#3
Post
by TuuS » Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:22 am
Not sure what I can add to this, George did a very good job at answering your questions, but to continue, the both 14" and the 15.4" models suffered from the nVidia issues, but very few have actually failed however the problem is compounded by the same failed systems being sold over and over again after shoddy repairs. I'd never consider buying one on ebay and no one in their right mind would sell a good nVidia chip there, it's become the clearinghouse for bad ones.
If you want a widescreen version you can get one dated august 2008 or later. They generally cost much more, but they aren't effected by the gpu problems. To date, after extensive searching I've never seen nor heard of any non-widescreen units made with the new nVidia chip so for your T60 frankenpad build you'll need to decide if you want powerful graphics and accept the risk, or go with integrated graphics and play it safe. I use nVidia in my personal frankenpads (after extensive testing), and have yet to have one fail and even if one did, it's not the end of the world, I'd just put a new board in it and move on. If you don't need a dedicated graphics processor, then the Intel board will work very nicely. Either George or I could probably get you a good sound board, but I believe he has a Qxga system still available and with the price of those screens I doubt you could build one cheaper.
Good luck and hope you enjoy whatever you buy/build