Thinkpads Forum

For the last couple months, I've been working on building the ultimate laptop. It's almost impossible to find a W701DS, let alone one that I can afford. So I got a hold of a W700DS with a bad mobo and decided to upgrade it to a W701DS. I've done similar upgrades with an x200 to an x201, and figured this wouldn't be much more complicated. Heh, I was dead wrong.

After finally tracking down someone who would sell me a w701ds mobo (I placed 3 orders before someone would actually send me what they claimed to have in stock). I bought a nice i7 920xm cpu, 32G RAM, a 240G SSD & 750Gb WD Black hard drive and went to work on the upgrade. The first thing I discovered was, the memory slots were in a different position. The internal frame, which looked like it had a position for memory slots on the top of the mobo was a decoy. The memory slots changed from being horizontal to vertical, and the internal frame ran right into where the memory should be. I thought I might be able to cut out a portion so the memory would fit. But then I discovered the USB & firewire ports on the left had changed position, and the internal frame fit right around those ports. There was really no way getting around it, I'd need the w701 internal frame ($150, only 1 supplier on the internet).

Another problem was that the CPU had changed location, the W700 heatsink & fan would need to be replaced. Then I saw that the connector for the expresscard/SATA board had changed from being on at the top of the card to the right of the card. I had to buy a new express card / SATA board because of this change as well. The new internal frame adjusts for all of these new connectors, and also acts as a heatsink for the northbridge chip (which is no longer protected by the cpu heatsink), so there's really no way around the new internal frame either.

I just got the frame today, I'm hoping I'll be able to get away with the W700 LCD & graphics card. I'll be proceeding with the upgrade this weekend and will post an update on whether or not I was successful.

I figured I was blazing new trails here with this upgrade, and I was hoping I could pass some of this knowledge off to someone else, just in case someone else gets a crazy idea that this might be an easy upgrade path for the ultimate laptop.

Someday, I might go for an upgrade to the RGB LED display meant for the w701, but I'll see how things go with what I have so far first.

You're a brave person, yorgasor. You remind me of a guy who used to post here about the W700, named tinkererguy.

I think you'll have difficulty swapping the video cards between the W700x and W701x motherboards:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?p=565274

We've had people swap different RGB-LED-backlit displays within W-series machines before, though:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 66#p669666

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=103416
(as I recall from one of the other threads, this person did swap their display)

Good luck, and let us know how things go!

Bollux. You're right, the two do have different slots for the graphics cards. That's lame, that will be another $200 for the upgrade I also saw in the maintenance manual that there is a different heatsink/fan for the w701 graphics card. I expect there will be some requirement for the upgraded heatsink, especially considering the FX3800M lets off considerably more heat.

Thanks for the heads up, it looks like it will be yet a while before I'll have this laptop fully functional

You could go with the 2800M, assuming there are no physical incompatibilities between that and the W700x's GPU heatsink, although it would be slightly less fun. Slightly faster than the Quadro FX 3700M from the W700, though, and surprisingly close to the 3800M. TDP for the 2800M is 75W, just like the 3700M. I don't know if it has a different capacity in terms of how many displays it can drive, compared to the 3800M.

Here's a comparison of GPUs:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Gra ... 844.0.html

(Uncheck the "Still available (not archived)" box near the top of the page, then click on the "Restrict" button slightly below that.)

Detail for 2800M:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Qua ... 061.0.html

Anyway, hang in there!

Anyone know if the w701 can use an HP model FX 2800M or FX 3800M video card? The Lenovo branded ones are harder to find and more expensive. I expect that they're physically the same, but I've been bit before on trying to get non-whitelisted wifi card to work (trying to use an wifi card from an x200 on an x201 mobo was a disaster). I wouldn't be surprised if they do the same thing for the graphics cards.

Rats, I guess I found the answer to my own question. This guy tried using different MXM cards and almost bricked his LCD: http://ridingtheflow.blogspot.com/2011/ ... nd-of.html. It's a pity, I'd love to pick a video card that could support the two displays on the w701ds and an external display.

Well, that was a major failure

The w701 display assembly has a different ribbon cable that connects it to the motherboard. It is also in a slightly different location. At this point I have almost completely rebuilt the laptop from the ground up. I kept the bottom piece, but had to cut away a little piece from the side to get the usb ports to line up. I've also kept the audio connection card. That's about it.

I almost have enough of the work done that I can use it as a desktop computer, hooked up to an external display. I guess I'll go with that for a while until I can find a new display for it.

And... I can't even get the laptop to power on. I think I'll cut my losses now before I throw any more money down into this hole

I can't believe what these things are selling for, even today. I had my eye on one when they went on sale for a pretty good discount. Little did I know they were on clearance so I missed out. I do recall they were less expensive then they are on ebay right now.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad ... 1060578033

yes, you are a brave person yorgasor...

My memory may be fuzzy but I remember when I looked up the manual for a-- "what if" w700 video card upgrade ..there were base frame and one or two other parts that needed to changed.. so its not a cheap option..and so I decided to look for the max videos card when I was looking for a used W700..(couldn't afford or justify a used W701..the prices were still insane for a three year old notebook)

W7XX series are really great laptop looking back.. I play alot of sim racing games on my W700DS--on max settings and Iam still impress they are able to keep up... and the fans are impressive.. they keep the machine cool and I haven't even reach 90 degree on my machine after a few hours of driving...

if looking for an used ..try to find a maxed out spec one as much as possible.. the parts and upgrade later its quite high.. but if u enjoy taking these part .. and mod .. they its just pure joy..
these are great notebooks..too bad the 17 inch were discontinued..

The guy(s) posting these for sale on ebay are still doing so cuz they've overpriced 'em so much no one will buy them.

If you're really interested in one, hit 'em up with a msg/email and a lowball price and see if they're motivated yet. Price-wise, these will only go down over time, so these clowns are sitting on depreciating inventory, whether they wanna admit it or not.