Solved MOBO replacement

Hi Al! I'm new to this forum and am seeking assistance with replacement of my MSI motherboard - GL63 9SDK model - 16P71 ver. 1 is printed on the motherboard. Windows 10. About 6 weeks ago I started having intermittent operational and crashing problems. I tried the Windows 10 restore procedure and it ultimately caused a complete unrestorable crashed situation. I sent the laptop to the MSI factory service center in CA. They diagnosed it needs another motherboard. Price tag was way more than what would be prudent compared to the computer's worth after the repair.

I have many year's experience working on digital electronics components - (now retired). I would like to replace the motherboard with one of the many that are available online and taken from working laptops. My questions are, which part numbers on the motherboard do I need to use to locate an appropriate replacement and does this repair make sense?

There are may MSI laptops that use the same circuit board layout as my bad board, however they often have many different part numbers.

Any help will be appreciated. Joely

Hi Bruce, thanks for the reply. The dead laptop was built in 2019, and yes, it's out of warranty. Any MOBO I would get will come with the i7 CPU and the separate Nvidia graphics chip. This is one reason the available working MOBOs are anywhere from about $250 to $800. I figure if I can get a working replacement MOBO for around $300 to $400 including the afore mentioned i7 CPU (9th gen) along with the appropriate Nvidia 1660 ti Graphics card, I can put everything back together in a couple of hours. Yes, there will be other work to get OS reloaded, but it would be nice to have a working spare laptop that would run circles around the old Toshiba.

I needed another laptop because I use one everyday. I relied on a very old Toshiba, that still works like a charm, until the replacement arrived. I got a newer, faster, larger, all around better version of the one that died for a little over $800. It is very clean and seems to have little use on it.

My main question is, which part number on the replacement motherboard do I need to use to locate an appropriate replacement. Is it imperative that I find another MOBO with the exact same part number as the one that failed? Or, will another MOBO that uses the exact same circuit board, but with a different part number possibly work?

If I can't get another MOBO for the dead laptop, I'll most likely part it out on eBay.

Thanks again.

Thank you, Rustys. I had thought of those things and I appreciate you mentioning them. Besides the three items you mentioned, I want to make sure the new MOBO supports individual RGB keyboard lighting and that it is configured to drive a 15.6" display (1920 X 1080 wide display). The physical size and shape are the easiest to confirm. Thanks again.

Thanks Bruce. Your comments are exactly what I was looking for! I too have made knucklehead decisions and as a mentor once told me, "pain teaches". I'm leaning more toward the "part it out" approach. It certainly has the potential of being more cost effective. Thank you for your candid response. It's appreciated.

As of now, no. I'm not planning to tackle the project now, but if I find one cheap enough, I still may entertain the idea of trying to change it out. Currently, I've got too many other projects to pursue this one. I've salvaged all of the old files from backups, so this is not a burning issue. Thanks again for your input!