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I am building a Super T420 with quad core and the WQHD mod.


Step 1, the quad core an i7 2670qm, is arrived and installed.

With Prime95 stressing all four cores the Quad Core settles in with each core running at base clock (2.2 ghz) and temps hovering at 80C.

With Furmark stressing the HD3000 at the same time the temps rise to around 90C. Furmark framerate averages 6 FPS.

With Furmark on but Prime95 off the HD3000 takes up to 15W and Furmark framerate averages 9 FPS. Temps hover around 60C.


The machine will double as a gaming rig hooked up to a GTX 960 through Expresscard GDC Beast.

I have always thought about hooking up an external video card to my T520 extreme. But never followed through with it. Too many wires and not mobile enough.

I bought a new Dell G3 instead with the NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti card installed. Runs very well with X-Plane 11 and the Boeing 727 add-on. Frame rates are hovering around 60.

Ordered an old Lite On MLC mSATA drive to replace my shoddy 1.8" SSD in 2.5" adapter currently occupying the main bay. My intention is to install Windows on the mSATA drive, along with essential program there, then put a 500GB spinner in the main bay serving as the storage drive for the video games.

The WQHD adapter is in the US and likely to arrive sooner than the LCD itself. Once in, I'll test it with the WQHD LCD out of the T430s. There will be pictures of the setup then.

Hi, I have t420 with i7 2670 and 16gb 1866hmz RAM and FHD IPS MOD and I am planning to upgrade it to WQHD. I am looking forward from hearing some new news about WQHD MOD. You will be probably among first who will do the mod working on t420 non-S.

The WQHD mod I got from e-qstore works great. I'm running it with the B140QAN01.1 out of my T430s for two reasons: First, the new WQHD I ordered from China is an incompatible LCD. Second I killed my T430s' Intel HD4000. How do I know the HD4000 is dead and not the NVS 5200m? I get pretty lines on the internal display but external displays show fine, and video out on these Optimus models always passes through the NVS 5200m. Surprisingly there is not option in the BIOS to use the NVS 5200m only. No idea why this was decontented. Older T410 with Optimus NVS 3100m 512mb had the option as do newer Optimus ThinkPads. For shame.

So the modkit works great as does the eGPU going to the internal display. 2560x1440 cleanly downscales to 1280x720, an appropriate videogame resolution.

I am having problems cooling the i7 2670qm, it can't sustain full-turbo or even normal-turbo and throttles hard when stressed. Granted, most desktop apps don't stress a CPU, but the idea is to use this for videogames where the turbo will make a difference. A T520 I built up with a 2760qm and dGPU heatsink does a much better job and sustains turbo thanks to the thicker CPU heatpipe on the dGPU heatsink, functional rear vent, and already massive side vent. I'm thinking of trying to fit a T420 dual heatpipe heatsink or a T430 heatsink in.

Many on the subreddit claim the 14" dGPU heatsinks cool the CPUs better than the 14" iGPU heatsinks, but this doesn't make sense as the CPU heatpipes are the same size on both versions. At least on the T430 heatsink, the two heatpipes touch eachother for most of their length, so maybe there is some help from the dGPU heatpipe there? However this doesn't fit perfectly in the T420 frame without mods, see what this redditor did.

Right now I'm running with turbo disabled and it's cool and quiet.

Very nice to see that WQHD mod works on T420 non-s. I will definitely get one. Which display and seller would you recommend? I would love to have as best display as possible (I do graphics stuff), ideally display from x1 carbon gen. 5 or 6 (I do not know the exact type, but I guess they use AUO)
I have t420 with i7 2670qm and I usually I do not have problems with cooling, I have iGPU delta fan. Sometimes when I do rendering It does throttle a bit, but not that much as my t420s with i7 2640m when I do rendering - it throttles dramatically.
I think that dead of iGPU is impossible and when it happens, whole CPU would not work. But death of dGPU is quite common.
Cooling capacity od dGPU heatsink I believe, is better because the extra heatpipe from gpu is actually conneced to main CPU heatpipe and thus the heat can be transfered to the dGPU heatpipe which can further irradiate heat from its surfrace out to the 1)motherboard, rollcage and keyboard 2) to the fan.

On the WQHD mod:

Adapters from any of the eBay or aliexpress sellers should work. I've bought from eqstore on eBay.

For LCDs it's a lottery every time. I've bought from US seller browngranite, they sent me the wrong screen. I've bought from one Chinese seller, they sent the right one. I've bought from another Chinese seller, they sent the wrong one. The LCD I'm using now may not even be a true AUO B140QAN01.1 as its sticker says, Monitor Asset Manager IDs it as an LG Philips LP140QH1-SPB1, although it's possible the adapter is the one giving false readings by nature of its operation.

