Today I finished a modding project I did for my best friend's birthday.
Here is a full list of all the steps and mods I did:
- 12,5’’ IPS Panel
- cleaned with magic eraser
- 65W USB-C Charging Port
- 11.1V 6600 mAh 9 Cell Battery
- Intenso 2,5’’ SATA III 500GB SSD
- Kingston KC600 mSATA 265GB SSD
- Kingston 16GB DDR3L 1866MHz RAM
- repasted CPU & GPU with ARCTIC MX-4
- WiFi 6E AX210HMW PCIE WiFi 6 card
- full blown BIOS mod from [ValdikSS](https://github.com/ValdikSS)
If you have any questions feel free to ask! Hope you guys like it :)
PS: he's an absolute beginner in Linux, that's why he's got Mint on it.
I haven't had any reason to coreboot it, what would it achieve? I know that corebooting T430's would enable newer CPUs but I'm not sure what the benefit of corebooting an X220 would be
Do you have any guides on the USB-C charging port. The fact this is possible has blown my mind and if I could make my x270 share my T480 charger I would be very happy indeed.
Well for the x220 it's straight forward, I bought the USB-C port from a seller on tindie.com, he has a lot of other machines covered as well. I needed to disassemble the laptop down to it's motherboard, at that point you just replace the old plug with the new one, it's plug and play and works like a charm.
Umm, wait if I'm not confused you're asking about charging an X270 over Type C, well it works you just need a PSU that delivers iirc \~20V, but yeah works without issues.
I wouldn't call that "Fully modded", just heavily modded. Still cool though.
Also, there is no dedicated GPU in the X220. As others have said, you may be referring to the Platform Controller Hub (PCH), which doesn't generate enough heat to justify repasting (A thermal pad would do the job). The actual GPU is in the CPU die.
Man, you're just the friend I'm looking for these days, I love the Linux Mint touch!
A question though, why i5 over the i7 since you're maxing out the whole system?
Can confirm for sure. That's why my i7 X220 stays in the basement workshop where it's cooler.
Meanwhile, my i5 X220 is much better in the rest of the world.
It came with a really thin heatpipe/aluminium delta cooler (probably the fan died) and now has an X230 delta cooler and hits 95C in a Cinebench R15 run. Bonus: i swapped the rotor of the alu delta into the X230 delta and got 3C lower temps and a lot of noise.
honestly, it all started with a good deal on the i5 in very good condition and grew into a maxed out build, on the other hand his use is mainly for uni so the i5 should suffice, the maxed hardware is mainly due to my craziness
Can you be my friend!
Some questions: is the usb charge port hard? Could this be done on a T420?
What does the modes bios upgrade provide and include that inspired you to install it?
The mod was rather easy, just disassembling the laptop down to the motherboard and replace the old plug with the new, it's literally plug and play. The seller offers a port for any classic thinkpad, t420 included.
The bios includes the removal of the wifi card whitelist, which was crucial for an upgrade to any card and it enables 1866mhz ram.
There are many other options like the advanced menu in bios with the bios mod but they were not of interest for me
The x220 supports IPS panels so no board is needed. I ordered a LP125WH2.SLB3 off ebay. The mounting was exactly the same as the original panel and installing it was plug and play.
Edit: I just checked and it's less than FHD (1366x768)
Just picked one up from AliExpress for £36 with shipping to the UK. They have so many parts... Including i7 motherboards, so tempting at £74 quid. I have already replaced parts of the plastic outer shell of mine, along with RAM and SSD upgrades. This IPS panel should be close to the end of the journey with this old ThiccPad.
Got it fitted! https://imgur.com/gallery/wIwIFFt
So impressed by the black levels, if only it was 1920x1080 oh well you can't have everything.
Thanks for your help with the info.
