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GPU upgrade W701 (And more)

W500/W510/W520 and W700/W701 Series
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BarbecueJr
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2020 7:34 pm
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

GPU upgrade W701 (And more)

#1 Post by BarbecueJr » Tue Dec 06, 2022 10:21 pm

I have a Thinkpad W701 in good condition running latest upgrade of Windows 10. It have a stylus pad, i7 940XM CPU, 2 SATA SSD and a Blu-ray drive etc, beast for year 2010. I plan to upgrade to 32gb RAM, currently at 20gb. I have some plans for ghe machine, I'd like to make most out of this old beast but the old hardware and lack of information online makes it difficult.

As far as I know the GPU is connected to a MXM slot and I already have the best possible Video Card which is NVIDIA FX 3800M which is not much to brag about these days. I want to remove the whitelist from the motherboard and be able to install something better that can handle more modern graphics.

The wifi card whitelist is removed but GPU whitelist seems difficult since there might be other chips to flash aswell (vBIOS?). I have CH341A and an extra w701 motherboard to work on so I should be able to extract the data strings from whatever is possible and needed for this upgrade to be possible. Maybe Coreboot could help, but how do I do that?

I'm looking for a proffesional to help me with this and I'll pay for it, depends on the results. where can I find this person? Also, if it's possible to upgrade other chipsets on the motherboard for it to use UEFI and not Legacy, install TPM 2.0 etc and just make it a more modern machine to handle modern tasks. I already have some issues with drivers, mostly due to the old hardware. I know this might be impossible but someone out there must be able to help me... Last option would be to find a company to make a new motherboard with the same dimensions etc, but new hardware suited for 2022. I Really like the style of this computer and not looking forward to go to modern lookish laptops. A fake thinkpad inside the chassi would work, as long as everything works.

Any help would be great!

axur-delmeria
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Location: Metro Manila, Philippines

Re: GPU upgrade W701 (And more)

#2 Post by axur-delmeria » Tue Dec 06, 2022 10:34 pm

I've never heard of anyone ever succeeding with a non-Lenovo GPU upgrade on the W701. IIRC it's not even a BIOS whitelist, but the video BIOS is integrated into the main BIOS itself.
Planned Purchase: T480s i5-8350 FHD Touch
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons :lol:
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E :cry:

RealBlackStuff
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Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:17 am
Location: Loch Garman, Éire

Re: GPU upgrade W701 (And more)

#3 Post by RealBlackStuff » Wed Dec 07, 2022 2:13 am

@barbie:
did you see this: viewtopic.php?f=48&t=134622
Lovely day for a Guinness! (The Real Black Stuff)
But I actually prefer Murphy's from Cork!

Nirvana09
Posts: 41
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2021 9:54 am
Location: Moses Lake, WA, USA

Re: GPU upgrade W701 (And more)

#4 Post by Nirvana09 » Wed Dec 07, 2022 8:23 am

RealBlackStuff wrote:
Wed Dec 07, 2022 2:13 am
@barbie:
did you see this: viewtopic.php?f=48&t=134622
I consider that less of an upgrade and more of a parasite using the host body...

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