The 2503 Advanced Dock & Its GPUs

[Vivecus]

I'm looking to get one of these to greatly increase my T60's power for gaming, audio engineering, and video production. I also exclusively use free software so, due to this, the tight space in the 2503 is just one of two big limitations I'm facing. GPUs with non-free/proprietary drivers just flat-out won't work, which has ruled out plenty more options. Although, after some research, one of the cards I've found that could fit the bill is the ASUS Radeon R7 240 2GB DDR3 R7240-2GD3-L.

Would any of you fine folks know if this card has any chance of fitting in the 2503? If not, h-node has a list of GPUs compatible with free software. If anyone wants to suggest something different, I at least would want the card to work with 3d acceleration too (since that is another variable.)

[zoltan87]

I use the same dock with my T60. If I were you I would just use a pcie extender cable and place the graphics card outside of the dock. This is how my dock is set up with a fanless Nvidia 1030 card.

There is just not enough space in the dock, and if ypu manage to put in a card with an extremely low profile fan, then you are going to have a pretty loud system.

Also not sure if you have already tried the dock out, but be prepared, the dock fans are deafening. I managed to put up with them for about an hour, then just cut their leads. It's nice and quiet now , I just hope I won't burn the house down. But my laptop is heavily undervolted, and the 1030 card doesn't use much power either. If your system is maxed out, and you will use a card that consumes close to the 50 watts mark most of the time, then disabling all the fans is probably not a good idea.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that don't expect this setup to make wonders, it's a very limited connection, so no matter what card you choose, it won't be fully utilized.

[Vivecus]

I use the same dock with my T60. If I were you I would just use a pcie extender cable and place the graphics card outside of the dock. This is how my dock is set up with a fanless Nvidia 1030 card.

There is just not enough space in the dock, and if ypu manage to put in a card with an extremely low profile fan, then you are going to have a pretty loud system.

Also not sure if you have already tried the dock out, but be prepared, the dock fans are deafening. I managed to put up with them for about an hour, then just cut their leads. It's nice and quiet now , I just hope I won't burn the house down. But my laptop is heavily undervolted, and the 1030 card doesn't use much power either. If your system is maxed out, and you will use a card that consumes close to the 50 watts mark most of the time, then disabling all the fans is probably not a good idea.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that don't expect this setup to make wonders, it's a very limited connection, so no matter what card you choose, it won't be fully utilized.

The PCIe extender option I'm just not a big fan of unfortunately. I want a setup that's as clean as possible, so I'm not afraid of doing a little tinkering in order to get there. The deafening fan noise I am aware of too, I plan to swap it out with a much quieter one, just for the sake of the PSU's longevity. I've looked up guides as to how to do it and it's worked for quite a few people.

In terms of just how much power I reckon I'll get out of this, I'm not expecting a miracle, just a reasonable bump up in performance. The GT1030 you have would work with my system too, but unfortunately 3D acceleration isn't supported with free software.