WQHD screens are quite expensive right now. It may be wise to wait a year or two for them to start popping up in the used market, at cheaper prices, in nearly perfect conditions. My experience with brand new screens is they all aggravatingly develop defects fast.

Because of the price and used-market-availability aspect the FHD mod is much easier and cheaper to perform right now, the benefits of WQHD notwithstanding.



On heatsinks:

I am disturbed by the reddit OP's modification of the T430's dGPU heatpipe but he says a hole in the pipe wasn't made. Copper is malleable, a dGPU heatpipe can probably be bent into a T420 without removing material. I agree that the connection made by the two pipes may improve heat transfer. Compare the T430 design to the T420 dGPU design, where the dGPU and CPU pipes are independent except at the vents, and therefore not helping.

In my observations of heatsinks in T410, T420, T430, X220, and X230, more heatpipes is better than less heatpipes everything else the same, and a copper interface between pipes and vents is better than an aluminum interface. For the T420/T430, the ideal heatsink with dual CPU heatpipes and a copper pipe-vent interface does not exist. T430 dGPU heatsink maybe gets close to accomplishing this.

Absent more dramatic modifications, modified 04W3269 (T430, dGPU, Toshiba fan+motor - motor to be replaced with T420's own motor) seems to be the best heatsink.


Edit 29 October 2019:
I've ordered a T430 dGPU heatsink.
There are three FRUs for T430 dGPU heatsinks:

04W3269 - Toshiba fan <-- I ordered this one
04W3270 - Delta fan
04X3788 - SWG Toshiba fan, looks same as other one??

From pictures what seems to make the T430 dGPU fan the best for quad core systems is because the main CPU pipe and dGPU pipe seem to touch each other for a large part of travel, which should result in faster heat transfer from CPU to exhaust vent fins. The reddit threat also claims the T430 heatsink has more fins. Regarding the T420 dGPU heatsinks, their iGPU and dGPU pipes don't touch and the dual CPU pipe versions offered are compromised with aluminum interfacing the pipes to the vents.

Furthermore the Toshiba fan versions are superior because the Toshiba fans fin faster and airflow seems to be directed better.

I theorize the CPU and dGPU heatpipes can be further bridged by bending the dGPU pipe to touch the CPU pipe more, or thermal-gluing a small heatpipe over both of them.

Once my vanilla 04W3269 is in (ETA next week) I'll stress test my current fan, then install and test the 04W3269, before proceeding with any further mods.


Edit 31 October 2019:

04W3269 is installed.
Had to remove the original fan housing with the 5 pin fan and tape the original T420 fan housing with the 4 pin fan in its place. The rotor on the original fan is captive so that is kept. I just hammered the dGPU pipe instead of cutting into it. Additionally the left speaker had to be modified to fit over the dGPU pipe.

Thermal performance at maximum load is the same: bad, over 90C with sustained load, with throttling below max base clock. Performance is possibly better at medium load.

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 21, 2019 7:47 pm

I am building a Super T420 with quad core and the WQHD mod.


Step 1, the quad core an i7 2670qm, is arrived and installed.

With Prime95 stressing all four cores the Quad Core settles in with each core running at base clock (2.2 ghz) and temps hovering at 80C.

With Furmark stressing the HD3000 at the same time the temps rise to around 90C. Furmark framerate averages 6 FPS.

With Furmark on but Prime95 off the HD3000 takes up to 15W and Furmark framerate averages 9 FPS. Temps hover around 60C.


The machine will double as a gaming rig hooked up to a GTX 960 through Expresscard GDC Beast.

Amazing project. Hows your T420 holding up in year 2021? still going strong and very usable?

I reverted to i5 2520m awhile back. None of my T420 heatsinks could keep the quad from throttling and the retrofit T430 heatsink was no more effective. I theorize other people who report success with quads may be using TPFC to run the fan at max speed full time to keep it within bounds, I'm not doing this, I want the CPU cooled within factory fan parameters only, otherwise it's a fail in my book.

At some point I had a T420 dual-pipe heatsink with Panasonic fan installed. The fan just recently became rattley and I reinstalled my original T420 single-pipe heatsink, I did not identify the fan.

The i5 is doing just fine for my tasks up to and including timely video encoding. The QHD LCD remains fantastic.

This machine doesn't like talking to my eGPU and I haven't found the time to try any modern videogames with it anyway. Another machine may serve that purpose.

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 09, 2021 8:49 pm

I reverted to i5 2520m awhile back. None of my T420 heatsinks could keep the quad from throttling and the retrofit T430 heatsink was no more effective. I theorize other people who report success with quads may be using TPFC to run the fan at max speed full time to keep it within bounds, I'm not doing this, I want the CPU cooled within factory fan parameters only, otherwise it's a fail in my book.

