Hi, i wanted to post this in reddit, but it blocks my vpn ip address so i’ll post it here.
I managed to overclock my x200, installed libreboot + openBSD, upgraded my ram to 4gb, went from HDD to SSD and swapped the proprietary charger port to USB-C (so I can charge my x200 with a USB-C 21v charger). Missing upgrades are the screen, the wifi card and the 8gb of ram instead of 4, but that’s just a matter of buying the hardware.
Bellow I'll share how i overclocked the x200. As far as i know there are no English tutorials on how to do so. I based my findings on Chinese forums and translation. Read everything before even starting to unscrew your laptop.
BACK UP YOUR DATA
What you need:
• a 10k resistor
• some wire (copper usually)
• steady hands
• a soldering iron or soldering pliers (the latter are more precise)
• light and a magnifying glass ‘cause those components are tiny (optional)
Useful links (specially if you can speak Mandarin):
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https://www.bilibili.com/video/av36194702/ - video of someone doing the overclocking procedure (in Mandarin i think).
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http://www.360doc.com/content/19/0306/2 ... 7418.shtml a tutorial for x200 and x200s – this link is actually a scraper from the forum where the tutorial was originally posted (also in Mandarin).
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https://archive.espec.ws/files/Lenovo_ ... a842757918 - Lenovo’s x200 schematics - page 15 is the important one for us.
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https://forum.51nb.com/thread-1516974-1-1.html the original forum thread which explained how to do it. Let me save you some time, forum is dead and thread wasn’t saved in the internet archive. This is where the pictures originally came from.
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https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... -on-linux check your CPU cores speed
How to do it (text translated with google translate):
Basically:
1. remove resistor r626,
2. solder a wire on the white dot,
3. solder a 10k resistor to the end of the wire,
4. solder the 10k resistor to another white dot.
End result should look like this:
Here is how you do it:
On page 15 of the schematics you can see BSEL2 (up left, CPU_BSEL2) and the resistor R626:
So the first step is to remove that resistor, but where is it located on your board?
Here (the right one).
There are two ways to de-solder it, either with soldering pliers, they allow you to pinch out the resistor:
or with a common soldering iron, by melting a lot of tin on the tip of the iron, applying it on the resistor until it’s completely covered, and then pulling the resistor. This is “riskier” as you might pull other things (like the resistor on it’s left), but I did it and it worked.
Technically you can use that same removed resistor for later, but mine wasn't in a good shape so I used a new one.
Next you solder your wire to this white dot here, right above the removed resistor:
then solder the 10k resistor to the other end of your wire.
And finally solder the resistor to the top of this resistor here (it is situated a few centimeters to the right):
“schematics” are like this, you can use a voltmeter to double-check where is the positive pole of your resistor:
so you are connecting your 10k resistor to the positive pole of this other resistor.
Proof that it worked (on x200, CPU is supposed to be limited to 2260MHz, here it’s almost 3k):
To check the CPUs core speed run on linux:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... -on-linux
Conclusions:
i wished i could upload the pictures here without having to use a third party hoster
spend more time reading the "doc" over and over rather than soldering (for the best)
battery is fine, still last about 3 hours, have been using it for the last 6months
Happy soldering.