Decisions, Decisions....

So, I made arrangements to ship back the Mac video card that didn't fix my computer. The nice folks at the parts place asked if I wanted to exchange it for a new logic board, since we're now hypothesizing that the problem is a bad logic board. I've already paid $180 plus shipping for the video card. The logic board will cost a total of $615. Or, I could send them my logic board for refurbishing and only have to pay $470. (Apparently a used, pre-refurb logic board is only worth $150, but it's worth $470 after refurb.) I'm trying to decide what I want to do. Part of me says don't fix a 5 year old computer for even $470, but part of me says $470 for a running back-up machine is cheaper than $4K for a new one. Decisions, decisions....

I can afford the new board, but I'm not sure I want to send in the old one. If I'm wrong about the problem being the logic board, I'm not sure I can get the original board back and I'd be mighty tweaked to have spent $470 and not have a working machine. The other issue is that I don't know how difficult it is to replace the logic board in a Mac these days. I would rather not inadvertently blow the new board by being inept.

Problem solved! I found a different supplier that sells the board for $279 and it comes with a 90 day warranty. Sounds like a good deal to me. At that price, I can afford to put a new graphics card in the desktop PC too and have TWO backup machines! \o/