What to do with busted t61?

I bought a t61 a little under a year and a half ago, and I was loving it until I woke up one morning to find that it wouldn't start. After talking to tech support, it turned out that either the video card (Quadro NVS 140M) or the motherboard attached to it had died. My warranty expired a few months ago, and Lenovo wanted $600 to repair it! I thought that was ridiculous, so I bought a new laptop instead - I got a T400 with 3 year warranty for under $1000.

The question is, what should I do with the old t61? People have suggested trying to swap the video card, but from what I understand it is soldered to the mobo and isn't available separately. I looked online for a replacement mobo, but they are like $500 from a reputable dealer (absolutely ridiculous - a top-notch desktop mobo costs like $100-150), or around $300 on ebay, but I hear all of them ship from Taiwan and usually don't work. My current idea is to put it into a mini HTPC - I think the Mac Mini and similar products use mobile chipsets, so my components - CPU, DDR2 memory, hard drive, etc, would all fit. Has anybody seen a barebones mini HTPC that would fit the bill? Alternatively, would it be better to just try selling the components on eBay?

 

You may wish to post this on ThinkPads.com where someone may have a motherboard at a more reasonable price. They tend to be more reputable there than on ebay.

 

Laptop motherboards are much more expensive than desktop motherboards. This is very normal and they are not directly comparable in price...

 

i am in the same boat. I got my visa credit card to give me most of my money back and bought a new t400

then i got a replacement intel mobo off ebay for $116. plan on swapping it out and giving it to my parents

 

you can also buy a replacement from ibm for 280 to 500 depending on FRU

 

You can sell the notebook piece by piece and net a couple hundred bucks. The screen can go from $100-200, and the chasis for $100 if it is in good condition. Factor in the rest you are looking at probably $400 or so for a dead laptop.

 

You should check to see if it was one of the defective Nvidia chips. They had a mount problem that causes failure. Check on the Nvidia forums, and google for faulty Nvidia adapters. If it is a faulty Nvidia chip, elevate your case at Lenovo. The warranty period has nothing to do with a product that should have beed recalled. They have to replace it, and try to get their money back from Nvidia.