I've got both a T530 and a W530 and I can tell you straight: quad core CPUs aren't really worth the trouble. Sure, they are more powerful, but what good is that extra power if you're always worried that your laptop is going to burn into ashes? Because literally, when I got my W530 and booted up from a DVD to test memory (passmark's memtest in full multi-threaded mode) it became so hot it smelled like something was burning inside and after some time it simply shut off. Sure, you can blame it on dirty heatsinks and bad thermal paste; but the truth is that there is a reason why the W530 comes with a 170W adapter while the regular T530 can work with a 65W one. Thing is, while the heatsink on the W530 is a little different from the T530, and perhaps a bit beefed up; it's not up to the task of chewing 100W more.

I had a different experience with the T520. Mine has a quad i7 2720QM installed, replacing its original i5 2520m. So it initially had the basic T520 heatsink with a tiny heatpipe and no rear vent. We modified a T520 dGPU heatsink with the bigger CPU heatpipe (ignoring the dGPU heatpipe, since no dGPU) and a functional rear vent. This combination runs cool and stable at maximum turbo boost, no throttling at all. It speeds through video converting and it cooperated with my eGPU the last time I tried it for video games. Shame there's no higher resolution LCD mods for the 15.6" platform or I'd be dailying one of those instead of this T420.....

I must say T520's speakers suck, though. They have no loudness at all, no bass, and no fidelity. If I used it more I'd replace them with smartphone speakers.

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 10, 2021 2:58 am

I had a different experience with the T520. Mine has a quad i7 2720QM installed, replacing its original i5 2520m. So it initially had the basic T520 heatsink with a tiny heatpipe and no rear vent. We modified a T520 dGPU heatsink with the bigger CPU heatpipe (ignoring the dGPU heatpipe, since no dGPU) and a functional rear vent. This combination runs cool and stable at maximum turbo boost, no throttling at all. It speeds through video converting and it cooperated with my eGPU the last time I tried it for video games. Shame there's no higher resolution LCD mods for the 15.6" platform or I'd be dailying one of those instead of this T420.....

I must say T520's speakers suck, though. They have no loudness at all, no bass, and no fidelity. If I used it more I'd replace them with smartphone speakers.

I reckon that the T520 has bigger and better heatsinks compared to the T420; besides, it's designed to accommodate quad-cores, while its 14-inch brethren isn't.

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 10, 2021 2:58 am

I must say T520's speakers suck, though. They have no loudness at all, no bass, and no fidelity. If I used it more I'd replace them with smartphone speakers.

From my experiences if you use the proper drivers instead of the HD Audio drivers, the sound can improve quite a bit. But as someone used to how mid 2000s laptop speakers sound, they are a piece of crap that's for sure and the last of those speakers you can get can be found on the likes of 4:3 T6x and my Dell Latitude D830.
It's sad though T520/T530 speakers are worse than my Latitude E6430, which turned out to be literally 4 Samsung Galaxy S4 like speakers, two on each side.

mikemex wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 09, 2021 11:54 pm

I've got both a T530 and a W530 and I can tell you straight: quad core CPUs aren't really worth the trouble. Sure, they are more powerful, but what good is that extra power if you're always worried that your laptop is going to burn into ashes?

In my opinion something like a lower end quad core i7 like my i7-3630QM turns out to be a sweeter spot than something like a i7-3720QM that I had on my T530.
In any kind of sustained load, the i7-3720QM will throttle down to at highest the 3.1-3.2Ghz all core turbo that I get with my i7-3630QM, which makes i7-3720QM almost pointless unless you use liquid metal and frankenstein mod the heatsink.

kfzhu1229 wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 11, 2021 2:43 pm

i7-3630QM turns out to be a sweeter spot

i7-3630qm does look nice but for my use it's missing a vital feature: there is no VT-d
VT-d is what enables me to run Win 10 nicely in a VM on Linux

i7-3632qm does have VT-d but it's more modest:

i7-3632qm 35W 2.2/3.2 GHz
i7-3630qm 45W 2.4/3.4 GHz
i7-3720qm 45W 2.6/3.6 GHz

I'm somewhat torn between 3632 and 3720 for my T530 with integrated graphics
Of course 3632 is also cheaper/more easily accessible

Whatever I choose will be replacing an i5-2520m

It is entirely conceivable I'd end up with a high load in a VM - but that would only be running on 2 out of 4 cores.
So higher clock might be somewhat beneficial..

