Upgrading a T901, Results!

Not sure why my post is blank. Here's what I tried to type here...

I recently bought a T901, my first ever laptop. Because of my lifelong experience of building all the desktop computers I've ever owned component by component, I couldn't help but try customizing everything about this laptop to make it exactly what I wanted.

Unfortunately there's precious little information about customizing laptops, at least relative to desktops, so I though I'd post the results of what I've done so other people can find this information instead of experimenting for themselves like I did.

RAM
Fujitsu says that 8GB is the maximum. This is wrong! I've got 16 GB running in here just fine. Boots just fine, and Memtest-ed for 8 hours overnight without any problems or errors.

Optical Drive
Fujitsu wants $250 for a T901 with a Blu-ray drive. Which nowadays is pretty much the cost of two standalone blu-ray players. I bought a Panasonic UJ-240 for $75. I replaced its bezel with the irregularly shaped one from the T901's DVD drive so it would fit in the slot (the modular bay quick release prevents using standard bezels). I took off the, uh, framework or rails or mounting kit (I don't know what else to it) from the old drive and put it on the new one so it would fit snugly. It's about a 2 minute upgrade that saves $175.

Processor
Fujitsu says that the T901 only works with 4 processor models: i5 2520m, i5 2540m, i7 2620m, and i7 2640m. This is also wrong! I took a chance and replaced the i5 2520m that came with my T901 with an i7 2760qm. This is where I learned the CPU's are socket G2 and NOT soldered in. BIOS recognized it and booted without a hitch! This leads me to believe that ANY G2 socketed CPU compatible with the QM67 chipset will work in the T901, all the way up to the i7 XM CPUs. However, this quad-core CPU doesn't work nearly as well as it theoretically should. The 2760qm puts out 45 watts of heat, while all the stock CPUs Fujitsu offers with the T901 are only rated at 35 watts. I used Folding@home as a stress test to load the CPU while monitoring the temperatures on the four cores, and at full load it takes about 30 seconds to go from the idling temperature of ~45 degrees to 85-90 degrees. At that point the CPU begins severely throttling itself to prevent higher temperatures, slowing down to 1.2 GHz from 2.4 Ghz. Disappointing though that may seem, it still outperforms the i5 2520m by up to 50% (cinebench CPU test went from 2.79 to 4.25) even with throttling, which theoretically should best even the top stock CPU option, the i7 2640m. If it didn't have to throttle itself, the 2760qm should be at least double the performance of the i5 2520m.

In everyday programs, though (Portal 2, Civilization 5, Adobe Premiere CS3, Solidworks), the CPU only rarely breaks the apparent throttling threshold of 85 degrees (exception being Premiere, a couple minutes into a big video export). Even at 85 degrees, I'm surprised by how cool the case remains; nothing is too hot to touch even though the air blowing out the heatsink vent is VERY hot.

An interesting possibility that I hadn't realized until I had already bought all these part upgrades is that the i7 2760qm and the QM67 chipset both support DDR3 1600 RAM; Fujitsu's stock CPU's only supported 1333. So it may be possible to have 1600 RAM in a T901 if the CPU is upgraded to one that supports it.

I'll post more about my T901 as I work on it; a solid state drive upgrade and some sort of improved cooling solution is on my to-do list. But even without those, I absolutely love the T901 for its pen/touch input and even after only 2 weeks with it, I'm finding myself having trouble going back to touchless desktop screens and my Wacom tablet. For me, the T901 is truly a desktop replacement, it supersedes my desktop's functionality in almost every way.

 

Great post! I'd have to say that your experience is typical with most laptop manufacturers. Nowadays I order the minimum possible configuration and then upgrade everything myself, not only because its cheaper this way, but also because laptop manufacturers simply don't offer the highest-end components during configuration.

Even with "high-end" manufacturers like Alienware, its the same story - I completely upgraded my m14x with dual SSDs, the fastest i7 mobile CPU (extreme edition), and 16 GB RAM...

