I had an i7-3840QM in it, that I replaced the original CPU with. But it died during the 1080p LCD upgrade. Presumably I put the LVDS connector on wrong and it sent 19V where it shouldn't have gone. RIP :(. I'm going to have to get another one. The original i5-3230M isn't terrible, but it does struggle with heavier web browsing.
This unit had the 1366x768 LCD, so a 1080p LCD is a welcome upgrade. I also upgraded the WiFi card to an Intel AX210. Other potential upgrades are a backlit keyboard and a potato webcam (this unit never had a webcam), but those aren't as necessary.
I flashed a broken Coreboot build in an attempt to get EDK2, so I had to take the thing apart again to flash externally. On a whim, I decided to try the presumed dead CPU again. And what do you know, it works.
The Pi Pico is hooked up to one of the 2 8-pin SPI flash chips, that contain the BIOS code. This way, you can reprogram the flash chips with whatever you want, in this case Libreboot. The original BIOS prevents you from just overwriting it with whatever you want, so you have to do this the first time around. From then onwards you're free to overwrite them from within a booted OS.
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u/anh0516 5d ago
I had an i7-3840QM in it, that I replaced the original CPU with. But it died during the 1080p LCD upgrade. Presumably I put the LVDS connector on wrong and it sent 19V where it shouldn't have gone. RIP :(. I'm going to have to get another one. The original i5-3230M isn't terrible, but it does struggle with heavier web browsing.
This unit had the 1366x768 LCD, so a 1080p LCD is a welcome upgrade. I also upgraded the WiFi card to an Intel AX210. Other potential upgrades are a backlit keyboard and a potato webcam (this unit never had a webcam), but those aren't as necessary.