R51 no longer booting - mainboard?

[mattrichter]

Hello fellow thinkpadders

My Thinkpad R51 (1829-9MG) stopped booting a couple of days ago. The power LED turns on, the fan starts running but nothing after that. No hard disk activity, nothing on the screen, DVD drive won't open. My guess is that the mainboard is broken, or that I have *the* GPU problem (ATI). Does this occur on the R51 at all? Do you have any other ideas?

In case of a broken mainboard, can I replace it with *any* other R51 mainboard with an ATI GPU, or are there compatibility issues between different models? Do I have to watch out for anything else when buying a mainboard on eBay?

Doing a reflow on the GPU is not an option for me. Even though I'd like to fiddle around with it, I don't have the tools or the time to do it. However, I would change the mainboard myself, once I find the right one.

Thanks for any advice you might have!

Mathis

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the forums.
See this: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=74942