I always buy new machines but I am planning on staying in foreign country for 12-18 months once problems with Corona Virus end. I dont really want to spend $2-$2.5k on a machine and be transporting it between countries, would rather buy the new machine once i return from trip.
I would agree with you. But the likely disadvantage is that it will cost you more money as you're not only replacing a motherboard, but all other components as well.
It likely isn't worth it to put "any" money into an old T3500... except if you're desperate to keep running your software on a T3500 so that you don't have to setup and transfer everything onto a newer one just now, you could take a chance on buying another T3500 if cheap enough on the hope it works for another couple of years... which is fairly likely. It would be better to buy an off-lease, 3-yr old workstation. (For my W7-W10 upgrade, I bought some 3-yr old Dell T5810s for $225 on eBay. Xeon E5-1620v3, 8GB, NVS 310, 256GB SSD... plenty good enough for my trading.)
I am going to change the battery on the motherboard at the weekend but to be honest I will be amazed if this fixes the problem. I think I am going to have to buy a second hand machine to use for the next 18 months to 2 years. I will probably go for a Dell T5810. I use I.B with API linked to excel, Ninja Trader, Trade Ideas and Radarscreen in Tradestation. I dont want to over spec the machine. Any recommendations on what spec I should aim for.
Do ebay refurbs get a new battery? a vintage thinkpad was revived with a battery from the convenience store. take your old batt in with and get the Exact match for text on the batt.
Basically anything would seem suitable for the applications you specify. You may want to look at how much RAM your current computer is using while running all these applications at the same time. And ensure that your next machine has ample RAM memory.
I had a similar problem and yes, it's the motherboard. After 9 years I think it's time to replace it with another future proof workstation.