[silverflyer]

Lets say you were given a Mac Pro by someone that had not bought applecare on it, and when the motherboard died (according to apple) did not want to pay to fix it. SO there it sits, dead, occasionally will boot, but not often and runs with issues.

My question is this, where in the world wide web can I get a motherboard and is it possible to get one with quad 3.2ghz processors instead of the quad 2.6 it came with?

Will I have any problems plugging all the parts in?

[Big Mac]

The processors are standard and thus easily obtained. The problem is the motherboard, which is marginally proprietary to Apple. Apple doesn't sell them separately. You have to be an authorized retailer, and even then Apple requires that in order to obtain replacement parts, the defective parts must be sent back to Apple. It's not like you can just order a bunch of replacement boards out of the blue, AFAIK. That's the problem in a nutshell. Too bad your friend didn't get AppleCare.

[cgc]

Might want to look around on eBay or CraigList but it looks like you're probably SOL.

[SierraDragon]

Part it out on Craigslist then buy a new or refurb MP; or pay Apple to install a new mobo.

Note that Applecare is overall very cost-ineffective unless one buys a lot of stuff like hard drives and displays with the MP. Mobo failures are rare during the 13-36 months time frame.

-Allen Wicks

[Stolfi1]

I actually built a mac pro, well kinda buy buying the parts around. The motherboard at the minimum is $500 at mac-pro.com The issue with that board is that it doesn't allow for firmware updates.