The only thing that you cannot upgrade is going to be the GPU in 99% of the cases, so that's the only item I order maxed-out in the original configuration.

Now I am about to begin the teardown process of my own brand new T901. I plan to upgrade it to 16 GB, dual 600 GB SSDs (unlike Alienware, Fujitsu is at least kind enough to let you order a second drive bay hard disk adapter option which is VERY thoughtful and sure beats all the tape and custom padding in my m14x holding down the second drive), and the CPU to 2960XM.

Even in the m14x which is thermally fairly good the 2960XM throttles down in the exact manner you have described, so I am prepared for that on the tablet. It will be well worth it having 8 cores on the system!

Finally, an Extreme Tablet! The Fujitsu does have a decent GPU - a first among tablets for a very long time - helping me fulfill my dream of having an Extreme Tablet - one that is completely portable, pen-aware, and powerful as most of the desktops out there.

Now the one thing I could use your help with is a teardown guide! Does Fujitsu have a maintenance manual, or is there a teardown guide available for this amazing tablet?

Usually with less pretty computers I don't mind diving right in but with this one I kind of want to be a little more careful! Don't you just love the heat protection padding at the bottom of it

 

The modular bay is absolutely fantastic. I didn't even know modular bays existed in laptops, much less in a 13" one.

And while the upgrade to a quad-core was VERY worth it, I would exercise caution using an extreme edition. They put out 55 watts, while my 2760qm puts out 45 watts, and Fujitsu designed the laptop with only 35 watt CPUs in mind. The heatsink was barely large enough (like nail-bitingly small margins) to cover the increased size of the 2760QM, so if the XM chips are even bigger than that you may have some serious cooling problems.

I found no teardown guide anywhere. I actually had a private computer shop help me out with it. Fujitsu uses self-tapping screws on the case, so it's really hard to unscrew, and hard again to then rescrew. I lost two screws from stripping the heads just trying to get them out once. Other than that, it went pretty smoothly.

Let me know how it goes, and if you have any questions please ask!

P.S. Try Windows 8. In some ways it handles the touchscreen better than Fujitsu's own programming/interfaces. Only thing is, the consumer preview didn't support wacom drivers so I didn't have pen pressure sensitivity. But I can't wait for the full release to put on this T901.

 

Oh well that's part of the fun of trying

Any hints/tips? Was a complete disassembly of the entire computer required, such as the LCD? I don't have anyone here I could trust with "heuristically" figuring this out, so I'd love any guidelines you may have.

Believe it or not, I use Server 2003 (from the XP era). Currently compiling drivers for it. I am just far more comfortable with it than the entire NT 6.X family. Windows 8 does look promising in some of its areas (Task Manager, Explorer progress dialogs), but I have doubts about the Metro UI...

 

Not sure what you mean by the LCD. The black panel under/next to the hinge was one of the first things that had to be taken off (it pops off by lifting up the edges and then sliding towards the keyboard), but the screen didn't need to be taken apart or removed. The keyboard and case bottom were just screwed together, but like I said the self-tapping screws in the plastic holes won't go cooperatively. Unfortunately, it wasn't as easy as just removing the back panel to gain access to the CPU; all the bodywork on the keyboard side of the laptop had to be taken apart. I don't know if that counts as a complete disassembly or not...

I had my doubts, too, about its usefulness. And I still do, for desktop/laptop users who only have a keyboard and mouse for input. But with a touchscreen, it really works well. They really wanted to make this a touchscreen OS, and I think it shows. I especially liked the pop-up menus on all four edges of the screen, and even preferred the Windows 8 touch keyboard to the one Fujitsu provides for the T901 in its software/drivers. I even started using Internet Explorer again because IE 10's touch interface was just that good. And the desktop is still there, and (at least in the previous public release) it's identical to the desktop UI we've all grown accustomed to.

Edit: Since your putting in a quad-core CPU, the T901 should then be able to support DDR3 1600 RAM instead of just DDR3 1333 RAM, if you want to maximize everything about your laptop. The stock Sandy Bridge processors seem to be the only stock component that didn't support that type of RAM.

