Anyone tried soldering PCI slot onto m75q?

[cromo]

The m75q gen1/2 (and likely newer, too), have a room for their PCI slot connector, but it's unpopulated. Considering that it's already known how to add an extra m2 slot and so many actually did, I wonder if anyone tried soldering a PCI slot connector, too?

This would make it a very interesting device, given that you get the ECC on these systems as well.

 

[WifiCable]

I recently came across a Xianyu listing for an M75q gen 2 board with the riser slot installed and working here: 闲鱼 - 闲不住？上闲鱼！, so it must be possible given the right parts. I've also speculated on what's needed to make it work over here: Add 2nd nvme to M75Q gen2 · Issue #3 · a-little-wifi/TinySecrets, but don't have a board to try it out on and properly document it.
The m75q gen 1 doesn't have the footprint for the riser slot btw, only the gen 2. And only the gen 1 supports ECC, on the gen 2 the ECC signals are not connected sadly, so there's no riser+ECC combination possible

 

[cromo]

I recently came across a Xianyu listing for an M75q gen 2 board with the riser slot installed and working here: 闲鱼 - 闲不住？上闲鱼！, so it must be possible given the right parts. I've also speculated on what's needed to make it work over here: Add 2nd nvme to M75Q gen2 · Issue #3 · a-little-wifi/TinySecrets, but don't have a board to try it out on and properly document it.
The m75q gen 1 doesn't have the footprint for the riser slot btw, only the gen 2. And only the gen 1 supports ECC, on the gen 2 the ECC signals are not connected sadly, so there's no riser+ECC combination possible

Well I have some good news for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/s/U4s3vADXue

 

[WifiCable]

That's the M75s Gen 2, not M75q

 

[cromo]

That's the M75s Gen 2, not M75q

Snap, no idea how I missed that. Thanks!

 

[cromo]

And only the gen 1 supports ECC, on the gen 2 the ECC signals are not connected sadly, so there's no riser+ECC combination possible

Do you have some source on the ECC signals not being connected on the gen2? So far all I found was that the system wouldn't boot with ECC memory modules, which could indicate JEDEC issue with the timings rather than ECC signals not being connected. Otherwise the ECC modules should just work, except EDAC would not detect it?

 

[WifiCable]

Do you have some source on the ECC signals not being connected on the gen2? So far all I found was that the system wouldn't boot with ECC memory modules, which could indicate JEDEC issue with the timings rather than ECC signals not being connected. Otherwise the ECC modules should just work, except EDAC would not detect it?

I have the motherboard schematic which shows the pins for the extra 8 ECC bits not connected. I'm not sure how the system should interact with ECC modules in this case, but ECC itself will certainly not work.

 

[cromo]

I have the motherboard schematic which shows the pins for the extra 8 ECC bits not connected. I'm not sure how the system should interact with ECC modules in this case, but ECC itself will certainly not work.

View attachment 47050

Interesting, thank you for a quick reply!

It's such a shame that Lenovo skimped on doing that (and PCI slot and extra NVMe slot). This machine had such a potential to become the ultimate tiny server...

 

[WifiCable]

Yeah for real... I did recently acquire an M75q gen 2 board myself that I'm gonna experiment on for the pcie and nvme slot, will probably report about that somewhere some time.

 

[cromo]

Yeah for real... I did recently acquire an M75q gen 2 board myself that I'm gonna experiment on for the pcie and nvme slot, will probably report about that somewhere some time.

Just realized you are the person behind: GitHub - a-little-wifi/TinySecrets: Technical information about small 1L Lenovo, Dell, HP and Acer PCs . Great job on that!

 

[cromo]

Out of curiosity, do you happen to have schematics for Gen5 as well? I wonder if the issues with ECC there are also down to data lanes not connected, or perhaps it's a matter of JEDEC timings missing and obtaining some particular, compatible sticks?

Lenovo M75q Gen 5 - Weird memory behaviour (ECC-So-Dimm)

Hi, I am struggling with a brand new Lenovo M75q Gen.5 with an AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 8700GE that came with a single 16GB So-Dimm unbuffered module. Since being me I tried to upgrade to ECC-memory, purchased 2x 16GB ECC modules from mushkin. Long story short: the system won’t boot with one or two ECC...

forum.level1techs.com

 

[WifiCable]

Just realized you are the person behind: GitHub - a-little-wifi/TinySecrets: Technical information about small 1L Lenovo, Dell, HP and Acer PCs . Great job on that!

Thanks I'm kinda curious what people actually find the most useful about the information I put there. I mostly put it there for my own reference but clearly other people are interested too lol

Out of curiosity, do you happen to have schematics for Gen5 as well? I wonder if the issues with ECC there are also down to data lanes not connected, or perhaps it's a matter of JEDEC timings missing and obtaining some particular, compatible sticks?

Lenovo M75q Gen 5 - Weird memory behaviour (ECC-So-Dimm)

Hi, I am struggling with a brand new Lenovo M75q Gen.5 with an AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 8700GE that came with a single 16GB So-Dimm unbuffered module. Since being me I tried to upgrade to ECC-memory, purchased 2x 16GB ECC modules from mushkin. Long story short: the system won’t boot with one or two ECC...

forum.level1techs.com

I wish, but sadly I don't have those. Schematics usually take a while to leak out and that's a pretty new model, and ThinkCentre schematics aren't that common in the first place either. Hopefully we'll have them some day.