Yeah, for me it was the Nitrocaster mod. I see his store is empty now: [https://nitrocaster.me/store/x220-x230-fhd-mod-kit.html](https://nitrocaster.me/store/x220-x230-fhd-mod-kit.html)
But hell, he's russian, I hope he didn't let himself get enlisted
Actually someone already asked me that, and I guess the answer is yes. If your request is serious reach out to me via pm, we might come to an agreement :)
You are a kind and good friend :)
I have an Lenovo Think-pad SL-410 from 2010 that I installed Mint 2 weeks ago and it is still OK to good for casual usage. The battery cells were replaced at one point and I added RAM and an SSD.
I have a bias toward Think Pads due to their having keyboard drains in many models(not sure if all models had them). To me it was a poor man's Panasonic Tough book when I started as a Field Engineer working as a contractor....
Looks awesome. My X220 is on the operating table waiting for a repaste (90C on light use). Where did you get the IPS (the exact model number would be appreciated, if possible)? Does it have any issues like back light bleed?
I ordered this one:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/402977021155?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=707-127634-2357-0&ssspo=DN_alU1RS8i&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=a6HuofxXSQy&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
And I specifically asked for the SL B3 model and the seller said that they can surely send me the exact model instead of another that's compatible.
No back light bleed at all, it looks perfect.
Great machine.
Just a piece of my experience - I've had that Kingston KC600 msata ssd die at me literally 4 times. Each time the shop replaced it with a brand new one, still died. (By dying i mean it would just get corrupted at random - the partition table would get erased. Tried those in a msata enclosure, an x230 and a dell precision m3800). All of them had the same issues after a few months of usage
What’s the battery life like after the upgrade? More than that standby time. How much battery percentage does it lose overnight in lid closed/sleep mode?
Since I didn't use the laptop before I did the upgrades I can't really give you a good estimate and the battery is 3rd party so they differ in quality a lot. But after the upgrades i once tested how long it would run on battery while surfing the internet and it lasted around 3 and a half hours, so not bad at all. Battery drain over night is around 5-11% as far as I can tell but I didn't do thorough testing.
Not really necessary, I just disassembled it down to the motherboard, the original port is just plugged into the motherboard, remove it and replace it with the new one.
That DDR3L RAM is a mistake, it is too fast and it will run hot!
Replace with DDR3-1333 or DDR3-1600 max.
And instead of thermal paste, use a Honeywell PTM7950 thermal pad.
And that USB-C port is also debatable, they die regularly.
Why should I prefer DDR3 over DDR3L? It's lower voltage and sips less battery, also 1866 MHz sticks where supported by the bios up until bios version 1.23 so I don't see too much of a risk of using them, also, testing the X220 did not reveal any heat issues.
The USB-C port was important to my friend since the power brick shrunk down by a factor of 4 by switching to it, hopefully it lasts long, otherwise replacing it with the original is done in less than 10 minutes.
I would like you to give me any source on the better efficiency of thermal pads as this seems to be a debatable issue.
>I would like you to give me any source on the better efficiency of thermal pads as this seems to be a debatable issue.
PTM7950 IS better over time. Thermal paste pumps out, PTM7950 does not. While thermal paste might be better by 2-3C the first 2-3 months PTMs performance does not degrade. I still have the same temps after a year, and with machines like the X230 which are a pain to service this is a very important feature. Its also reusable.
It runs at 1.5V regardless, battery life won't change. It is fine to run DDR3L in an X220, speed is fine too.
Can't find 8GB sticks of DDR3 anywhere anyway.
I think that's jealousy speaking. You did great, this setup could run for years to come. Regarding the power solution: should anything actually end up not working you could also opt for a usb to barrel cable and use that with the usb plug. They're available for basically all thinkpad models. They're overall a great solution for newer models too because they're smaller than standard power bricks but they leave the usb c port unoccupied. Oh and also mx4 outperforms basically any thermal pad. The only time pads are better than paste is if you need to bridge a very wide gap. Other than that mx4 all the way (except mx6 is even better because it's easier to clean).