 

Well, I'm truly impressed with the T901. It runs Server 2003 beautifully! Kudos to Fujitsu for providing a superb and complete collection of XP drivers for this tablet. It is so rare in this day and age! Granted, XP is 11, and 2003 is 9 years old; however clearly as Fujitsu have demonstrated they are still capable of running on all modern hardware - and do so wonderfully well! I've spent ages collecting and publishing XP drivers (even on this forum) for my other laptops. I cannot thank Fujitsu enough for saving me all this pain!

Right now I have 16 GB RAM (1333 I think, 8x2), 2x600 GB Intel SSDs (one with 7x64 and another with 2003 x86 - the beauty of the Server 2003 OS is that its identical to XP in virtually all respects; except it can actually USE ALL 16 GB of RAM in 32 bit mode!), and the only outstanding item to be upgraded is the CPU. I cannot imagine how fast it will run after that!

The machine is already blazing fast and has terrific battery life to boot. Even on 2003, and on a single battery (without the second bay battery), I am currently getting 4-5 hours with moderate use. That's really saying a LOT! On the Alienware m14x which also had a hybrid nVIDIA GPU solution, battery life was terrible because the GPU would drain all the battery in XP mode. Not so with the Fujitsu T901. In fact, I am so impressed, I will be writing a full review of this system with both 2003 and 7x64 after the CPU upgrade!

Would it be too much to ask if I requested pictures for the teardown regions that are required for the CPU replacement? From your description of it, the main display is not required to be removed which is fantastic news (LCD). So I take it the CPU is underneath the keyboard, then? After removing the black panel with the "Rotate" text on it, which regions must be unscrewed on the bottom of the unit to be able to remove the keyboard? I think we could collaboratively put together a tear-down guide (I'll be happy to provide pictures of my own experience) for anyone else who might also want to upgrade the system. And of course, I am very curious to report my findings on how the Intel Extreme CPU runs on this tablet! I realize its completely out of spec, but again, that's part of the fun of it!

 

Awesome! Glad to hear it's working so well!

No, not at all... Though I probably won't be able to do it today. Certainly by this weekend, though.

No, actually, it's right next to the RAM compartment on the underside of the motherboard. But the part of the case that is concealing the CPU is screwed in to both the cover around the keyboard and the motherboard itself. Literally every screw has to be removed to get at it.

Everything. Everything has to be unscrewed. The case components and RAM/HD covers and motherboard are all annoyingly intertwined, so if one part needs to come off so must the rest.

I'll post pictures for this in the next couple days. Congratulations on making what is one of the world's few, if not only, quad-core extreme Tablets!

 

I look forward to the pictures! I won't be able to start on this upgrade until Monday so no rush. Right now I'm fine tuning both OS's and I will probably swap the drive placements (battery bay into main bay and vice versa) so I can use the second bay battery (and optical media drive) on an as-needed basis with my favorite OS...

 

Hi, can you tell me what antenna T901 has, 3x3 or 2x2?
I wanna know whether T901 can use Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN instead of Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6205.
Thank you.

 

Any luck with the pictures?

Are the two screws that had to be broken off the ones near the docking port at the bottom of the case? There's basically two "sealed flat" tops there...are there screws underneath that must be removed; making it necessary to break these "tops"?

Any hints how one might do the breaking

 

Hmm....I have a P770, which is listed as maxing out with 8Gb RAM using 2x4Gb modules.

I wonder if it would work with 8Gb modules.....?

 

Its 2x2 but you may still connect the 6300, leave one of the antennae unconnected.

 

Well I have completed the upgrade! The system is currently running with an i7-2960XM processor. Turbo Mode is turning on healthily and I hadn't realized I had really become dependent on 8 CPU cores (entirely due to my extensive use of VMs in software development and testing).

The physical part of it was taxing. It was not possible to remove the motherboard due to it being "glued" to the plastic frame in the VGA output region. So I actually removed the heatsink, the old CPU, inserted the new CPU with arctic mx-3 thermal compound, and reapplied the heatsink while working at an odd angle; reaching beyond the plastic with my screws and hoping for a good contact.

