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Lenovo Thinkcentre/ThinkStation Tiny (Project TinyMiniMicro) Reference Thread

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adman_c

Active Member
Feb 14, 2016
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Chicago
Can't speak for the older m910x but on mine, the CPU power limits change according to the power supply you plug into it. 90W will dramatically limit a 65W Coffee Lake CPU and to some extent the i7/i9 35W too. I am running a 50W GPU alongside a 125W CPU on my P340 and have no problems... but that's with a 230W power brick.
Just out of curiosity, were you able to find any documentation about the limitations for these machines based on their power supplies or is your knowledge just from trial and error?

Thanks!
 

rafale77

Member
Sep 28, 2020
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36
18
No documentation no. This is just based on own experience and people from this very forum. My setup is actually completely undocumented and unsupported for either my CPU or GPU and even less the ability to combine the two.
 
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Parallax

Active Member
Nov 8, 2020
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London, UK
Another solid deal if you don't mind the 8th-gen CPUs. $250 for an i5-8500t and 8/256 seems great to me.
Yeah they're heading to that sort of price in the UK as well. Covid kept the prices artificially high - I was able to sell in 2021 Mx20q machines at about the same price I bought them at (already second hand) in 2019.
 

adman_c

Active Member
Feb 14, 2016
257
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Chicago
I'm really hoping it's just a power issue because otherwise the m910x is just a fantastic little box. The 65w CPUs idle just as low as the 35w ones, and have greater headroom. Plus they get the 2x NVME slots and the copper heatsink on the CPU. I've got a 135w power supply on order. Should I get a 170w instead? The NIC draws like 5w maximum, so all I can think is that somehow (if this is a power issue and not something faulty with the PCIE slots) the system is limiting the PCIE slot to 4x when powered by the 90w brick. I've tried multiple risers and multiple cards--I may grab a connectx-3 just to check, since that's the only other 8x card I have handy.
Oh my god I'm an idiot and I'm lucky I didn't fry the NIC and/or the m910x. Part of the NIC was contacting the CPU HS/F assembly and was conducting current! One of the troubleshooting items I hadn't yet mentioned is that the NIC was making a buzzing noise, which I had attributed to it not getting enough voltage from the PCIE port or something. Nope, turns out it was because part of the NIC was shorting to ground. Put some electrical tape on the back of the NIC and we're in business!
 
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drvcrash

New Member
Jul 29, 2020
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so here is a weird one I have one m90q running with 64gb ram. I was waiting to get 64gb for my second and finally got around to installing it. it refuses to boot. 3 beeps.

I take one stick out , boots, i put the second stick in by itself, boots, I put both sticks in dimm slot 2 one at a time and it still boots. if I put an 8gb stick in each slot it boots. but refuses when i put 2 32gb sticks in it.

The only difference i see between my two m90q's is one has a bios from jan 2022 and this one has bios from march 2022.

Could Lenovo have locked that down? Can I roll back bios versions?
 

rafale77

Member
Sep 28, 2020
89
36
18
so here is a weird one I have one m90q running with 64gb ram. I was waiting to get 64gb for my second and finally got around to installing it. it refuses to boot. 3 beeps.

I take one stick out , boots, i put the second stick in by itself, boots, I put both sticks in dimm slot 2 one at a time and it still boots. if I put an 8gb stick in each slot it boots. but refuses when i put 2 32gb sticks in it.

The only difference i see between my two m90q's is one has a bios from jan 2022 and this one has bios from march 2022.

Could Lenovo have locked that down? Can I roll back bios versions?
I have both a P340 and M90Q Gen2 with April BIOS versions and don't have this problem. Both run 64GB of ram. Since the memory controller is in the CPU these days, maybe check if you are running different CPUs and if there is somehow a limitation there?
 

Parallax

Active Member
Nov 8, 2020
417
208
43
London, UK
So here's a slightly annoying discovery I made thanks to the "Great Deal" thread on the P350 mentioned above.

To x-post :
I've done some digging - and this will be controversial since there is obviously a SATA port available on the motherboard - but I don't think the P350 Tiny officially supports a 2.5" drive and that's why there isn't a caddy/cage for it or a FRU for the unit.

If you look here :
Then all that's listed under storage is the two m.2 slots.


