Last updated: 24 February 2022
Introduction
Photo gallery of a 13″ 3K2K thin-bezel X2100 i7-10710u hexacore and a 3rd batch i7-8650u. The last few pictures shows the FHD panel and a 12.6″ 2880*1920 panel.
The X210 (X2100) is the reincarnation of the X200(s)/X201(s). It has an all new updated specs but retains the classic TP design. This mod replaces the entire motherboard and fits new internal components and a slew of newer displays but features the original design and of course, the classic 7-row keyboard. This motherboard was commissioned by Hope from 51nb and had gone through 4 iterations of design.
The X210 underwent 4 revisions (with 1 test batch) and all but the 4th batch featured an 8th-gen Intel quad-core ULV CPU. The 4th batch featured a 10th-gen Intel ULV quad-core/hexa-core CPU with a USB-C instead of miniDP and was renamed X2100 to indicate the 10th gen Intel CPU.
This page is a general page for the X210 family of motherboards. For the specific sales thread, please see the shop page and the X2100 price list page.
Hardware compatibility
The motherboard is designed as a drop-in replacement for the stock motherboard of the X201 and X201s. This means that every hardware component of the original laptop is guaranteed to work with the newer motherboard, including the display, keyboard, charging port etc. Only the dock will not work as the dock port is removed. It is also fully compatible with the X200 and X200s chassis with the exception of the right-side IO daughterboard. Some minor modifications might be needed for the motherboard but in general, this mod is a drop-in replacement.
Display
Left: 13″ thin-bezel 3K display, right: 12.1″ stock display
The display has been upgraded from the stock 12.1″ display. The motherboard retains support for the stock panels even though the 10th gen platform does not support LVDS panels by using an eDP to LVDS adapter on the motherboard. A dip switch is on the motherboard toggling between LVDS/eDP.
Aftermarket displays are available for the motherboard and are all eDP panels. Theoretically any eDP panels can be supported but there are 3 main options supported by the board.
| Display | Description | General specification | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| LP130QP1-SPA1 LPM130M364 | This panel is the one offered by me. It’s the best panel for the X210 currently. This panel is from the X1 tablet and has the thinnest bezel among the panels choices. The hinge is not modified and the bezel is CNCed to fit the panel. This panel removes the webcam but retains the thinklight and screen latch. This panel requires a 4 lane (40pin) eDP connection. 2nd batch and previous X210 motherboards need an adapter to be soldered on the motherboard. Panel fits best with a reinforced display panel to reduce flex and improve rigidity. JDI LPM130M364 is recommended as it has better compatibility with custom eDP cable. | 13″ thin-bezel 3:2 aspect ratio 3000*2000 400-450nits 100% sRGB Glossy | X1 tablet display review Panelook (LG) Panelook (JDI) LP130QP1-SPA1 |
| NV126A1M-N52 NV126A1M-N51 | This panel has a similar design as the 13″ but with thicker bezels. The 13″ panel above is superior in every way. Panel fits best with a reinforced display panel to reduce flex and improve rigidity. The N52 is superior in colour and brightness than the N51. | 12.6″ thin-bezel 3:2 aspect ratio 2880*1920 400-450nits 100% sRGB Glossy | Panel review by KK NV126A1M-N52 NV126A1M-N51 |
| KD122N4-30NH-B2 KD122N5-30NH-A6 | This is the closest in size to the stock display while giving the stock display an upgrade. This panel is 0.1″ bigger than the stock panel, meaning that a few pixels are cut off. Uses a 30pin eDP cable. Used on the Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 510-12IKB and probably other machines that offers this resolution at this ratio. | 12.2″ original bezel 16:10 aspect ratio 1920*1200 300 nits 70% sRGB Matte | Panel review Panel review by 51nb moderator song_1118 KD122N4-30NH-B2 KD122N5-30NH-A6 |
| Stock panels | The motherboard supports all stock panels. They’re not the best but they’re fully compatible. |
Additionally, the 13″ panels are reinforced with 1mm aluminium bars on the sides for a much more solid build. Without the bars and the reinforcements, the screen flexes a lot more due to the thinner bezel.
