R50e motherboard replacement or upgrade ?

[jflores]

OK, My R50e just died... the motherboard is gone.

Reading the R50e HMM, I see it shares almost all components with R51 and R52.

I was wondering if my R50e could accept an R51 or even R52 motherboard ? Does anyone have a good advice ?

I have also seen the memory would be different (DDR2 instead of DDR), but I'm ready to do that in order to benefit of 533Mhz FSB instead of 400 Mhz.
Thanks,
Joscelyn

[sco1984]

I am curious to know how old is your ThinkPad ? I also have R50e-1834-EQ1. Mine is Centrino 1.5 , 256 . I rarely hear about death of ThinkPad..Hehe ...Sorry not joke but true . I am not a laptop mechanic, but i suggest you to buy new/2nd hand ThinkPad. Price of new board, processor, ram = new laptop ? Probably Yes. laptop boards are still expensive and labour of replacing is not so cheap like
replacement of Desktop boards I bet.

[jflores]

Thanks for your input - I have since found out it seems the R50 series has had some motherboard problems (mobo flex) requiring more-than-average repair or replacement. My Thinkpad is not very old (2 years now), and otherwise it is good as new.

A new mobo can be found rather easily (around US$200), which is not a bad option. The reason I asked for R51 or R52 mobo compatibility was mainly because of the cheaper RAM (DDR2 is cheaper than DDR). I would do the job, so labor time would be mine which I don't mind spending on my Thinkpad

And I am curious if it can be done at all, I have seen many crazy projects and great ideas being developed and put into practice on Bill's forum...