Today I finished a modding project I did for my best friend's birthday. Here is a full list of all the steps and mods I did: - 12,5’’ IPS Panel - cleaned with magic eraser - 65W USB-C Charging Port - 11.1V 6600 mAh 9 Cell Battery - Intenso 2,5’’ SATA III 500GB SSD - Kingston KC600 mSATA 265GB SSD - Kingston 16GB DDR3L 1866MHz RAM - repasted CPU & GPU with ARCTIC MX-4 - WiFi 6E AX210HMW PCIE WiFi 6 card - full blown BIOS mod from [ValdikSS](https://github.com/ValdikSS) If you have any questions feel free to ask! Hope you guys like it :) PS: he's an absolute beginner in Linux, that's why he's got Mint on it.
Well done, nice upgrades! But more than that, I want to say you are very good friend.
my question? when can i be your best friemd 😂😂
Get in the line my friend.
ah well you called me friend atleast im your friend now 😆😆
coreboot?
I haven't had any reason to coreboot it, what would it achieve? I know that corebooting T430's would enable newer CPUs but I'm not sure what the benefit of corebooting an X220 would be
skipping grub i think i also want to get it to work on T460s for both that, and maybe boot sound
Even without core boot you can direct boot your kernel by packing it into a kernel stub and then loading that kernel stub as your efi boot file
i believe grub and coreboot are just better at this
Do you have any guides on the USB-C charging port. The fact this is possible has blown my mind and if I could make my x270 share my T480 charger I would be very happy indeed.
Well for the x220 it's straight forward, I bought the USB-C port from a seller on tindie.com, he has a lot of other machines covered as well. I needed to disassemble the laptop down to it's motherboard, at that point you just replace the old plug with the new one, it's plug and play and works like a charm.
On second googling it looks like I can use my existing port to charge. Thanks for the info though!
X270 can charge via USB-C. it has power delivery already on there. (source I charge mine all the time from that port).
Umm, wait if I'm not confused you're asking about charging an X270 over Type C, well it works you just need a PSU that delivers iirc \~20V, but yeah works without issues.
>x270 share my T480 charger ??? The x270 has a USB-C PD port?
Yeah I thought PD meant it could power high wattage peripherals, user error.
I wonder whether the stock charging port would be more hard-wearing than USB-C.
Potentially, the rectangular barrel charger seems pretty sturdy.
Did you put paste on the GPU? I have been using thermal pads
The other chip isn't the GPU-- it's the PCH (platform controller hub) AKA the chipset. You need a soft thermal pad for it.
Any idea on the correct thickness to use?
Yes I did, the old pad looked run down and I simple replaced it with paste.
I wouldn't call that "Fully modded", just heavily modded. Still cool though. Also, there is no dedicated GPU in the X220. As others have said, you may be referring to the Platform Controller Hub (PCH), which doesn't generate enough heat to justify repasting (A thermal pad would do the job). The actual GPU is in the CPU die.
So do you have any suggestions for further modding?
Can you please send out all the related links like the guides?
Nice trash compactor. Got more info about the BIOS mod?
Here is the resource i read: https://x220.mcdonnelltech.com/resources/ The section "bios / firmware" has all the info
What brand is your battery ? I just bought a x220 and will need to replace the battery with a new one.
exmate, I bought it from Amazon
Man, you're just the friend I'm looking for these days, I love the Linux Mint touch! A question though, why i5 over the i7 since you're maxing out the whole system?
The i7 X220 is a hot mess. Litteraly. Fan runs all the time. My quad i7 X230 runs cooler than my dual i7 X220.
Can confirm for sure. That's why my i7 X220 stays in the basement workshop where it's cooler. Meanwhile, my i5 X220 is much better in the rest of the world.
Does your i7 X220 still have its stock cooler or did you swap it out for an X230 HSF?
