On September 20th, Lenovo officially released two high-performance portable laptop – ThinkPad X1 extreme and ThinkPad P1.
ThinkPad X1 extreme uses the 8th generation Intel Core i7 standard voltage processor, and the NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti graphics card for the first time in the ThinkPad X1 series products.
It supports up to 64GB dual-channel memory and PCle NVMe high-speed M.2 SSD. Compared to the main lightweight and portable ThinkPad x1 Carbon, the laptop pays more attention to performance and efficiency.
The laptop body is made of aviation-grade carbon fiber, which reduces the weight to 1.7kg. At the same time, in order to meet various working scenarios, ThinkPad X1 has a very rich port and supports fast charging.
In this guide, I will remove the ThinkPad X1 Extreme bottom case to access the battery, M.2 SSD, RAM, CMOS battery, cooling fan, heatsink, hard drive, Wi-Fi card, and motherboard.
First, we need to remove all the screws that secure the bottom case, then slowly remove it. After removing the bottom case, you can see its internal components, including battery, RAM, M.2 SSD, CMOS battery, Wi-Fi card, speaker, heatsink, cooling fan, and motherboard.
On the right there are two M.2 2280 SSD slots. In my case, it only comes with a Samsung MZVLB512HAJQ-000L7 PM981 PCIe 3.0*4 SSD and supports the NVMe protocol.
Just below the cooling system is two RAM slots, both of them are covered with black shielding paster. This laptop only has a 16GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM. According to official information, it supports up to 64GB RAM.
At the bottom is a 15.36V, 80Wh, 5235mAh lithium battery, Lenovo part number is L17C4P72, FRU: 01AY969, there is a CMOS battery above the battery and with an FRU of 04X0443.
At the left of the fuselage is the Wi-Fi card, In my case, it comes with an Intel Wireless-AC 9560 adapter that supports 2×2 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5.0.
The upper part of the fuselage is its cooling system, which consists of dual fans and double copper tubes, it covering the Intel Core i7 8750H processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q graphics card chip.
As a flagship product, ThinkPad X1 extreme uses metal plates to reinforce all important ports, which is common in high-end notebooks.
We use AS SSD software to test the M.2 SSD. It reads speed of 2371M/S and writes speed of 1857M/S, and has a composite score of 4488.
Now the Keyboard & Palmrest for Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme – 01YU756 01YU757 is available in myfixguide repair parts store.
Hi David,
Is there a lock or trick to removing the bottom case on the x1 extreme like you did?
I unscrewed the 7 screws completely but can’t remove them from their holes.
Tried to gently find a way to remove the case with the screws just resting in the holes but the bottom case seems solid.
What am I missing?
Thanks for any help!
You can insert a plastic piece under the bottom case and slide the plastic piece slowly to open the bottom case.
I bought the 16gb option yesterday. There’s only one stick in it, correct? If so, what brand is it? And can you recommend a 16gb stick to add to it? Then!
In theory, any brand of memory is ok, only it is DDR4 2666MHz, but memory often has compatibility issues, so you better buy a brand same with your original memory
260 pin DDR4 2666MHz is what I’ll need?
yes
Hi
Can I add 2 SSD drives and do they have to be identical?
Thanks
Yes, you can add two SSDs, they don’t need to be exactly the same.
Hello, I want to expand the storage on my 1x extreme. should I buy NVMe PCIe Gen 3.0 x 2 or NVMe PCIe Gen 3.0 x 4?
I am not sure if the free M.2 slot supports PCIe 3.0 x 4 NVMe SSD. You can contact Lenovo to confirm it.
Hi,
Is it possible to upgrade the Graphics card later on? The only thing that misses this laptop is a real GPU for my line of work 🙂
Thanks
Its graphics chip is soldered to the motherboard, so it cannot be upgraded.
Hi, my friend bought x1 extreme with FHD screen for me. Is it possible to upgrade the screen to 4k?
Thank you.
is it possible to upgrade the FHD screen to 4K?
thanks
I guess it is not possible because your LCD cable does not support 4k screen.
Hello David,
I am hoping to upgrade my X1 Extreme’s SSD in the future, but I have some concerns:
– I chose the X1 Extreme with the “256GB M.2 2280 SATA3 OPAL” SSD. Does this impose any limitations on future upgrades? If so what limitations should I consider? (i.e. I will not be able to eventually upgrade to a PCIe NVMe drive)
– Is it possible to add a second internal SSD, to the same laptop? Or is it physically impossible?
I would be grateful for your advice
In the overall picture…
1. There’s a slot in the upper right corner above the 2 NVME SSD slots.
What is that empty slot for?
2. Can the wifi card be upgraded later/soon? The X1E Gen 2 appears to have a newer wifi [Wifi 6] card.
3. If you don’t do any gaming, shouldn’t the single 16Gb ram be enough for daily productivity work and online activities such as tv/movie viewings?
– Or is it better to add another 16Gb DDR4 1666 memory chip?
– Would adding an 8Gb chip not provide decent performance since it’ll be 16+8= 24Gb memory or should memory be matched to the 1st memory stick of 16Gb?
4. Did the 2d m.2 NVME slot include its own screw?
– Is that correct that ONLY Single-sided NVME cards are accepted?
– Did read that the X1 Extreme Gen 1 & 2 will the 2Tb NVME cards but it Must be Single Sided.
Thanks!