Thinkpads Forum

Friend's 14 T61 SXGA+ (nVidia Quadro NVS 140) has died. As I looked at it, I pulled out battery, and powered it on AC and then installed battery and it was fine.

Then it died again and pulling battery doesn't help, the IBM service center diagnosed dead motherboard. The graphics wasn't bad, it has something to do with power or charging - I didn't notice any symptoms of bad graphics.

So to fix this surely a new motherboard is needed.

I looked and there are intel X3100 motherboards for 40ish euros + shipping and nVidia motherboards for 120-150 euros for shipping.

Would intel motherboard fit (I'm waiting to get exact machine type - I'm presuming it's type 7663 as another acquiantance has almost same T61 and that is his type).

As long as the replacement motherboard (Intel or nVidia) comes out of a same-sized T61, it will work.
You cannot put e.g. a 4:3 14.1" mobo in a widescreen 14.1" laptop or v.v.

What's the deal with nVidia cards?

The card in this was fine (symptoms are power related and GPU was fine). I know another person with almost same T61 and GPU is fine there also - it's a late model.

Are the motherboards after 8/2008 fine?

I'll try taking this to someone who might fix it. If not I can order new motherboard but should I be careful about manufacture date?

There have been a hundred posts or more about nVidia failure, do some reading please.
All non-nVidia boards are fine, as are all 08-08 or later nVidia boards.