Worth fixing T23

[starkiller1]

Hiya,
Ive got a T23 thats tricked out (see sig). (nerd!)
The motherboard has been flakey after I first got it 2.5 years ago. It finally went toast while I was on a trip, I miraculously brought it back to life after reading all the posts on the board during the trip using the WD40 and antistatic spray to clean the board. and then it died again 4 days later. Power but no post (fan is steady). pulled the memory and got beeps. (1-3-3-1) (that means processor is ok from what I can tell). I tore it all the way down (one part a time), still didnt post. Let it sit for days, tried to power up, still nothing, tried the power button 50 times trick, nothing... I think It is finally D E D dead.
Used Mobos are running between 100 and 200 on ebay. If I get one and the SXGA screen I would like (not many on there right now). Its gonna run close to 300 bucks. And some newer laptops are running only 500-800. (No good ones from what I can tell)
What would you guys do. I have the money to buy a $3000 laptop but dont need one. The t23 does just about everything fine. The only thing thats slow is web browsing on myspace, since the processor is lacking compared to todays standard.

What would you guys do, buy a replacement mobo and keeping it running, or scrap the poor guy and sell off the working parts and buy a cheapy to replace it...

Or if you have any other Ideas I'd love to hear them....

Adam

[tom lightbody]

well, if it were my w2k XGA t23 got fried I'd
1. keep it for parts
2. scarf up an SXGA+ t22/3 here or on eBay
3. contemplate an OS speedup-->*nix

[BruisedQuasar]

I am still happy with my T23 speed and it has W2k by choice. I prefer W2K over XP. Its mine and I can easily reinstall it. No WGA crap.

I have a fast dual core game machine with XP SP2 Media. I do not use it for gaming. I just like the speed increase I get when I run two major programs at once. It clips around on Internet at a nice speed but most people do not have dual core. My Dell system is noticeably quicker on the Net than my T23 but not much.

My T23 is light, inexpensive, well designed & made, I can simply close it and open it the rare occassions when I leave the house with it. You may want to get a more modern used Thinkpad but I think you will find the new notebooks in the $400 to $500 range lack the quality of the T23 & frankly I do not think the technology is superior or equal.

If my T23 dies, I see me buying another used T23

but then I use orphan handheld PCs for mobile devices. My favorite is the under 2 pound clam shell NEC 900c... 8-10 active battery use per charge, CF & PC Card slots, USB 2.0 port, Ird port, built-in phone modem, stereo phone jack, mic and speaker, recorder function, no moving parts, built-in O/S & basic applications, can hack it to use a broad range of H\PC & Pocket PC software & more. Fits in my coat pocket or hip sack.

--Bruised

[starkiller1]

well, if it were my w2k XGA t23 got fried I'd
1. keep it for parts
2. scarf up an SXGA+ t22/3 here or on eBay
3. contemplate an OS speedup-->*nix

Is any form of *nix really that much faster than using win2k now?
I use VLC and emule, firefox and a couple other utilities. (all ports from unix anyway). I use word and excel, but nothing that star office couldnt do. Plus nix can always be such a hassle to get running smoothly (New driver, re-compile) and considering my limited nix usage I wouldn't do it. (I got Red hat running on my P233 8 years ago so I could surf the net... ooooh. but that was the last I touched it)

I got other computers at home, so my guess I will wait for Appriorate parts to pop on ebay/hardware exchange.

[dsigma6]

I was in the same situation as you, but it turned out my motherboard wasn't bad.

If it happened again, I would only get a replacement mobo if it was $100 or less. Otherwise, while they're nice machines (have had 3 of them), they too show their age browsing our media filled internet.

[schen]

I'll kinda go against the grain here and say that I'd switch machines. I'll have to preface that by saying that I'm a BIG T23 believer (especially on the 1.13 & 1.2Ghz Tualatin CPUs) and just very recently switch to a T30 (because I could do it for free). I think it's extremely well built and for what I did with it, it was more than adequate.

That being said, I just don't think it's worth it to invest much to revive that level of technology. I definitely agree with dsigma6, in that if you find a MB for less than $100, great, but $200/300 in total outlay isn't just isn't justified. I've bought 3 T40s over the last 8 months for less than $450 per, so when you can get more than half way to a next big improvement in platform with the cost of repair... it's not a very good investment.

Of course, that's all IMHO!

[The Spirit of X21]

I agree with dsigma6 and schen. More than $100 and it's just not worth it. Keep it for parts, or perhaps sell the good ones and make a little money.