to re-flow it again. A month after that I killed it when I tried a reflow and blew the chip sideways off of the motherboard. A reflow works if you are very careful and don't knock it, I did mine without a thermometer but I did pray the whole time. If it fails again, send it into Superior re-ball, they can fix it and I think I may have messed mine up more than I thought because it needed a new system board after all. What I would reccomend is that if you are feeling brave, try to reflow on low heat and from about 3" the graphics chip and the bottom part of the Intel chip above it. This should get you more life out of it provided that you don't try to run too many Graphics-Intensive programs, I would reccomend enabling powerplay all the time to keep the heat down.

Good Luck
Jack

[hhmcsv]

Well, I found the easy way out
Found myself a second hand T41 from april 2005 at a reasonable price, took the HDD from the T40 and stuck it in the T41, and hey presto, everything was up and running in seconds. I only hope now that it will take some time for the newish T41 to acquire the diseases.....