More Awesome Than You!

I sent my notebook to Sony for repair and they said that I needed a new motherboard, which costs $1400. I may as well get a new one for this amount.

My question is this: what parts are salvageable in the notebook other than the memory modules and the dvd/cd drive?

Nothing. Junk it.

Depends on how old your laptop is.  Unless it's fairly new chances are that nothing in it will be compatible with a new laptop.

However, you should investigate things a little further and see if you can buy a replacement motherboard on ebay.  You  might be surprised at how cheaply you could one.

Of course you'll have to do the install yourself, but it's not that hard really.  If Sony is anything like Dell, they have complete and detailed instructions online.  And even if you can't find instructions, it's just a question of taking things apart carefully and taking notes (or pictures) so that you know how to put it back together. 

Sony laptops are crap. You can definitely steal the hard drive and possibly the RAMs. The hard drives should definitely work, but you may need adapters if you want to hook it up to a desktop machine. The RAMs may also work, if the computer is not too old.

For use by you? Probably nothing much, possibly not even the RAM. For selling to others on Ebay? I made something like $500 selling off parts of my old Dell, and it had a dead Hard Drive and the power connector had completely broken off the mobo.  The keyboard was also missing keys. I sold the screen, RAM, battery, ac adaptor, dvd drive, and fully-disclosed broken mobo. Vaio screens are known for dying, so you could get quite a bit for it, alone.  Selling the pieces was much more profitable than selling it as a whole would have been.

It's a S150, I believe it's about 2-3 years old. I've had it for 2 years. I believe I would rather get a new motherboard, as I don't really have the cash to purchase another new  one. I can take it apart and put it back together easily. About a month prior, I just put in new memory and a new hard drive. I had just received a new fan and I broke it while attempting to replace it (soldered in) by forcing it apart.

I've seen Sony replacement MoBos at my local shop for under $400, so you can definitely do better than Sony is leading you to believe.  However, you will have to do the replacement yourself which will void any warrenty you have going. 

I don't know what the specs of your current system are, but you can build a pretty powerful laptop for under 1000 bucks provided you salvage the hard drive and OS from your broken computer. If you don't feel comftorable building, head over to NewEgg and look at the prebuilt notebooks (http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=32&name=Laptops-Notebooks).  Obviously you won't get a great deal on a Sony, but ASUS makes good machines and they cost a lot less.

That's great news, as I was told by several people (including the geeks at Fry's electronics) that no one sells motherboards for laptops. I had the idea that I would refurbish it myself.

The specs on my laptop are:

Intel Pentium M Processor 725, 1.60GHz, 2MB L2 Cache
60 GB Hard Drive (Upgraded to 100GB)
512 MB Memory (Upgraded to 1 GB)
Video 32MB
DVD/CD Rom
ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 Graphics (was able to play Sims 2 through Seasons)

I think these are all the things that matter.

I know it's practically a dinosaur, but it accomplished what I needed it to. Even though the Sims 2 plays a lot better on my desktop (especially since I just purchased a new graphics card), I enjoyed being able to take my Sims with me anywhere.

Chains like Fry's and CompUSA don't sell generally sell motherboards, but a local build shop almost always will.  It'll take a bit of luck to find a match for your model since it's a few years old.  I'd also suggest you check ebay (as mentioned above) since you'll be able to find a used board for even less.   Given your other specs, I don't think it would be a wise investment to spend any more than a few hundred bucks on the board. 

Thanks.

I believe my first post may have been a bit misleading, as my original intention was to sell any salvageable parts on eBay, not use them in a new computer. However, with the information I have received from here I will check on purchasing a motherboard on eBay instead.