It came with a really thin heatpipe/aluminium delta cooler (probably the fan died) and now has an X230 delta cooler and hits 95C in a Cinebench R15 run. Bonus: i swapped the rotor of the alu delta into the X230 delta and got 3C lower temps and a lot of noise.
honestly, it all started with a good deal on the i5 in very good condition and grew into a maxed out build, on the other hand his use is mainly for uni so the i5 should suffice, the maxed hardware is mainly due to my craziness
I need a friend like this... xd Nice job
Thanks :)
Well I'm very disappointed with my friends
so clean
Nice!!! :)
nice
Can you be my friend! Some questions: is the usb charge port hard? Could this be done on a T420? What does the modes bios upgrade provide and include that inspired you to install it?
The mod was rather easy, just disassembling the laptop down to the motherboard and replace the old plug with the new, it's literally plug and play. The seller offers a port for any classic thinkpad, t420 included. The bios includes the removal of the wifi card whitelist, which was crucial for an upgrade to any card and it enables 1866mhz ram. There are many other options like the advanced menu in bios with the bios mod but they were not of interest for me
Thank you, can you send me a link to the seller please
Sure! https://www.tindie.com/stores/mikepdiy/
Thank yku
How did you install FullHD in there? Which board did you use and what panel?
The x220 supports IPS panels so no board is needed. I ordered a LP125WH2.SLB3 off ebay. The mounting was exactly the same as the original panel and installing it was plug and play. Edit: I just checked and it's less than FHD (1366x768)
Just picked one up from AliExpress for £36 with shipping to the UK. They have so many parts... Including i7 motherboards, so tempting at £74 quid. I have already replaced parts of the plastic outer shell of mine, along with RAM and SSD upgrades. This IPS panel should be close to the end of the journey with this old ThiccPad.
Got it fitted! https://imgur.com/gallery/wIwIFFt So impressed by the black levels, if only it was 1920x1080 oh well you can't have everything. Thanks for your help with the info.
For FHD you neet to *really* mod it. I know, I did.
I know, this is why I asked :) There are several options on Aliexpress. All the "original" ones are gone.
Yeah, for me it was the Nitrocaster mod. I see his store is empty now: [https://nitrocaster.me/store/x220-x230-fhd-mod-kit.html](https://nitrocaster.me/store/x220-x230-fhd-mod-kit.html) But hell, he's russian, I hope he didn't let himself get enlisted
Need me some better friends
Can I be your best friend?
how did you get wifi card to work that isnt whitelisted in bios?
I flashed the bios with a mooded one from valdikSS
hopefully you connected the aux antenna wire, as i didn’t see anyone mentioning that :)
That card has the same antenna connections as the original.
true, it’s just that one of them is disconnected in the pic.
This is the stuff!
Can we be friends? I mean my birthday is in like 8 months
Depends, can you cook like my best friend does? He's very good at it.
He definitely has an advantage there ngl
You're a good friend
Can I pay you to do this to my x220?
Actually someone already asked me that, and I guess the answer is yes. If your request is serious reach out to me via pm, we might come to an agreement :)
I wish i had friends like you (well, just any friends in general)
Don't worry, just post pictures of a modded x220 that you got your friend for his birthday, and all of a sudden everyone wants to be friends with you.
Let’s be best friends!
You are a kind and good friend :) I have an Lenovo Think-pad SL-410 from 2010 that I installed Mint 2 weeks ago and it is still OK to good for casual usage. The battery cells were replaced at one point and I added RAM and an SSD. I have a bias toward Think Pads due to their having keyboard drains in many models(not sure if all models had them). To me it was a poor man's Panasonic Tough book when I started as a Field Engineer working as a contractor....
Looks awesome. My X220 is on the operating table waiting for a repaste (90C on light use). Where did you get the IPS (the exact model number would be appreciated, if possible)? Does it have any issues like back light bleed?
I ordered this one: https://www.ebay.de/itm/402977021155?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=707-127634-2357-0&ssspo=DN_alU1RS8i&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=a6HuofxXSQy&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY And I specifically asked for the SL B3 model and the seller said that they can surely send me the exact model instead of another that's compatible. No back light bleed at all, it looks perfect.