What was even more nerve wrecking was the keyboard and touchpad connector reconnections. I actually never managed to remove the keyboard - it seemed that I would have to permanently damage the computer case for that, as two vital screws were protected by some plastic covers - so I had to work some magic trying to re-attach the very fragile cables.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that I was praying the system would boot normally and all peripherals would work properly on boot. One missed cable, and I would have to potentially tear down everything again. That's happened before - many times. Thankfully, it all works!

Now comes the real test - we'll see if the 55W CPU eats away the mainboard over time and corrupts it; or whether it all plays along nicely in the long run. My hopes are high - as are my expectations. I'll also be following up with a full review of the first Extreme Tablet of the world that I know of! I'll benchmark the system both on my favorite Server 2003 and Win7x64.

The only casualty of my surgery has been two small broken pieces of plastic, possibly from all the flexing of the case with the keyboard and some other components still attached. I managed to insert all the screws back into their proper places (that's a first!) and even correctly remembered the places of the long screws versus the short one. I thank cool Japanese design for that!

The system really is a whole lot snappier right now - although a whole lot louder too. The fan is constantly on (no surprise there, even on the Alienware m14x where this CPU was previously hosted, where it was again running out of spec, the fan was always on). But I do also have to add that with Win7x64 (compared to my main Server 2003), because of better driver support for power management (and not some innate shortcoming in the NT 5.x family), the fan was actually very quiet (mirroring the m14x).

Its really late tonight here so I'll have to cut this short and leave the benchmarks for tomorrow. If all the benchmarks clear, then the real long term stability/endurance/heating testing will begin! I am also curious to see how battery life will be affected; good thing I have dual batteries (AND dual second bay batteries).

So current system specs:

- T901 13.3" Dual Input Chassis
- 16 GB 1600 MHz RAM
- i7-2960XM Extreme Processor
- Dual 600 GB Intel 320 Series SSDs
- nVIDIA NVS 4200M

Now that's an Extreme Tablet!

 

Which is what I just did as part of the CPU upgrade, by the way. The card works really well.

 

Here's some preliminary benchmarks - all looking good so far!

Notice the high thermal sensitivity on the wPrime benchmark...more on that later!

 

Here's some more - all runs are almost complete. I'll be submitting my full write-up as a brand new thread soon.

And some more...

And then some...

And the last batch...

Whoops, one more. All that's left is PCMark Vantage and 3DMark Vantage, but the latter may prove a bit tricky because it mandates a display resolution that doesn't exist on the system (and I don't have an external monitor that I can use with the VGA port at this time).

 

Fujitsu could have made this tablet so much better.

Thanks for showing us its true potential.

 

Sure thing. I'm yet to write the review itself, but wanted to share the raw benchmarks with you right away.

 

Hey, I'm really sorry for not responding, I came down with Iritis so computers (or basically using my eyes for general vision purposes) were kind of out of the question for a while.

It looks like you did everything just fine even without my help/pictures, so I'm glad my problems didn't also become your problem. I didn't have to break any screws--I have one missing closest to the HDMI port, and another on the cover for the hard drive. They got stripped and replacement self-tapping screws for computer cases are hard to come by, so I just left them out.

Your benchmarks are interesting, but I only ran two on mine (PCMark7 and Cinebench 11.5 CPU because they seemed to emphasize processor performance). I'll have to run some of the ones you did and see how far behind mine compares. Edit: My PCMark score was 3603, Cinebench was 4.13 points, WEI was 6.3. Prior to upgrading, the scores were PCMark 1768, Cinebench 2.79, and WEI 5.4.

Also, I'm curious, how much (if any) does your processor throttle itself to keep from overheating, and how quickly/frequently under heavy load?

 

Sorry to hear of your Iritis! I'm glad you're feeling better now.

Here's another benchmark - its a pity I cannot run 3DMark Vantage, I will hopefully get do that after my docking port arrives, so I can connect to my large external monitor.