The custom 4-lane eDP cable is a “standard” 40-pin eDP cable capable of driving most 4K60Hz and below displays. It is updated with improved shielding. The LG LP130QP1-SPA1 exhibits compatibility issue whereas the JDI LPM130M364 is fully supported. The cable has been tested with other standard 14″ 4K60Hz panels. The 40-pin pinout can be found on the datasheet attached above.
The motherboard 6-pin display cable on the left side has a pinout according to the pictures above. The right 30pin has a pinout which follows the KD122N4-30NH-B2 pinout (pin 1 to pin 1 etc). The datasheet is attached above.
The motherboard 6-pin and 30-pin sockets are 0.5mm pitched and the full pinout can be derived from the picture of the 6-pin with the pinout of the FHD panel.
Motherboard specifications
X210 ports (the miniDP is a USB-C on the 4th batch X2100)
All X210 except 4th batch:
| CPU | i5-8250u (quad-core) i7-8550u (quad-core) i7-8650u (quad-core) |
| RAM | 2 SODIMM DDR4 slots up to 2400MHz Up to 64GB RAM |
| Storage | mSATA 6gbps, also supports USB-based modem card (LTE, 5G) with SIM card slot SATA 2.5″ 6gbps M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 3.0×4 (supports 6gbps M.2 2280 SATA SSD) |
| Left side ports | 2 USB 3.0 5gbps type-A RJ45 gigabit LAN VGA miniDP 1.2 (up to 4K60 and HDMI alt-mode) |
| Right side ports Original I/O daughterboard | SD Card reader (USB 2.0) Audio out / mic in (separate jacks) USB 2.0 type-A RJ11 telephone (depending on model) |
| Other ports | miniPCIe 3.0×1 8gbps Meant for WiFi (supports M.2 2230 with an adapter) |
| Other peripherals | Original charging barrel jack |
| Cancelled original ports | Docking port Expresscard slot (replaced with miniDP) |
| Others | 8MB SOIC-8 EEPROM BIOS chip |
There exists 4 batches of X210 (Kaby Lake) motherboards with 1 test batch, each with minor revisions. The differences are listed below:
| 1st batch to 2nd batch | SIM card slot size changed to Nano size 2.5″ SATA drive shifted by 1mm for better compatibility M.2 slot fully compatible with SATA drives Component ICs positions updated to better accommodate the board |
| 3rd batch update to 2nd batch | Component ICs positions updated to better accommodate the board 4 eDP pin changed to 6 pin connector to allow plug-in high resolution eDP displays USB voltage changed to 5.1v |
4th batch X2100
The X2100 features the following changes compared to the previous generations of X210.
| CPU | The CPU is based on 10th gen comet-lake CPU instead. i5-10510u (quad-core) i7-10710u (hexa-core) |
| RAM | 2666MHz speed supported by default. |
| Ports | Mini displayport is replaced with a USB-C 10gbps with displayport 1.2 capable of HDMI alt-mode and power delivery 10w out. Fully supports USB-C charging (20V PD) of the laptop but will require a larger (>80W) USB-C charger to handle the power draw. Internal USB2.0 header is removed. |
| Others | 16MB MX25L12835F SOIC-8 BIOS EEPROM Chip. TPS65987 USB-C PD chip enabling 20V USB-C charging. BQ24725 charge controller. |
Peripherals
Port covers
As the X210 motherboards deprecated the docking port and expresscard port, port covers has been designed to cover up holes left behind by the motherboard.
Mylar sheets
The motherboard was produced with mylar sheet (insulation sheet). They were all produced by the modder, 17m19.
Cooling assembly
As the 8th gen and 10th gen chips are able to maintain an extremely high wattage, custom cooling fans has been designed. The laptops built by me uses fans built by 17m19. There has been several other fans that were custom designed or built for the X210 but the most prominent ones are the ones by 17m19.
Benchmarks
I’ve extensively tested the 4th batch X2100 motherboards. Check it out here.