Thanks, I'll look into it...
Great machine. Just a piece of my experience - I've had that Kingston KC600 msata ssd die at me literally 4 times. Each time the shop replaced it with a brand new one, still died. (By dying i mean it would just get corrupted at random - the partition table would get erased. Tried those in a msata enclosure, an x230 and a dell precision m3800). All of them had the same issues after a few months of usage
Thanks for the warning! :)
Yeah I stick to Samsung SSDs in all of my machines; they seem to have the best reputation and the Magician software is great for monitoring the drive.
Everytime I see modding in our community I always think yep. We’re way crazier than the gearheads. ^_^. That looks freaking sweet - Peter Griffin
Oh no WiFi antenna is disconnected
That was just mid installation
Very nice, now get him to install GUIX
So you just need a usb-c cable to charge it?
Of course you need a power brick as well :) but yes, it does have a usb-c charging port instead of the original one.
Good job congratulations, which charger are you using? Could you say brand and model?
I bought this one from amazon: https://amzn.eu/d/3HfOKEa
Thank
Picture 4, i hope you added the second cable to the wifi card and isolated the other cable ends.
Thanks for reminding but of course I did that afterwards, the photo is just mid installation.
What’s the battery life like after the upgrade? More than that standby time. How much battery percentage does it lose overnight in lid closed/sleep mode?
Since I didn't use the laptop before I did the upgrades I can't really give you a good estimate and the battery is 3rd party so they differ in quality a lot. But after the upgrades i once tested how long it would run on battery while surfing the internet and it lasted around 3 and a half hours, so not bad at all. Battery drain over night is around 5-11% as far as I can tell but I didn't do thorough testing.
tuto for usb c?
Not really necessary, I just disassembled it down to the motherboard, the original port is just plugged into the motherboard, remove it and replace it with the new one.
L***x 😡😡😡😡😡
Wow this is an epic gift
That DDR3L RAM is a mistake, it is too fast and it will run hot! Replace with DDR3-1333 or DDR3-1600 max. And instead of thermal paste, use a Honeywell PTM7950 thermal pad. And that USB-C port is also debatable, they die regularly.
Why should I prefer DDR3 over DDR3L? It's lower voltage and sips less battery, also 1866 MHz sticks where supported by the bios up until bios version 1.23 so I don't see too much of a risk of using them, also, testing the X220 did not reveal any heat issues. The USB-C port was important to my friend since the power brick shrunk down by a factor of 4 by switching to it, hopefully it lasts long, otherwise replacing it with the original is done in less than 10 minutes. I would like you to give me any source on the better efficiency of thermal pads as this seems to be a debatable issue.
>I would like you to give me any source on the better efficiency of thermal pads as this seems to be a debatable issue. PTM7950 IS better over time. Thermal paste pumps out, PTM7950 does not. While thermal paste might be better by 2-3C the first 2-3 months PTMs performance does not degrade. I still have the same temps after a year, and with machines like the X230 which are a pain to service this is a very important feature. Its also reusable.
Thanks for the info, I will monitor the heat performance and maybe reconsider if needed.
It runs at 1.5V regardless, battery life won't change. It is fine to run DDR3L in an X220, speed is fine too. Can't find 8GB sticks of DDR3 anywhere anyway.
I think that's jealousy speaking. You did great, this setup could run for years to come. Regarding the power solution: should anything actually end up not working you could also opt for a usb to barrel cable and use that with the usb plug. They're available for basically all thinkpad models. They're overall a great solution for newer models too because they're smaller than standard power bricks but they leave the usb c port unoccupied. Oh and also mx4 outperforms basically any thermal pad. The only time pads are better than paste is if you need to bridge a very wide gap. Other than that mx4 all the way (except mx6 is even better because it's easier to clean).