The under-clocking, based on my informal test results so far, throttles CPU speed down to about 1.8GHz on average, and sometimes to 1.6GHz or 2.2GHz instead; the speed shortly after returns to 2.7GHz though.

I will be running the 1024M test with wPrime to see how it fares under extreme CPU load. This will all be part of the actual review, hopefully I can finish it this weekend.

I've contacted NotebookReview.com and the sister site TabletPCReview.com to get the review posted officially; they weren't too receptive to the idea for some reason so I might just end up submitting as a new thread on the forums instead, and see if I can get the other hardware websites (Anand/Tom/etc.) interested in the world's first Extreme Tablet PC

It seems management here at NotebookReview.com has changed - shame that the person who responded to me was completely unaware of my past formal reviews on the site and was trying to educate me about the differences between the "opinions" I have voiced so far on this thread and "reviews" proper.

There's not much you can do when people just don't appreciate the nice free things you've offered them

Please let me know if you have any further feedback and any more suggestions for the review itself. I am enjoying putting it together.

 

What kind of connection does your monitor use? The laptop has an HDMI port that has worked great for multi-screening onto a 1080p television for me.

Wait, what "opinions"? The teardown is tough as all hell, I don't know a way to put that into technical terms, ha ha.

I look forward to your review, and am very sorry I had, at best, incomplete information about my own upgrade to help with your upgrade/review. Thanks for doing everyone the service that I didn't! I'll run more benchmarks to see how my 2760qm compares to your 2960xm.

 

I should have taken pictures during the teardown! Honestly I was pretty sure they'd be nothing more than pictures of embarrassment - the motherboard dangling by the soldered VGA connector; me trying to work with the CPU socket through a narrow opening, and such

And I dare not repeat the experience - the touchpad and keyboard connectors were so difficult! In fact, the touchpad is acting up as it is already, thankfully on a tablet that's the last thing I need to worry about

My only monitor here is the Apple 30" Cinema which doesn't go above 1280x800 unless a dual link dvi input is supplied, so that's why I'm stuck without 3DMark Vantage for now. When the port replicator arrives, I should be able to use my mini-display-port to dual-link-dvi adapter, through a display-port to mini-display-port adapter, to finally run that test. It'll be a while for the replicator to show up though, so I'm not holding my breath!

 

It's really late here, but I couldn't resist the temptation to run a quick 1024M wPrime - after running 3DMark Vantage in non-benchmarking mode to enjoy the visuals.

I'm actually pretty impressed, about 95% of the test was clocked at 1.8GHz. Only very briefly did the CPU drop to 1.4GHz (the lowest I have seen it drop so far). Initially, it was as high as 3GHz (very briefly) and had a brief downward sloping stop at 2.2GHz before settling down at 1.8GHz.

I'm eager to try out the test again tomorrow, without having had the system warmed up/stressed by a 3DMark Vantage run first. The current score is attached, not too bad at all at 495 seconds.

Overall I'd say the machine is doing remarkably well, given how completely out of spec it is being run - about 20W too many! The Turbo mode also, from what I can tell, regularly pushes the system to up to 3.5GHz, which is amazing as its the max Turbo limit of the CPU, even if it were running in-spec!

 

Here are some of my benchmarks (WEI, Cinebench 11.5 64-bit, PC Mark 07, wprime 32m and 1024m) for comparison. Computer specs are in my signature.

 

Wow, that's a really nice SSD you got in there! What is it?

It seems that your processor/system is performing better across the board, except in the shortest of the wPrime benchmarks. In my wPrime, the thermal sensitivity is very apparent; so while I got as low as 10sec with 32M, as the 1024M test nicely illustrates: this 1 second a-typical advantage devolves into a full minute of a disadvantage due to thermal issues under stress.

I am surprised your GPU score is .1 lower, given that our GPUs are identical; possibly WinSAT does not stress the CPU as much, thus giving the Extreme Edition CPU a slight advantage here.

