Thinkpads Forum

How to choose a replacement motherboard? (04W3254 for T520 4239-CTO)

Sellers on aliexpress, ebay, newegg and others show brand Reboto, Nokotion, Sheli or SZWXZY for Lenovo motherboards.
Who are these companies? I can't find those names anywhere except on the "retail" sales sites.
Are they actually making boards? I find that hard to believe.
Are they refurbishers? (I assume.)

Many aliexpress sellers say "All our products are Original and Grade A, They are NOT REPAIRED." (Others say "no reflow" so maybe minor repairs but not major chip replacement.)
How can that be true? Where would all these motherboards come from if not failed motherboards that need repair?

Each of the sellers say that they test the boards before shipment (many can provide photo/video of the test), so they're not relying on any of these brand names to be excellent suppliers.
So, why advertise a brand name that appears to mean nothing?

(A used motherboard is still 30-50% the cost of a used computer, so still don't want to waste money on a dodgy motherboard (although also difficult to trust the used computer sellers).)

I welcome any insight.

Above sources are $56 (perhaps $80 after import duty).
Official USA Lenovo is $254 (as much as the whole computer is worth.) https://lenovo.encompass.com/item/10627 ... o/04W3254/
Here in Indonesia, the official channels don't even have any parts for the T520 since too old.

~Brian

I think the names you have listed are the names of the sellers not of the boards. The boards come from one company only - Lenovo How to choose the best seller on AliExpress? That's an interesting question.. BTW you can chat with them on aliexpress website in English, maybe use this chat to make sure they actually have the board you want.. What you receive most likely will be a motherboard from a disassembled notebook.

Is there a threshold for import duties where you live? It may be you will not end up paying any customs duty. It may depend on what the seller writes on the customs declaration - a small bit of paper glued to the outside of the box.

I guess you could consider ebay as an alternative to AliExpress. There are probably are boards there.

Yet another alternative is TaoBao. While AliExpress is a little reminiscent of Amazon, TaoBao is a little reminiscent of ebay. I read that they do ship from ToaBao to some countries directly. UK is not on the list, so I'm using superbuy.com an intermediary to make the purchases. First I tell them what I want to purchase from TaoBao, they order to their warehouse and then they re-ship to you. Shipment within China is relatively cheap. International shipping is expensive. They ask you. In my experience currency exchange when putting money on superbuy account is about 15% worse than the "headline" exchange rate you may find on internet. This is partly the fee I pay to Paypal for conversion from £ to $ and partly the fee that superbuy.com is taking for their services. In order to search on TaoBao website you got to register. To do that you need to negotiate this Chinese-only web interface. You also specify your searches in Chinese when on TaoBao. But you can speak English with superbuy.com. Anyway, that's the other source of motherboards I can point to. One thing I noticed about TaoBao is that sellers there often advertise goods that they don't have. Especially true for motherboards. You got to chat with them via ToaBoa app on your phone. And that chatting is in Chinese too So I use Google translate.

P.S. if you do end up dealing with TaoBao make sure that superbuy.com throws away any dehumidifying sachets from the package. Those sachets won't pass Chinese customs on exit from China
P.P.S. I use EUB as the shipment company from China to UK. On this route they have been doing a good job.

wwcanoer wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 28, 2020 1:51 pm

... Here in Indonesia, ...

Time to change your Location!

T520/W520 motherboards are named Kendo-3 and are made by Wistron in China.

RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 29, 2020 12:21 am

T520/W520 motherboards are named Kendo-3 and are made by Wistron in China.

Thank you. Those names provide the board schematics.

atagunov wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 28, 2020 2:37 pm

I think the names you have listed are the names of the sellers not of the boards.

Thank you for the detailed information.

On Aliexpress there are multiple sellers that sell the same "brands" and one seller can sell multiple "brands." Those "brands" appear on other platforms by sellers with that don't have that "brand" in their name. There's been a couple urls for nokotion but none are active. The sellers have said that the boards are all the same, no difference between the brands, so I don't know why they advertise a brand. It's bizarre to me. It's not critical but I thought that someone might know.

My board is available from ebay sellers with very good reputations, so perhaps I will buy there even though it costs a little more.