On a serious note, I am in the troubleshoot and repair business and believe me when I tell you, parts are marked up well over 200%.
It's a NO-WIN situation for the consumer.
60% of the people will replace it
35% of the people will try to repair it once
15% of the people will spend more money trying to repair it and end up spending as much as a new one would have cost. .....
05% of the people don't know how to figure out percentages so all these stats don't matter anyway...
I've had customers cancel service calls after discovering the price we charge for basic parts (keyboard/mouse/power supplies/etc) as opposed to BestBuy or Walmart prices,,,<after the problem is diagnosed of course>
(hence my earlier post). I don't mind when they do it as it strengthens our customer/client relationship. They know other technicians/companies would replace mainboards first before realizing the pin was bent on the P/S2 connection.
You seem like a smart guy spence, if you can't get a handle on it, it's probably going to be an expensive fix...so you're probably making the right decision.