IBM A31p-2653-R4u replacement options.

[david_thinkpad]

A while ago I dropped my laptop..

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 2424456d53

Since then and looking at it a bit more (no I never got the backlight for it) but I started thinking. I examined it a bit more closely and realized the whole case is cracked as well. This became more evident when I tried to remove the DVD drive (DVD burner still burns DVD's ironically).

So my thought was "well, I guess this is a newer development" and am kind of thinking "Well what else.."

my thought is at this point it might be best to look at a newer one or maybe a replacement one. Now my first thought was well I have a docking station for it and a port replicator.

So for my next question, and maybe I can upgrade a bit and still use my ultrabay DVD burner.

What could I upgrade to and still be able to use the docking station and port replicator as well as the DVD burner?

I realize I had one offer to fix it for about $100 but I have a feeling as I examine it a bit more it's going to be possibly toast. At bare minimum I would need a new body (shell) for it (and that's assuming the board survived).

[basketb]

The obvious answer would be to get another A31p off of ebay, etc., wouldn't it?

Other recommendations:

If your docking station is a Dock II, then I would recommend an R52 with a 15" SXGA+ IPS display (my wife has one and it is very nice, certainly faster than my old A31p, just not as much screen real estate). Your DVD burner will not fit into the R52 but it fits in the Dock II. But then again the R52 came with its own DVD burner.

If you need a UXGA IPS screen, then I'd look into the T4xp or R50p (I do not have any personal experience with those machines). But again, your DVD burner wouldn't fit in those either. Plus, your dock only works with these if it is a Dock II. (similarly, I think there are two versions of the port replicator, but I may be mistaken on this point. The older one wouldn't work with the "newer" T4x's and R5x's.)

Should you decide that you can part with your dock/port replicator/DVD burner, I'd definitively recommend a T61p with 15" WUXGA (which I recently got) or a T60p with 15" UXGA IPS screen (though these are supposedly hard to find).

[sjthinkpader]

At home I am using a modified A31 with an UXGA display, 2.5Ghz CPU, 802.11n card, E7K80 HDD, USB2.0 card and quite a bit of RAM.

The replacement for it will be the T42 or R51 listed below. I have a UXGA LCD for them already but only the cable for the T42. My preference is to use the R51 but I am missing the UXGA cable.

Kids are using 14.1 inch T43s. Wife is also using a 15 inch R52 and she did notice the difference going from an IFS (T42 SXGA+) to non-IFS LCD (R52 SXGA+).

That A31p listed below is actually connected to a HDMI TV to do slide shows on TV. It gets used as a DVD player when all else failed. This machine has some artifacts on the internal screen but drives the DVI port properly.

So if you have a HDTV and want a PC to run slide shows, get a base and fix that A31p.

[ajkula66]

Harryc was offering a complete A3x base for something like $20 with XP COA...doesn't get better than that...

[david_thinkpad]

Well I think my prayers must have been answered. It seems these people have one with a docking station for sale. A bit different than mine (I have an R4u unit) but so far spec to spec short of the stuff it's about what I had in a nutshell. I didn't have the wireless card or the bluetooth but I would consider that collateral damage .