The PCMark benchmarks are heavy on the HDD components and perhaps our virtually identical scores there are explained by this? It would appear PCMark didn't stress the CPU as much (or for as long), because with your SSD in the equation, I would have expected a wider margin.

Even more striking than the wPrime 1024M results are the Cinebench results; it appears Cinebench really taxes the CPU and does it very measurably! Your CPU score is near double mine - not a fractional advantage as it was with wPrime. So this should be the ultimate proof that the Extreme Tablet project is actually better served by a non-Extreme processor when under heavy loads

I wonder what our 3DMark results would compare like? Perhaps if you have the time you could run a few of those.

Please keep the screenshots if at all possible, as I would like to use these data points in my review of the Extreme Tablet PC.

I am wondering if there is another 8-core CPU that might make sense to be evaluated...maybe as the result of all this we'll even get Fujitsu to offer one as a built-in option as part of their Ivy Bridge refresh

 

I suppose good candidates for further data points would be the slowest mid-range 8 core i7-2720QM and the fastest, high-end-but-pre-extreme 8 core i7-2860QM, both at 45W but with the former with 6MB cache and the latter with 8MB cache. With the latter we can be sure to see some thermal throttling, since you have already seen some with your fastest of the mid-range 8 core i7-2760QM. With the former, perhaps there would be throttling to a lesser extent...

More conservative 45W choices include the i7-2635QM and the i7-2675QM, these may perhaps not throttle (or much) as they are actually slower than both systems we've tested so far (both of which do indeed throttle). One oddity I've noticed in spec comparison is that the i7-2630QM and the i7-2670QM are virtually identical to their counterparts first named in this paragraph; but they support a maximum of 16 GB memory (instead of 32 GB) and the socket type for the latter is FCPGA988 whereas the former is FCBGA1224. I wasn't actually aware there are two distinct kinds of Sandy Bridge sockets; I wonder which one the T901 supports? Both your and my current CPUs indicate they support both FCBGA1224 and FCPGA988...

It would be nice to discover the stable AND highest performing 8 core configuration for this tablet! We could guess that probably means a 6MB cache (and not 8MB), although its hard to say whether even the slowest-period 8 core CPU would not throttle at all. Its still 45W, so it might!

 

Actually of the CPUs available on Fujitsu's site for self-configuration, only the i5-2520M supports the PPGA988, with the remainder choices supporting both FCBGA1023 and PPGA988. So figuring out the common subset of all the sockets on CPUs that we are currently using and are offered by Fujitsu, I suppose our socket is PPGA988 (unless it is multi-type), which limits us to the i7-2630QM and the i7-2670QM at the lowest end of the spectrum.

 

Samsung 830. I think I know why Seagate bought their drive division. I tested it in Windows 8 for the short time I used it (went back to 7 because the pen functionality was wonky) and it scored 8.5.

I actually expected that. Our GPU's may be identical, but the RAM it is "borrowing" is not; mine is DDR3 1333, and yours is 1600. It's a slight difference but it's a difference that looks like it shows.

Sure thing, just tell me which versions of which benchmarks you'd like me to run, and I'll screenshot the results.

The reason I chose the 2760qm was because it was the slowest 2nd gen quad-core. Being >$100 cheaper helped, too. But I chose the slowest because I hoped that, under load, it would be the slowest to reach its thermal design limit. And the reason I wanted quad-core in the first place was because the performance jump from even the 2640m (highest-end Fujitsu CPU) was massive. Notebookcheck has a great benchmark list of mobile CPU's. It wasn't worth upgrading from a dual-core to another dual-core (the stock CPU's), nor were the performance gains between quad-core CPU's very large, so I went for what gave me the largest jump.

Comparing some of my benchmarks to other laptops that are designed to run my CPU, my build fails miserably, sometimes only managing 60-70% of other scores because of the thermal throttling. In that respect, it's kind of sad to find out I have one of the slowest 2760qm laptops that's ever been tested, but on the other hand I still well exceed the few benchmarks I ran before my upgrade, when I had an i5 2520m.

