New w530. Upgrades?

[James2406]

i7-3740qm
k2000m
12gb ram
Samsung evo 850 500bg ssd.
1x1 11b/g/n Wireless LAN PCI Express Half Mini Card Adapter

No bluetooth or fingerprint reader but I may order them.
I paid $366 for it looks in good shape the inside is nice too no replaced parts.
What can I do with the express card slot? external gpu maybe? New to this.

I priced the i7XM and yeah idk if I can afford that but what about the wifi card can I upgrade it? What else would you recommend to a new w530 owner. I had a w510 i7-820qm fx880m but my cat spilled a bottle of beer on it. Ripped it apart asap think I saved everything but the mb is probably done. Haven't re-assembled it yet and it gave me an excuse to get a newer thinkpad.

[RealBlackStuff]

If you want another wifi-card, you'll probably need to mod your BIOS with an SPI programmer to remove the wifi-Whitelist.
See here: https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread- ... 1#pid74571
Read more in that thread to get an idea of what else is required.
And this: https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread- ... st-removal

Warning: that forum does not have the brightest kids on the block...

[James2406]

Well I did have an recommended BIOS update in fear of bricking this new PC I skipped it. In the BIOS it says "UEFI BIOS VERSION 2.54" but the Bios version in the update is 2.66.1.13 Should I do it? Why is this such a issue?

[RealBlackStuff]

It's the UEFI BIOS that makes life miserable for all of us since Tx30/Wx30/Xx30.
Either get a Lenovo-approved wifi-card from the W530_fru_bom list (P/N or FRU 60Y3233, Intel 6300 WLAN, recommended)
or go thru the SPI-programmer hassle if you want something else.

[Tim-ANC]

my cat spilled a bottle of beer on it. Ripped it apart asap

Great, one less cat in the world

[Farro]

@tim
funny !!!

[Tim-ANC]

@tim
funny !!!

I couldn't resist. Read through that twice before I understood he meant taking his computer apart. Not sure I believe it was his cat that did the beer spilling, but understand why it should be blamed nevertheless.