Regarding not taking the whole thing apart, I recently flashed a T400 and did
not take the whole thing apart. It really simplified the process and I had
some advantages that the standard method doesn't have.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THIS BUT YOU'RE WELCOME TO TRY:
If you look closely, the flash chip is located just next to the ram modules,
on the side of them that's facing the screen. There's a very small piece of
frame that covers the flash chip. I was so discouraged by the fact that I had
to take the whole thing apart, that I decided to just clip that part out. I
flashed it with the whole thing put together.
Advantages:
I just plugged in the laptop to power the SPI chip. No supply required.
You can just power on the laptop immediately to see if flash worked
Disadvantages:
You structurally compromise the frame in a small way
The screw hole for the mini PCIe slot for intel turbo mem isnt there anymore.
A clip that clamps down a part of the heatsink doesn't work anymore.
Flakes of metal can come off the frame and onto the motherboard while you
doing this. I didn't have any issues though.
It's all up to you. If you want a pristine laptop that isn't missing a few
things, I recommend you do it the complete way and take it apart fully.
ALSO I think you can determine which chip you have without taking it apart,
just identify it by running flashrom on it, and then use the documentation on
Libreboot to determine which chip you have. I had the 16.
And the processors are upgradable. I bought a P9700 (fastest low watt
processor you can get) for like $20 and upgraded the WiFi with (Atheros
Samsung AR5BHB)a libre Dual Band chip, and it's running great and fast.
Apparently you can put in like a X9100, I have one but like my P9700, and you
can even overclock it to speeds of 3.5GHz! It gets really hot though. My
battery life with a used 9-cell Lenovo battery was about ~3 hours, and uses
typically 12-14 watts of energy but have gotten it as low as 8.99. Screen
dimmness is really important with the CCFL backlit ones :(