Known hardware issues
- The 8th gen boards are known to have battery charging issues due to a poorly written EC. Refer to the section on Coreboot for a better EC built by some awesome people.
- The 10th gen boards are known to draw a huge current on boot and requires a 90W charger to boot without a battery.
- 10th gen boards have poor support for 4-cell batteries. Please use a 9-cell instead.
Software
Please see the software section for BIOS/EC updates.
Coreboot
Coreboot has been ported to this machine by Matthew Garrett for 3rd batch and before X210 (8th gen Intel). It’s available here. He is also porting coreboot for the 10th gen X2100. In addition, a very helpful forum member vladisslav2011 has patched the embedded controller to fix a charging bug and both coreboot and the EC patch is compiled by harrykipper and available on his github repo here. jwise has also ported and fixed the EC patches for the 10th gen X2100.
53 Comments
I have two screens which have no HDMI but a Display Port each. Is “Display Port Alt Mode” supported as well through the USB-C port? If not, I guess I could just hook up a DP-adapters to the USB-C-to-HDMI-cable?
DP alt mode is supported 🙂
Awesome!
What kind of fan control solutions are there for the X2100/X210? I made my X62 batch 2 a few years back with an i7-5500U, and these days I’m not satisfied with how hot the machine gets when doing casual use on the 0718 EC. If I change to 1026 or 1108 EC then it runs nice and cool, but the fan is always at full blast until 38 C!
I haven’t tried the Linux fancontrol software, so the only thing in Windows is this C117 Temperature script that doesn’t seem to work well (or at all). Therefore I’m looking to buy a new Thinkpad. 51nb X62 has served me very well these past few years, but lack of fan control is turning me off from the whole thing. (I wonder if vladisslav2011 EC can be used for this?) Custom fan curves would be very nice, but it seems like standard software like HWINFO cannot control the fans.
Boa noite!
Apenas para saber se entendo corretamente:
A placa mãe é compatível com o netbook lg x200???
Obrigado!
Hi, I don’t speak Portugese. The X2100 is not compatible with the LG X200 netbook.
Thanks!
Hello I am wondering if this suppourts eGPUs through the usb c and if there is a core boot available for the 10th gen CPUs?
No unfortunately. The USB-C does not contain PCIe signal that can be used.
Hi,
I have three questions regarding the X2100.
Does the X2100 have by default both WLAN and WWAN antennae?
What type of the antenna connector does the X2100 use? IPEX4 or U.FL?
Does the headphone jack support 4-pin headphones with a microphone?
1 set of both antennas will be installed as most of the machines I ship comes with the AX200 which uses IPEX4. The headphone jack does not support 4-pin headphone afaik as it uses the original audio card/daughterboard of the X201.
does this amazing machine has internal webcam? somewhere else of the bezel?
The FHD variant does 🙂
I’m guessing this is no longer libreboot compatible?
Yes. Then again libreboot is a dead project. Just compile coreboot without blobs
Should we expect new revisions with 11th gen CPUs and/or iris plus graphics as an option?
Not for the X200/X201 platform. Doesn’t make sense to continuously update it yearly. Creates excessive e-waste, requires extra support/manpower to support more products, and we buy TP so we can avoid planned obsolescence 😉
What is the battery life for average use with the i7-10510u?
And do you still sell the x2100 with the i5 instead of the i7?
Thank you
About 6hrs on a 9-cell for the most conservative estimate (most people get more).
There was never an i5 variant. It’s either one of the hexacores.
where would i be able to find a port cover for the dock? also eventually when the battery dies, where would i be able to find a good replacement because i don’t think many good OEM batteries, especially 9 cell, exist anymore?
i’ve bought someone else’s x2100, where would i find general support or like groups of owners about
also if the motherboard were to fry or something, where would i go or what would i do?
Try out the thinkpadforum or the ThinkPad subreddit. The port covers can be designed and 3D printed.
The batteries are OEM. Nothing I can do about that unfortunately. You can consider replacing the cells in the batteries since they’re 18650 cells.