Hmm.. maybe I could give 3 cores to the VM? That should also work.. Hmm.. then with 3632 I'd have 3x as much performance in the VM compared to what I've got now

P.S. okay, your post convinced me to pay £49 for a 3632qm inclusive of delivery in the UK, big thanks
I thought I'd purchased a 3720 earlier for similar money but it ended up in a lengthy dispute over a return of some rubbish that I received instead

atagunov wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 11, 2021 4:56 pm

i7-3630qm does look nice but for my use it's missing a vital feature: there is no VT-d
VT-d is what enables me to run Win 10 nicely in a VM on Linux

i7-3632qm does have VT-d but it's more modest:

i7-3632qm 35W 2.2/3.2 GHz
i7-3630qm 45W 2.4/3.4 GHz
i7-3720qm 45W 2.6/3.6 GHz

I'm somewhat torn between 3632 and 3720 for my T530 with integrated graphics
Of course 3632 is also cheaper/more easily accessible

P.S. okay, your post convinced me to pay £49 for a 3632qm inclusive of delivery in the UK, big thanks
I thought I'd purchased a 3720 earlier for similar money but it ended up in a lengthy dispute over a return of some rubbish that I received instead

Well to be honest the only reason why I chose the i7-3630qm is actually because someone local posted on Facebook marketplace one for half as much as what you paid! Turns out the reason is because the owner had it in an Inspiron 17 and raged on it when it died and yanked the cpu out of it! As such I had to bend back a few bent pins but its worth the hassle that's for sure!
Thats when I discovered that besides VT-d that I don't use at all, I'm not sacrificing much at all because of thermal limits of course, compared to my i7-3720qm
And yeah I'm using it on one with the NVS graphics, and my T530 with that plus i7-3720qm throttled in like 10 seconds even with just 50% cpu load and full gpu load that i had no choice but to use liquid metal!

kfzhu1229 wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 11, 2021 5:44 pm

And yeah I'm using it on one with the NVS graphics, and my T530 with that plus i7-3720qm throttled in like 10 seconds even with just 50% cpu load and full gpu load that i had no choice but to use liquid metal!

I see! The difference is I never have GPU loads, at all. Which in turn means I'm choosing integrated graphics.
Maybe I could have sustained 3720, who knows?.. But what's done is done

...and if I get bored I can swap the more powerful CPU from W530 to T530 !!
that W530 which is currently in service as a Win 10 machine within my family should have something like 3720 in it

P.S. oh snap! that T520 body where i7-3632qm on a T530 mobo/frame is supposed to go..
I've stripped one of the M2x5 screws holding the keyboard bezel.. I was going to ask for help with that... Really don't know how I'm going to take it apart now

atagunov wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 11, 2021 6:13 pm

I see! The difference is I never have GPU loads, at all. Which in turn means I'm choosing integrated graphics.
Maybe I could have sustained 3720, who knows?.. But what's done is done

Well I am pretty sure it can - barely and at probably a significant decrease in lifespan.
Even with liquid metal on my T530 with 5400M, a full load on CPU and idle GPU meant low 90s in temperature (manually set fan 7 in TPFancontrol), so you should expect similar things with yours that doesn't have an idle GPU to produce heat but also no liquid metal.
Also, I think I just realised the NVS 5400M only comes with DDR3 VRAM... This is sad because the supposedly inferior NVS 5200M that's inside my Dell laptop has GDDR5 VRAM, all while running 10W less!

kfzhu1229 wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 11, 2021 6:37 pm

T530 with 5400M

Heh, I'm not well versed at all in video cards.. But did T520/T530/W520/W530 not only come with either K2000M (like my W530) or K1000M?

atagunov wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 11, 2021 7:57 pm

Heh, I'm not well versed at all in video cards.. But did T520/T530/W520/W530 not only come with either K2000M (like my W530) or K1000M?

That's W520/W530. Discrete T520, T530 only come with NVS series AFAIK, with 4200M for the former and 5400M for the latter

I quite enjoyed the NVS 5200m in my T430s (RIP), based on 28nm GF117 and equivalent to Geforce 710m. Bioshock Infinite ran decent enough to be enjoyable. The NVS 5400m found in T430 and T530 is quite more capable though, and T530 at least has the thermal overhead to keep the dGPU alive longer.

Hello,

atagunov wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 11, 2021 7:57 pm

Heh, I'm not well versed at all in video cards.. But did T520/T530/W520/W530 not only come with either K2000M (like my W530) or K1000M?

The graphics cards are different in Ts and Ws, the W520 has either Quadro 1000M or Quadro 2000M whereas the W530 has K1000M or K2000M (the graphics controller, embedded in the CPU, is the Intel HD Graphics 3000 on the W520 and the Intel HD Graphics 4000 on the W530).
That's different (and it's better on the W530). It would have been strange to produce a new workstation with the same graphics components.

Quadro 1000M : https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/q ... 000m.c1431
Quadro 2000M : https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/q ... 000m.c1430
Quadro K1000M : https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/q ... 000m.c1425
Quadro K2000M : https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/q ... 000m.c1424
Intel HD Graphics 3000 : https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/h ... 3000.c1257
Intel HD Graphics 4000 : https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/h ... 4000.c1266

Back to my morning tea ! Have a good day !

W.