I'd be really interested in seeing how our builds compare to a T901 with an i7 2640m, the maximum Fujitsu offers. That would give perspective to our benchmarks, and show that upgrading the CPU is still worth doing even with thermal throttling cutting performance. Hopefully it is!

I don't see any Sandy Bridge Quad-core CPU's with less than a 45 watt TDP, so my guess is there aren't any options that wouldn't get too hot and throttle themselves.

 

If you could, 3DMark 06, Vantage, and 11 would be great. Vantage is the only one I could not run in my review due to the monitor issue, so that would be really helpful if there's only one you could run.

On the CPU front, actually there's many slower quad core options than the one you chose. In the same range, there's the i7-2720QM which is clocked at 2.2GHz with max turbo at 3.3GHz. In the lower range, there's the i7-2630QM which is clocked at an even 2GHz with max turbo at 2.9GHz. These two are also 45W - so some thermal throttling is likely - although there may be none to very little if lucky And there's some other choices too. If only the CPU was easier to replace!

I did originally order my T901 with the i7-2640m and I can assure you, despite having the biggest under-clocking CPU choice installed right now, its still no comparison to the i7-2640m. I have 30 icons on average in my system tray and the boot process just doesn't compare. Nor does ordinary usage. I didn't formally benchmark the old system but let's do the math: the base clock of the 2640m is 2.8, and you won't have any turbo when using all cores. So 2.8x4 = 11.2. My sustained under-clocked speed with my current CPU is 1.8, so 1.8x8 = 14.4. It's still 30% better, despite the under-clocking. And there's going to be many times when it doesn't under-clock as much - especially when you're not maxing out all cores 100%. My average under-clock speed is 2.2GHz, which comes out to 17.6, more than a 50% increase over the stock CPU. And still, during daily use like boot times etc., my perceived enhancement is more like 100%.

 

Yeah, I realized something must've gone wrong after I typed that; I couldn't figure out how I had overlooked the entire 26xx series. But I think what happened was I was only looking at the chips that were released in September: 2760, 2860, and 2960xm. If I could do it again, I probably would have gone with the 2720qm; the 2630/2670 lack some features that even the stock CPUs have, and I wouldn't risk it.

I shall try to run all three and post them here soon. Be right back; benchmarking.

 

Right, I noticed they don't have Intel Virtualization for Directed I/O, for example. And some Trusted Computing stuff, right? For me, virtualization is critically important, so I Google'd whether the vt-d is a must for VMware, and turns out, its not. I honestly don't know whether I'll later realize I actually needed any of the other technologies...

 

3dmark06: 5340
3dmark11: P652
3dmark Vantage: P2670

 

Nice results! Scores very similar with mine, so I suppose Vantage would also be very similar. Do you mind if I use it in my review?

 

No, be my guest. And if you'd like any other benchmarks or other things from me, let me know!

 

Hey, any chance you'll still post those teardown pictures? I want to repaste my CPU to try to get cooler temps, and it sounds like the process is complicated than I originally thought it'd be. Which is a shame, since I heard that in previous models, the CPU was only a couple screws away.

If you don't have time for pictures, a general step-by-step would also be super helpful- what cables/screws to watch out for and whatnot. I've never disassembled anything without a service manual/guide, so the lack of references makes me nervous.

For the BD drive- you transplanted the drive frame onto the new one. Was that needed for the release latch to work properly? I ask because third party HDD caddies didn't work with the release latch, for no reason that I could tell, and I'd like to avoid this. It's an upgrade that's been in the back of my head for a while.

 

I could post pictures of all the easy stuff (RAM, HDD, large panel covering the cooling fan etc), but I didn't take any pictures of the teardown relevant to the CPU; the self-tapping case screws were a pain so I gave up and had a computer shop do the CPU upgrade for me. If you are at all skiddish about upgrading the CPU, I recommend doing it the way I did it. Took a huge load of responsibility off my shoulders because I had no information to go on. And I'd never worked with laptops before, only desktops, so this was already a bit outside my comfort zone.

