Can a T40 case fit a T43 motherboard?

[Omegaboost]

I have a dead T40 here, the video card outputs randomly coloured dots whenever I turn it on. I tried pushing down on GPU while turning it on, no luck. I don't want to bother reflowing the solder myself because it has a Radeon 9000 with SMD caps on the surface of the GPU around the edges and I'm sure those will melt + fall off before the solder in the base will reflow. I'm not sure why this occurred because the whole laptop wasn't even used for 2 years and now it's all screwed up.

So I've been considering my options and it seems like a T43 swap is a good idea because it uses the i915 chipset so I can run 533FSB + DDR2 ram which is cheaper and uses less voltage. Only issue is, will it fit in a T40 case? Will the 14" LCD connector be compatible? Is there any difference in size between the 15" lcd mobo and the 14" lcd mobo?

Thanks in advance

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

14" and 15" boards are of the same size.

You will have to change the PCMCIA cage for the T43 board to fit in. You may also have to change the HD cage depending on whether that T43 board supports a FPR.

Also, if you have a 14" SXGA+ LCD on that T40 (assuming from the GPU that you've mentioned), an Intel-based T43 board will NOT work with it.

Hope this helps.

[Omegaboost]

Thank you!

Should I be worried about cooling for the northbridge? I've read that it causes the fan to never stop spinning?

I have a Dell Inspiron 9300 already with the same 915PM chipset and the passive NB cooler gets really hot even when idling.. I don't see how the T43 can be stable with no cooling at all. Have there been any reported stability problems?

[n2rj]

I don't want to bother reflowing the solder myself because it has a Radeon 9000 with SMD caps on the surface of the GPU around the edges and I'm sure those will melt + fall off before the solder in the base will reflow. I'm not sure why this occurred because the whole laptop wasn't even used for 2 years and now it's all screwed up.

Well, if you want to try (you have nothing to lose, since you're going to change the mobo anyway) try a lower power heat gun like an embossing heat tool from any craft store instead of a paint stripping 1200w gun. The heat gun is about $15-$20. It's not going to melt the SMD caps and you only need like 20-30 seconds heat.

But it looks like you have other reasons to try the T43 board and I don't blame you for wanting to upgrade.

[Omegaboost]

Darn, I just found out that the mobo I was eyeing on ebay is an Intel GPU, type 1871-CTO

The picture looks like this though: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/ ... mbbase.jpg

This looks like an ATi GPU to me? I thought the Intel based boards had cooling on the northbridge because of the intergrated GPU.

Why doesn't the Intel GPU support the SXGA+ 14" LCD?

[RealBlackStuff]

If you get an R52 Intel board, it does. I have such a machine, R52 1860-4QU.
It has a beautiful 15" IPS SXGA+ panel.

[ajkula66]

RealBlackStuff wrote:

If you get an R52 Intel board, it does.

Only in 15" format, NOT in 14".

[Harryc]

Nobody mentioned the CPU. A T40 CPU (400Mhz FSB) will not run at full speed in a T43 (533Mhz FSB).