Take a look at our
ThinkPads.com HOME PAGE
For those who might want to contribute to the blog, start here: Editors Alley Topic
Then contact Bill with a Private Message

T530 Motherboard Upgrade

T430-T490, T530-T590 Series
Post Reply
Message
Author
Brandon0623
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2012 3:26 pm
Location: Oshawa, Canada

T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#1 Post by Brandon0623 » Sun Feb 11, 2018 4:32 pm

Question for everyone on this page

Is it possible to upgrade the T530 by replacing the integrated motherboard to a dedicated motherboard? (integrated meaning intel graphics only, dedicated meaning NVIDIA)

Thanks in advance

axur-delmeria
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 3810
Joined: Mon May 28, 2012 5:49 am
Location: Metro Manila, Philippines

Re: T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#2 Post by axur-delmeria » Sun Feb 11, 2018 4:58 pm

Yes. Note that the Intel-only heatsink is different from the one with nVidia GPU, it's recommended to buy a replacement board with the heatsink included.
Planned Purchase: T480s i5-8350 FHD Touch
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons :lol:
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E :cry:

Brandon0623
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2012 3:26 pm
Location: Oshawa, Canada

Re: T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#3 Post by Brandon0623 » Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:00 pm

Okay thank you

I was looking at getting both the motherboard and the heatsink to upgrade my T530.

axur-delmeria
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 3810
Joined: Mon May 28, 2012 5:49 am
Location: Metro Manila, Philippines

Re: T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#4 Post by axur-delmeria » Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:05 pm

IIRC it's possible to upgrade to a W530 board. Let's wait for other forum members to confirm.
Planned Purchase: T480s i5-8350 FHD Touch
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons :lol:
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E :cry:

Brandon0623
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2012 3:26 pm
Location: Oshawa, Canada

Re: T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#5 Post by Brandon0623 » Sun Feb 11, 2018 7:44 pm

One other question with regards to a change in motherboards. Would I have to make sure I use the serial number and product number of my current motherboard if going from integrated to discrete?

RealBlackStuff
Admin Emeritus
Admin Emeritus
Posts: 23809
Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:17 am
Location: Loch Garman, Éire

Re: T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#6 Post by RealBlackStuff » Mon Feb 12, 2018 4:56 am

If your discrete mobo is a used one, it should already have a matching discrete MTM in its BIOS.
No need to modify that.
Lovely day for a Guinness! (The Real Black Stuff)
Lenovo: X240, X250, T440p, T480, M900 Tiny.

PS: the old Boardroom website is still available on the Wayback Machine
.

Thinkpad4by3
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2670
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 9:25 am
Location: N. Bellmore, ny

Re: T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#7 Post by Thinkpad4by3 » Tue Feb 20, 2018 4:22 pm

RealBlackStuff wrote:
Mon Feb 12, 2018 4:56 am
If your discrete mobo is a used one, it should already have a matching discrete MTM in its BIOS.
No need to modify that.
And a label maker can solve the MTM on the bottom of the machine.
Thinkpad4by3's Law of the Universe.

The efficiency of two screens equally sized with equal numbers if pixels are equal. The time spent by a 4:3 user complaining about 16:9 is proportional to the inefficiency working with a 16:9 display, therefore the amount of useful work extracted is equal.

TPFanatic
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2213
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:29 pm
Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Re: T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#8 Post by TPFanatic » Tue Feb 20, 2018 5:15 pm

T530 that comes with DGPU has internal structural differences in planar that differentiate it from T530 with IGPU. The heatsink mounts are in a different place.

T530 with DGPU has the heatsink holes in the same place as W530.

You are best to upgrade to a W530 board if wanting a DGPU.

kfzhu1229
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2484
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#9 Post by kfzhu1229 » Wed Feb 21, 2018 10:55 pm

I personally have the T530i with discrete Nvidia NVS 5400M. The performance of that thing is around a Skylake/Kaby lake iGPU after an OC. If you use high quality thermal compound (best if liquid metal), you are able to push the clock of that chip all the way to the maximum (you get around up to 20% of performance gain) allowed in MSi Afterburner and it was still stable for me. That said, I still feel like the heatsink struggles to keep up with my i7-3720qm and NVS 5400m at the same time, though most games today won't utilise all the CPU power anyways (NVS 5400m is a HUGE bottleneck) so it doesn't take the heatsink to its knees as much.
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)

Brandon0623
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2012 3:26 pm
Location: Oshawa, Canada

Re: T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#10 Post by Brandon0623 » Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:06 pm

I recently did the upgrade however the board was a blank board with no serial number. I transferred the one on my system however there was also no dpk on the board so can no longer use the factory recovery discs. Is there any way around this?

RealBlackStuff
Admin Emeritus
Admin Emeritus
Posts: 23809
Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:17 am
Location: Loch Garman, Éire

Re: T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#11 Post by RealBlackStuff » Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:28 pm

You need the HMD to set MTM, S/N and UUID: http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... tm38us.exe
Download and double-click that file.
It unpacks to: C:\DRIVERS\Maintenance Diskette\i7tm38us
At the end, read the Information screen that follows and scroll down to how to make a USB version.
Lovely day for a Guinness! (The Real Black Stuff)
Lenovo: X240, X250, T440p, T480, M900 Tiny.

PS: the old Boardroom website is still available on the Wayback Machine
.

Brandon0623
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2012 3:26 pm
Location: Oshawa, Canada

Re: T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#12 Post by Brandon0623 » Thu Mar 01, 2018 5:52 pm

Did use the hmd to set the numbers but for preinstalled license still says no dpk

RealBlackStuff
Admin Emeritus
Admin Emeritus
Posts: 23809
Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:17 am
Location: Loch Garman, Éire

Re: T530 Motherboard Upgrade

#13 Post by RealBlackStuff » Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:34 pm

Install the latest BIOS.
Also get SLIC_ToolKit_V3.2.EXE to see if you have Slic2.1 for Vista and W7 as standard in your BIOS.
Who cares about a W8 key...

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “ThinkPad T430-T490 / T530-T590 Series”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 58 guests