Thinkpads Forum

LeoKim is at it again: Perfect T480 Modification with ThinkPad T25 7-Row Keyboard

Well, at least it's possible - though I wish he went into more detail on how to do it for those of us without a degree in electrical engineering...

Got my T480 a few weeks ago, and I have my old T25 keyboard on hand so I guess it's time to start getting the rest of the parts on order...

Was wondering if a CPU swap is possible instead of a keyboard swap. i.e. put a i7-8650u into a T25. i.e. if someone has the equipment and expertise to desolder and put a new one in.
Of course the BIOS has to support as well. The T480 series has been sold with 7th gen 7200u cpu etc.. That way the base, nvidia graphics , docking port are all still intact.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... 0-ghz.html

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... 0-ghz.html

Both seem to have same voltage and FCBGA1356 .

the CPU isn't just the CPU itself for this era, it's more than that. a lot of people in the know call these new CPUs SoCs for that very reason, because it integrates a lot of components into what would be the package meant for only the CPU. they might have the same voltage and amount of solder balls, but it doesn't mean it's a straight swap with a simple UEFI modification to follow.

for example, the 8650U and the 7500U you linked has integrated chipsets. that itself is a major blockade when it comes to CPU upgrades, as it may introduce a lot of electrical signaling changes that we can't see or tell apart from doing trial and error guesses. if you were to simply switch the SoC around that has a chipset which may be different, you have to modify the UEFI as well for that to work. and modifying the UEFI to support different chipsets? that's near impossible without building an entirely new UEFI from scratch.

for the record, switching chipsets generally requires the entire motherboard to be modified too. such as the amount of layers, traces, etc. you get the idea.

Thank you ThreeIguanasPerSecond, what you said makes lot of sense with the chipset etc.

Not sure if they used old chipset and designed specific motherboards, within the same series ( i.e. 20L5 ) and created a subseries within that 20L5.

on page 78 of this pdf http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/i_pdf/ThinkPad.pdf

The model is available for sale on amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Thinkpad- ... B07L6RKX2Y

From a manufacturing perspective, i.e. cost of production, would lenovo go out of their way to design whole new motherboard just to sell 2 older model i5 processors ...

Hence was hoping if the 8th generation and 7th generation support or can use same chipsets interchangeably.

Again like you said if it is a whole different chipset and components & sub components and Lenovo was willing to put in the effort just to call a T470 as T480 , they must be easily capable of making the T25 keyboard fit the newer models.

I wish lenovo gave the T25 keyboard as an option for other models or atleast for one model sometime in future which can get us through another 3 years of having a good machine!.

So far the T25 is great, does most of the things, except for running VM'.s

rssb wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 31, 2020 4:52 pm

I wish lenovo gave the T25 keyboard as an option for other models or atleast for one model sometime in future which can get us through another 3 years of having a good machine!

Everybody wishes that, except brain-dead corporate execs at Lenovo apparently. Who knows, maybe one day someone will surprise us.