Thinkpads Forum

In the past I modded a T430s and made a X330, both with bga cpu replacements, screens, classic keyboards, etc

Both were a lot of work but extremely fun to build, plus I'm clearly I'm a glutton for punishment so I'm looking into the possibility of getting a W530 with the purpose of trying to do something unconventional, a GPU replacement, there seems to be a plausible path to do that as long as you find a chip that will fit the bga contacts, doesn't exceed 55w and you can get a corresponding video blob.

With bga CPU's things are a little easier, you know what kind of socket you're looking for and you know which CPU will work, I'm completely unfamiliar how nvidia does things in that regard, logic dictates that probably there's still a common socket among their GPU's, would a newer generation of quadro's work?

I'd love to hear ideas

P.S. before anyone asks:
1. I know where to get the bga work done, it's not an issue.
2. I can get my hands on almost any kind of GPU chip, scarcity is not a concern.

I'm no expert, but I think it can only work with certain GPUs of the same generation, and then you have to worry about the video BIOS embedded in the system BIOS.
Maybe it's a good idea to hunt down GPU datasheets in order to figure out the pinouts. The only thing crazier than that would be to remove the GPU itself and fabricate an interposer board to break out the PCIe signals so you can route it to an external graphics card (if that's even possible).

Thanks for chipping in!

The video bios is a concern but one way or another I'll get my hands on it if it can be done physically

I've looked everywhere but I don't see a description of what kind of pinout they are using, I mean logic says it should be something standard, hopefully someone knows more!