broken thinkpad help

[chop999i999]

I have a r31 with something wrong with the motherboard. I have 2 questions.

1. I can find a pc on ebay with no lcd on ebay and was wondering if i was limited to the r31 or will my lcd fit on other models?

2. Wondering if other model motherboards fit in my case?

[schen]

I have a r31 with something wrong with the motherboard. I have 2 questions.

1. I can find a pc on ebay with no lcd on ebay and was wondering if i was limited to the r31 or will my lcd fit on other models?

2. Wondering if other model motherboards fit in my case?

In general, IBM/Lenovo has had more than one Series with interchangeable parts at a time. A good example is that many internal parts from the T4x and R5x machines interchange. So your best bet is to check and find a series that was in production concurrently with yours (which AFAIK was the A30/31s, and T30s). However the kicker in your case is that those machines were some of the last manufactured by IBM in their facility in Mexico, while the earlier Rs (R30/R40) were contracted pieces sourced from Acer. Therefore, they may or may not use the same screens. You'll need to do some research into this through some of the support documentation that Lenovo provides on their website

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... country=us

such as the HMM (hardware maintenance manual) for your machine an/or the Personal Systems Reference listings for the period of your machine.

To answer your second question: in most cases, motherboards (or Planars) are not interchangeable from series to series. There are very few instances that provide an exception to this run such as the T4x and R5x of the same screen size and even then it provides little functional difference except a VERY few cases such as a change from Intel integrated video chip to an ATI stand-alone GPU (and visa-versa). In your case, the only likely candidate for that would be the follow-up R40 Series and even then, it's not a good bet. There are several example were even within a series, IBM/Lenovo made enough changes where the Planars required a new case bottom: such as the 600e>600x and T22>T23.

From a practical standpoint, for a machine of that age, you'd be better off selling the old one and upgrading instead of spending $50 to $150 buying parts to upgrade and end up with a machine that's still limited in what it'll max out at. Whereas, if you take the amount you'd expect to spend to upgrades, and add that to what you can get for your old machine, you'll find that you can get a quite respectable example of a relatively current ThinkPad. Most any functional machine than can run a relatively current OS (W2K or XP) will get you at least $150 U.S. You add $50 to $100 to that, you are in range to pick up a T4x or R5x on the used market.

I know I've ranged a little bit far afield from your original questions, but hopefully, it helps and gives you some options to think about.

[schen]

I have a r31 with something wrong with the motherboard. I have 2 questions.

1. I can find a pc on ebay with no lcd on ebay and was wondering if i was limited to the r31 or will my lcd fit on other models?

2. Wondering if other model motherboards fit in my case?

As a follow up; what exactly is wrong with your MB, and what is the type number of your machine?

I probably should have asked that first!

[chop999i999]

It turns out the power cable was bad. Now having hard drive issues. Think its dead Just bought new one and should get it soon and hope it is the only problem. This is a free laptop i am giveing to my parents to mess with since they know thothing of computers. I already have a lenovo 3000 v100

[schen]

Well, if it's up and running with just a power cable change and a new HDD, then you're in luck. An R31 would be a good candidate for somebody who's never had a computer before. They can run W2K or XP as well as do the normal things that most people what of a computer.