A user bought the standard FRU with cable and caddy; the ZIF SATA ribbon cable and connector works fine but the cage/caddy does not fit in the P350 Tiny.
 

Helzy

Active Member
Oct 19, 2017
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Thought about asking in the enclosure forum but this thread seems more appropriate, as it is based upon the Lenovo Tiny ecosystem. The Tiny IV DVD Burner kit has a mini usb-a to usb-b cable. is this an orderable FRU from Lenovo? My google-fu is weak today. Thank you!
 

Parallax

Active Member
Nov 8, 2020
417
208
43
London, UK
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Helzy

Active Member
Oct 19, 2017
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Curious, I bought a pair of WD NVME drives on sale this weekend and swapped the pair in to a new P350 Tiny. I see the drives in the system summary, however, it appears we've only got AHCI and Intel RST w/Optane. No RAID drop down...? I thought this was a base feature of the Thinkstation P series that on the Tiny's we could at least do RAID 0/1 with the nvme drives. Hidden sub-menu or switch to text perhaps, let me play...
 

djpbessems

New Member
Apr 13, 2022
6
0
1
Nice, was just shopping (read checking the current price and thinking "bah, still expensive") for a P340 Tiny (10600 32GB) on Lenovo's own site, when their chat bot excitedly said "I have all kinds of deals! Chat with me".
I responded that I know of those deals and that I am not interested in laptops, then I got a real person in the chat, and he checked for possible discounts on devices other than laptops, and he offered me a 67 euro discount (also promising me similar discounts next month when I buy my final cluster-node) :)

Moral of the story, also haggle during your online shopping :)
 

Parallax

Active Member
Nov 8, 2020
417
208
43
London, UK
Nice, was just shopping (read checking the current price and thinking "bah, still expensive") for a P340 Tiny (10600 32GB) on Lenovo's own site, when their chat bot excitedly said "I have all kinds of deals! Chat with me".
I responded that I know of those deals and that I am not interested in laptops, then I got a real person in the chat, and he checked for possible discounts on devices other than laptops, and he offered me a 67 euro discount (also promising me similar discounts next month when I buy my final cluster-node) :)

Moral of the story, also haggle during your online shopping :)
P350 / 11500 / 8GB base model now £419.99 with free shipping in the UK.
 

Kaloz

New Member
Mar 30, 2022
7
4
3
I did offer a transshipment service to someone else (or there are plenty of commercial services that will do the same thing).
If you have some commercial entity, I would be happy to take you up on the offer. If not, sadly the issue is the same as with forwarder services - I would have to pay VAT twice :/
 

Parallax

Active Member
Nov 8, 2020
417
208
43
London, UK
If you have some commercial entity, I would be happy to take you up on the offer. If not, sadly the issue is the same as with forwarder services - I would have to pay VAT twice :/
I'm afraid I'm just a guy on an Internet forum. But the £420 price is delivered in the UK and includes VAT, so you just need to add any import duty at your end, plus whatever my shipping cost is. I doubt you can do it cheaper buying in your country even though you're effectively paying duty twice; but it's up to you.

I'm also assuming duty is paid on the amount shown on the invoice attached to the item ...
 

djpbessems

New Member
Apr 13, 2022
6
0
1
I'm sure you are offering the transshipment as an entirely goodwill gesture, but please be careful and protect yourself from lost shipments;
My last order (even with Lenovo directly) was delivered on the wrong address (actually was shipped to Lenovo's own distribution center 5 minutes away from here). It took me over 3 weeks of calling to get a refund.
If this would happen to a shipment you forwarded to the EU; you wouldn't want to end up in a fight over who would carry the loss...
 

Parallax

Active Member
Nov 8, 2020
417
208
43
London, UK
Yeah, thanks, I do appreciate the advice. I did buy a couple myself first and then four more since for others. Thanks to my wife's business we get 1-3 packages a day so we know all the couriers on a first name basis and vice versa, and she's shipped ~1,800 packages over the last 3-4 years and we haven't lost one.

Definitely agreed on being careful in terms of responsibility, it's a good point. My approach so far is just to be the transshipment address, the buyer pays ITbay and the onward shipper directly themselves so I don't handle any money and the contractual relationships are clear. But things can definitely always go wrong.