The Board Room – Replacement T4x R5x Boards in US

[poshgeordie]

12/26/2011: Very SAD news:
Due to unforeseen circumstances, ReflowRepairs in the UK, where T4x and R5x motherboards were reballed, had to close down.

There is still a small quantity of these reballed boards left in the US depot, run by RealBlackStuff.
They will be sold outright, without any trade-ins.
But when they are gone, that's it...

Check out The Board Room to see what's still there.

[killer]

Nick and Dominic,

I wish you every success with this service. Good luck!

[MnR]

Hi guys,

This is great News!!!! This means No More Hunting on eBay for a Motherboard Replacement!!!!

I wish you two all the best

MnR

[Bruce Guttman]

PM Sent (RBS).

Can you guys use old parts from "classics"? I have a bunch of 770 carcasses that work if you put drives in them (mostly E, but also an X) and a bunch of 760s, mostly EL.

[jihe]

Would you extend your service to Europe later on?

[RealBlackStuff]

PM Sent (RBS).

Can you guys use old parts from "classics"? I have a bunch of 770 carcasses that work if you put drives in them (mostly E, but also an X) and a bunch of 760s, mostly EL.

@Bruce Guttman:
Received and answered PM.
Thanks for the offer, but we limit ourselves to T4x and R5x motherboards, at least for the foreseeable future.
I'm sure there are people in the Legacy Hardware forum, who would jump at this opportunity.

@jihe:
The UK/European division is already well established, but works slightly different.
See the second link in my signature.

[RealBlackStuff]

Hello people,
a special thanks to all the good folks who have shown their support for this novel idea, by donating their motherboards.
Several people even donated multiple boards.
Please read the announcement below.

WE'LL BE BACK!

[poshgeordie]

It is with regret that due to a combination of me developing some health problems together with some technical problems here in the UK, that we have temporarily closed The Board Room until both of these issues have been resolved.

I know that some of you have very kindly donated boards to RealBlackStuff (Dominic) in USA (the first batch is with myself in UK for refurbishing) and others of you are waiting for the refurbished boards to be returned to USA and to go on sale.

We are already working on the technical issues and have some possible solutions which are being fully tested before releasing them as part of the overall reflowing / reballing process.

Health-wise I'm slowly improving and we anticipate that The Board Room will be fully up and running again in January 2011.

On behalf of Dominic and myself I do apologise to everyone for these delays and ask that you bear with us. I would also like to thank Dominic for the support and encouragement he's giving me at this very difficult time.

The Board Room is about being as open as possible especially when there are problems, and we don't want to make excuses for delivery delays or to offer possibly lesser quality boards.

We'd also like to reassure you that this closure is temporary and we will be open again soon.

Once again I do apologise for the delays and any inconvenience caused, and please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any concerns or questions etc.

[RealBlackStuff]

Amen to that.

I have spent a lot of time compiling an overview of all the known (to me) motherboards for the T4x and R5x models.
Believe it or not, I found close to 90 (!) different ones.
There must be rabbit-genes in these boards, the way they keep multiplying

Take a look at our new IBM T4x/R5x Motherboard Overview

If you know of yet another mobo for these series, please PM me with the details. Thanks.

[atanasoff]

It is with regret that due to a combination of me developing some health problems together with some technical problems here in the UK, that we have temporarily closed The Board Room until both of these issues have been resolved.

I know that some of you have very kindly donated boards to RealBlackStuff (Dominic) in USA (the first batch is with myself in UK for refurbishing) and others of you are waiting for the refurbished boards to be returned to USA and to go on sale.

We are already working on the technical issues and have some possible solutions which are being fully tested before releasing them as part of the overall reflowing / reballing process.

Health-wise I'm slowly improving and we anticipate that The Board Room will be fully up and running again in January 2011.

On behalf of Dominic and myself I do apologise to everyone for these delays and ask that you bear with us. I would also like to thank Dominic for the support and encouragement he's giving me at this very difficult time.

The Board Room is about being as open as possible especially when there are problems, and we don't want to make excuses for delivery delays or to offer possibly lesser quality boards.

We'd also like to reassure you that this closure is temporary and we will be open again soon.

Once again I do apologise for the delays and any inconvenience caused, and please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any concerns or questions etc.

Best wishes. Life can throw quite strange things at us.

[Bruce Guttman]

Good luck, guys. I'm hoping you can provide a useful service. Once you get the boards I sent running, I may have more.

Poshgeordie, please take care of your health. That's the most important thing.

[poshgeordie]

RBS and myself are pleased to announce that the first set of refurbished boards is now available for sale.

The full list of available boards is on The Board Room. Note it's first come first served so order early to avoid disappointment!

Many thanks for your patience, and we expect the second set of refurbished boards will soon be ready to be sent to the USA.

[atanasoff]

Somewhat basic question: How do I determine what board or range of boards work in my machine?

It's a T40p (antique!). Turns out the board I have now is just fine with everything including usb 2 working. So far. Might be good to have a spare though and keep this machine around a bit longer.
Since this is the earliest of the T4x series does a later rev board offer better performance?

[Harryc]

I can't speak for the proprietors, but I believe the way this business works is that you send in a bad board and you get a good board at a cost. I don't believe they are selling boards outright for spares, etc.

[RealBlackStuff]

Thanks Harryc, you nailed it.
We do exchange only, for details, see The Board Room link in my signature.
For equivalent motherboards to your T40p (64MB ATI 9000), search for M9-64 here: http://theboardroom.info/ibm_list.htm

[johnjagg]

I exchanged two boards from The Board Room. Their service is fast, thorough, and painless. With the replacements I was able to get two T42s back up and running. I think they are providing a great service to T42 users, and would recommend them for anyone looking for a board swap.

Thanks again to The Board Room.

[roguetrooper]

You guys see a lot of boards I'm sure.

Do you often see T43 Southbridge failures? I know T43 GPU failures are relatively rare.... Just wondering whether to choose T43's over other T series simply for the reliability increase.

Thanks.

[ajkula66]

While SouthBridge failures do occur, I'd still deem the T43/p model line to be the safest of of all the T4x/R5x batch.

I've had more T60/p machines fail in this house than T43/p, and I've owned at least ten times more of the latter...

And at today's prices...they're quite difficult to resist...

My experiences only...

[poshgeordie]

I second that as the one who repairs the boards, however the T40 - T42 boards we sell have both chips reballed so should be extremely reliable.

[lukee]

Just want to ask, if the boards which uses a solder with added Pb are more reliable than RoHS boards?

[poshgeordie]

First of all we use solder balls which are appropriate to the age of the board. Since many T4x boards were made before July 2006 we use leaded solder balls on these.

Regarding solder ball reliability, have a look at this typical article.
This article goes gives more details about lead-free problems.

[ethink]

My T42p was damaged as a result of a lightning storm http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=96911

Dominic (RealBlackStuff) helped me to obtain a replacement board and all of the "problems" have been corrected!
Both the cost and the turn-around time for this service was very very fair and reasonable. Communications on the status of the repair and shipping was excellent. This service also included a 90 day warranty.

I am very pleased with the repair and happy to have my T42p back in service.

I give The Board Room the Highest Recommendation.