Thinkpads Forum

Good morning. I am new in the forum. I take this opportunity to introduce myself, my name is Alvaro from Spain and I am the proud owner of a second hand x230 with i5 processor that goes like silk. It is like new. The seller had not even removed the stickers from the 'ThinkPad' logos. The battery is new and the condition is amazing. Looking on Wallapop I found an i7 motherboard and I decided to buy it to give some more life to my all time favorite laptop. Here comes the question:
Are there any considerations I should take into account when making the motherboard change beyond changing the thermal paste on the processor or fan cleaning?
Thank you very much for the answers!!!

To be honest, upgrading from an i5 to i7 dual-core doesn't give much of an improvement, unless it's actually one of those modified boards with the quad-core i7-3612QE or i7-3615QE. IMO that's the only CPU upgrade worth undertaking.

I have the board. It's a i7-3520M and i'll do just for fun. Any considerations with the swap?

Follow the HMM and you'll be fine. I second what axur-delmeria responded, this swap is not worth the labor.

How did the swap go? The only consideration I would add is that it seems like you are desecrating a mint-condition machine there!

I wouldn't exchange a nearly new motherboard with an used one unless you have no other option.

I found my X1 Carbon 5th virtually new years after it was discontinued. 6300U with 8GB of RAM. I found a donor machine with 7600U and 16GB of RAM in good shape. I swapped the motherboards. I ended up with an X1C5 in nearly pristine condition with Spanish keyboard. I only did it because it's such a pain in the butt to swap the keyboard layout/language in the models with integrated palmrest. And of course, because it was a quite good jump. Otherwise, new motherboard > old motherboard.