Thinkpads Forum

The systemboard on my T60 15" (type 8743) just failed and Lenovo charges $1K for a replacement. Does anybody know where I can get a reasonably priced used systemboard?

Does anybody have experiences/ recommendations how to change a systemboard on T60 (i.e. could I do it myself or should it be better done by a professional PC/notebook repair shop?)

What's the part number of the board? There are 15 different boards for T60's. If you go to the warranty page and do a lookup on your machine, then on that page click on parts lookup, it will give you a list of original parts. Post it here. If you've never had a laptop apart before it's best to leave a system board replacement to a pro. There is another alternative in California...Hammerhead Technology will fix it for a reasonable price. Not sure if they do T60's, but you can ask. There are members here who also offer repair services. Send me a PM for a recommendation.

Warranty lookup

http://www.hammerheadtech.com/

How did it fail? What are the symptoms? The T60 is harder to swap motherboards than the previous ones because of the frame. It is hard to say whether you could do it yourself. Have you ever worked on a laptop?

Thanks for all the helpful information. I'll give hammerhead a call tomorrow morning.

I've looked-up the original parts list on the lenovo warranty website, but it doesn't seem to provide a part# for the systemboard:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... Results.vm

Any idea how I could get the part# w/o unscrewing the T60 ? (call lenovo support center?)

Harryc wrote:What's the part number of the board? There are 15 different boards for T60's. If you go to the warranty page and do a lookup on your machine, then on that page click on parts lookup, it will give you a list of original parts. Post it here. If you've never had a laptop apart before it's best to leave a system board replacement to a pro. There is another alternative in California...Hammerhead Technology will fix it for a reasonable price. Not sure if they do T60's, but you can ask. There are members here who also offer repair services. Send me a PM for a recommendation.

Warranty lookup

http://www.hammerheadtech.com/

I can't get to the linked page. Please do a cut and paste here.

Ok, I finally got to that page. The system board part # is 42T0169.
Here's one source, happy shopping.
http://www.thinkpadmedic.com/thinkpad_p ... T0169.html

It's 42T0169. In IBM-speak, Planar means system board. You have a 15.4" widescreen, which uses different boards. The reason I asked about the symptoms is that sometimes they can be repaired.

My T60 shows the following behaviour after switching on:
1. battery & power plug lights turn on very briefly; HDD starts spinning (audible)
2. NumLock, Capslock & tilted 'Z' (in lack of better term) lights turn on briefly
3. tilted 'Z' & battery light stay permantely on
4. T60 tries (3x) to access DVD-drive
5. no further activities; screen remains black the entire time

I spoke with Lenovo support at length and the Lenovo guy was very supportive and tried several different procedures (i.e. remove battery for few minutes, keep F1 pressed during boot etc.) and finally concluded that it must be a system board failure. I already excluded a HDD failure by switching my HDD into a friend's T60 and it worked just fine his machine.

richk wrote:It's 42T0169. In IBM-speak, Planar means system board. You have a 15.4" widescreen, which uses different boards. The reason I asked about the symptoms is that sometimes they can be repaired.

The only other things I would try would be to pull the DVD drive and hard drive out, then try to start. Assuming that didn't help (probably won't), I would remove the memory (pull palmrest for access - 4 screws) and try starting with no memory. Very early in the POST, it checks for memory. You will probably get beeps in a 1-3-3-1 pattern. If no beeps, forget it. Then try the memory chips one at a time.

I hope richk's excellent suggestions work. If not I sent you a private message.

Brad