got the 2700M today! FedEx legendary status is justified, never had an international shipment get here in 3 days...too bad customs added over 50% to the total price, was expecting like 30% max so I'm rather annoyed. The video card looks almost new, unfortunately I don't have any thermal paste so I have to wait till next week to test it..stay tuned! :smileyhappy:

Sorry I'm late to the party. My Lenovo account is linked to a mail address I keep for junk (no pun intended).

First of all, I'm happy to read your 3700M came back from the dead. Mine lasted for a good long year. The reason it first died and finally gave up after the reflow is because I stressed it beyond its limits with Diablo III. This game is by no means a monster with graphics but is badly optimized and after a few minutes of play, the area where the videcard seats would become extremely hot. It never got hot after 12 hours of hard work with Maya doing modeling, rigging, animation or compositing and editing with AE and Premiere where Mercury uses the Quadro for speeding the rendering, etc. I'm sure if I only used the W700 for work and some light gaming, the original Quadro would be still alive.

Right now I'm using the refurvised Quadro I bought a while back and as mobius8, I bought my W700 when it came out 6 years ago and is still my main machine for work. It's slow for rendering comparing it with what's on the market right now but for everything else, is solid and stable. The screen calibrator and wacom is what made this notebook special. Unfortunately the tablet never felt right and could not compete with even a Bamboo but I got used to it and used it for everything. The mouse was plugged only for gaming. Hope Lenovo releases another workstation like the W700 with a better wacom and I would buy it. The Cintiq Companion might be a good option as well...

As for the thermal paste, there are good guides in Tom's Hardware. When I saw your picture my eyes poped out!

The 2700M will not give you much power but depending on what you do, might be enough. Changing the card is pretty easy so have no fear. I changed mine countless of times for testing. Good luck!

hi Pepe thanks for replying. My resurrected 3700M is holding up but I'm currently keeping the fans at full blast to keep it as cool as possible whenever I do anything, so TPFan-control set to manual at 64 which I suspect isn't all that good for the fans and I've been looking at getting a spare set. When the machine is idle I usually keep it on mode 7 at which the GPU stays around 36-37°C depending on room temperature. I don't play any games but some programs really heat it up, and I've seen it go up to 51-52°C I think. As for the 2700M I purchased, here's a funny story: after receiving it, I wanted to test it to see if it actually worked so I take my W700 apart like I've done a million times before, remove the 3700M and swap it with the 2700M. Set the heatsink in place, plug the thing in and hit power. Note that the 2700M was sold to me as new and it looked in perfect condition even if I doubt it was actually new, but I was 99% sure it would work. In any case I hit the power button and hear BEEP-BEEEEP. Then a black screen. I try again, and again, and again. Some times the fans go on (first the CPU block, then the GPU), but the screen stays black and nothing happens. I remove the heatsink and the card to check that it's placed right, re-place it and hit the power. I turn white when the thing gets stuck on endless reboot cycle...screen turns on, beep, whole thing shuts down and reboots...had to pull the plug. Honestly I almost had a panic attack (or something similar), because before trying this the fixed 3700M was working fine, so I was sure I damaged the mainboard or something. So I wipe off the cold sweat, unplug, remove the card and start cleaning the contacts with alchool and a q-tip...my last resort. Once again i put the thing together, hit power and boom, it turns on like magic, good old Windows even tells me that new hardware "FX 2700M" has been installed... that was stressful. Haven't tried the card out much but I know it's at least in working order so I'm keeping it as a spare part in case the 3700M gives in..to be honest I use the tablet on a daily basis and really like it, but I'll be switching to an Intuos medium quite soon, once the my new workstation is assembled (patiently waiting on some good deals for the remaining parts I need). I can say that I've enjoyed my W700 and I will keep using it as long as I can but overall I'm done for good with notebooks, repairs can be a true nightmare.

Moderator comment: Post edited to conform with the Community Rules.

I can feel your pain while testing the extra Quadro XD At least you got it to work.

I tested my original/reflow 3700M few play sessions before it gave up and GPU-Z was giving me reading of 94°C. I knew I was playing with fire, literally. I think your temperature readings are quite good and hope your reflow Quadro lasts as long as you use your W700.

thanks Pepe I hope so too. Wow 94 is insane for the GPU, not sure mine ever went that high...strange thing is, while rendering I used to get CPU temps up to 94-96°C and sometimes it would go over 100°C and shut down. Then something happened, I have no idea what but I very much doubt it's something I changed directly, in any case when now it's rendering (with all cores at 100% of use) the temperature always stays below 60°C which leads me to think that the CPU is being throttled / limited. Haven't had time to investigate yet but I do enjoy not having to worry about random shutdowns anymore and if I'm honest I haven't noticed any dramatic decrease in performance, including cpu rendering...very strange.

sigh...the 3700M died again. Some blue squares and zap, dead. Swapped it with the 2700M and ordered a 970 for the new rig I've been putting together. Don't think I'll be using the W700 an awful lot from now on but I'm still keeping it none the less for emergencies and...well I'm sort of attached to the thing by now, it has served me well.