Would you be able to put the x201’s palmrest with a touchpad on it? would there be any modifications WRT the motherboard or case needed?
The palmrest has to be cut slightly to fit the NVMe slot but it works perfectly otherwise
Alright cool, would there be any instructions on how to do out there?
https://www.xyte.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/X2100-Installation-Guide-V1.1.pdf
Check out the latest installation guide here.
Are there anymore motherboards or barebones kits available for the X2100? Sadly I did not know this project existed until only a few weeks ago.
Hi, do DM me?
Hope this project continues for two yrs from now.
I’m really looking forward to get this project on my hand.
New projects will be coming up with renewed motherboard for other models, specifically an upcoming X230 motherboard
Can I still get a X210 (i5 8350u) or have they been discontinued? Also, do you ship to Myanmar?
Do PM me. They’re difficult to track down nowadays and prices are not much cheaper than the 10th gen boards. I can ship to Myanmar but I’m not sure how the recent political events have affected shipping.
အကိုဝယ် ဖြစ်လား?
I am not fully understand. Do you sell full laptop (of course without batteries as you wrote)? Or do I need to purchase base version of x200 somewhere else and connact you for specific part options?
I do sell the full build. This is like a info page. The pricing is on the shop page
hey, updated the bios to the latest version and all it does now is continuously boot to the bois and loop? any idea on whats happened or what to do?
CSM is disabled in the latest version. Change it to reenable BIOS mode. I disabled it as CSM may cause some screen tearing.
dont see how that would cause bootloops, it’s showing no boot devices available since the update and it does nothing past immediatley throwing me back to thie bios..
old bios mode probably means non-UEFI/Legacy boot. meaning you installed windows 10 or linux or whatever using legacy bootloader. CSM = UEFI = supports the newer bootloader method. so if its in UEFI or CSM mode. then your old OS installed with legacy bootloader will not boot. so you either have to reinstall it under UEFI mode or switch back to legacy boot.
Switching on CSM (BIOS mode) is mostly fine but I recommend turning it off for most users on the 3K panel. I test all the machines with BIOS Windows actually as a baseline and I’ve not met any incompatibility issues before but it used to exist on builds from a while ago so I turned it off in the default settings as a precaution.
Hello. I am extremely intrigued with your Thinkpad Mod. I am using thinkpad x230Tablet and a classic X201T.
Is there a way for this machine to run eGPU? I dont see you list Thunderbolt but miniPCIe 3.0 was listed as one of the ports. Does it protrude from the machine for connection?
I saw the machine is out of stock. When is it in stock again?
I am living in Singapore by the way. I saw you study at NUS. Would love to say hi with you if possible if you are in Singapore.
This motherboard doesn’t TB3 unfortunately and also does not support the tablet variants :/ drop me a DM or email me if you’d like catch up over coffee 🙂
hello xue yao, I’m from Chile, I have a factory thinkpad x200 and I want to modernize it to the maximum with a 13-inch screen, what would be modified?
what would be the monetary cost?
Hi, unfortunately it’s not available at the moment. I can let you know if/when it’ll be back but it’s not available now.
Thanks!
Hello from Brazil 🙂
I guess you’re not currently modding and shipping laptops, right?
How can I know when you’re available again? I’m very interested in a mod like this one – classic keyboard, taller screen, sub 14-inch. Precisely my dream laptop.
(anyways I wouldn’t be able to afford it right now)
I am actually but this particular model is unavailable at the moment. Busy with new projects at the moment 😉
I’m very interested a status of new projects )))
could you tell us about, i think it will be great!
hey there, the fan on my 10510u x2100 has ended up entirely dying – is there any way I’d be able to get just another fan or is that not an option?
Drop me a DM!
I have a few spare fans. Drop me an email.
Hi, I would like to mod my Thinkpad X201T.
This mod is only for the non-tablet version, right? Is there some way to make it work on a X201T though?
Not trivially unfortunately. The tablet mobo is completely different than the stock X201 motherboard.
is intel me removed?
No. 10th gen chips have another way of neutering the ME by setting HAP=1