Someone was crazy enough to DIY upgrade his W701ds...

[axur-delmeria]

Found it here: https://www.instructables.com/Thinkpad- ... onversion/

Apparently he used a Lattepanda Alpha 864s single-board computer, and says that its Core M3-8100Y is 30% faster than the i7-920XM. He also upgraded the displays:

* 17.0" LG 2560x1600 main IPS screen
* 10.1" AUO 1920x1200 secondary IPS screen

It's also set up to work as a KVM, which means the screens and keyboard can be connected to other computers.

[WarhawkCZ]

I mean... wow..

[MikalE]

Everyone needs a hobby.

Not sure I would have gone to those lengths for only a 30% increase in performance. It's still way behind todays computers, but as an engineering exercise, it's a remarkable achievement. He did a great job with that.

[axur-delmeria]

30% CPU performance increase is still notable, though the 8GB RAM limit is a massive downgrade from the original's 32GB.

Also, the numeric pad apparently doesn't work. https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comme ... _guide_3d/

[Jake.Werecat]

a laptop consist solely of cables....

[unixed]

A really interesting approach that gets around some difficult problems if one were to use the original planar.
Screens.
I unsuccessfully tried to get the datasheet for the main screen (LG) some while ago, but that is unnecessary if you use a working controller board. With the W700/1ds the resolution of the secondary screen is chosen to match that of the main screen, so that one can seamlessly slide a window across, for example. I prefer this approach where the vertical resolution step is much bigger in comparison (320 px versus 80).
What I am curious about is the backlight control. How is dimming handled? With the W700/1ds the secondary screen LED driver is on the planar and manual dimming is functionally the same as for any other period thinkpad such as the X61, T61, R500 etc -- one set of key-combinations, the equivalent of the audio buttons to the left of the ThinkVantage button, controls both screens. I don't see how the OP is doing that even individually, let alone in a matched manner (this is even more remarkable for the W700ds where the main screen has dual-CCFL backlights and the secondary screen has an LED array).
KVM.
I usually achieve this via networking, sshfs, ssh -X, X2X etc and the OPs approach provides another tool. It enables retention of the superior human machine interface (high aspect ratio high resolution IPS screen, classic keyboard/trackpoint) and offloading any excess computational requirements should that prove necessary.
SBC.
This beauty is what makes this project possible and reversible (which is why the crazy in the thread title is misleading), packing so much functionality into so small a package. That being said, it is also the weakness. Not only is the RAM limited but if it fails it can't be simply replaced. Replacing the whole SBC would make it very expensive RAM and I imagine this would apply to other components too.

A big thank you to the OP for sharing his fine work and documentation with us.

[SAIYAN48]

Too bad the CPU can't be upgraded to Ivybridge, it'd outperform the 8100y.

[unixed]

Just use a networked CPU. That can be on a headless SBC running off a power bank via a patch cable or a remote workstation or ...