I don't know if it was necessary, but it was convenient because the BD drive I ordered had no frame at all, and I wasn't going to be using the DVD drive I was removing. The faceplate was a necessary transplant because of the latch, however.

 

Thanks, but I've already accessed the easy stuff long ago. I suppose I'll just take my time to experiment until I get it right. *curses Fujitsu for their lack of publicly available service manuals* Well, I did manage to find one for the T730; maybe it'll be similar enough to get the general steps in the right direction.

 

Could you post that manual here? I'll check if it will be helpful with my next tear-down.

Yes, I will be doing one, and possibly two more tear-downs: I have ordered alternate 8 core CPUs in an effort to see if they will prevent the under-clocking issue: 2720QM and 2630QM.

And this time, I WILL take pictures for all interested in witnessing the horror

 

Here's the thread with the T730's. Here's the actual manual. Basically the smaller version. It has a socketed CPU, but some of the internals may be different as the TxxO didn't have a GPU and the T731 doesn't either.

It'll be near impossible to get the T901's unless you know a Fujitsu Partner who is willing to leak it.

 

Oh, man. The performance/throttling sweet spot hunt! You're doing it! I am really looking forward to that!

Ha ha, when I called/emailed tech support just to find out whether the CPU was unsoldered, I got one very short email (Entire email: "It is socketed") from level one support. I called to make sure (A three word response left me kind of uneasy) and got sent to tech level two, who literally acted like I was inquiring about Area 51.
"It might be and it might not be."
"But, this email I got, I just needed confirmatio--"
"We can't confirm that."

I imagine Fujitsu has the T901 manual kept in a mission impossible-style vault hidden deep within a secret bunker at their headquarters. I hope the guy that managed to get a 3 word message to me didn't get fired... or killed.

 

Ouch!

It looks like we're going to need Tom Cruise. I'd rather not have the manual than suffer his Scientology guff.
Perhaps George Clooney could get it for us? I heard he's good at organizing heists!

 

Brilliant! Looking forward to that.

 

That's hilarious

 

You know, this is brilliant. Its virtually identical to the T901. Here's the parts that I had trouble with:

Page 12: If present, please carefully remove the screw covers [38010964], for example by using a small knive, so that you are able to use the screw covers again when re-assembling the notebook.

I was thinking removing these plastic covers would do permanent damage. Glad to hear that's not the case.

Page 27: Open the VGA Connector Cover and remove the two Hexagon screws [82098664] (red circles).

Anybody know how to remove a hexagon screw? First time ever I've heard of these. I was thinking this area was soldered

So anyways...my new disassembly is sure going to be a whole lot easier thanks to this information!

THANK YOU!!!

 

You need a socket screwdriver with a 5mm head. That fits the hex screw. The other option is just grabbing it with pliers and little by little unscrew it but it leaves marks.

 

I joined this forum because of this thread, I'm looking to upgrade my T5010 to the T901

Cooling seems to be the biggest problem to this; in the interest in cooling in every way possible have you considered undervolting?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...arket-upgrades/235824-undervolting-guide.html

@mimarsinan: I am very interested in you research on the best processor for the T901

 

The two new CPUs have been ordered and should be arriving next week. I'll keep you posted of my progress, and of course, the final results.

 

They just arrived actually! Surgery scheduled for today

 

yay!

Just wondering though, you didn't actually comment on the undervolting idea at all, was this because it was just a silly idea? I thought it might be good since it says on the guide said on average it reduces the heat by 10watts, (though this isn't guaranteed)

or maybe the guide is obsolete?

 

Sorry about that, with Mercury in retrograde the excrement has been in regular contact with the air conditioning if you know what I mean; I have been slammed by countless problems from all sides so the surgery and everything else has been paused

I did take a look at the undervolting article and I will definitely try to find some time for it, perhaps it would be great if the originator of this thread could also check in the meanwhile to see whether it helps the CPU under-clocking problem.

I am a bit concerned that undervolting may reduce system stability when all cores are being stressed on the system though...but for normal use I am sure it will not only reduce heat, it will also save a lot of battery usage!