Lenovo ThinkCentre M920q with Intel X550-T2 (FRU 00MM860) made practical with 3D Printed Bracket

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ccl13

New Member
Dec 28, 2020
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Just want to share my build that is not too special but since I spent a bunch of time on it...

I wanted a proxmox machine that I can use as a pfsense box and run some lightweight services. After looking through all the stuff that I can find, I realize if I want it to be 10Gbps capable, I have to spend something bizarre and have a box that is too big for my tiny (not too tiny) in wall networking enclosure. There are some models that is probably okay in either cost or size, but I don't trust them being well maintained, and they either have Celeron or Xeon CPU.

Expect one thing - Lenovo's ThinkCentre Tiny. It is small enough, capable of PCIe 3.0 x4 with space for many HHHL cards, comes with low voltage Core CPU, going to have great support, and affordable. And the newest, most advanced, and affordable 10Gbps multi port Ethernet card that fits is X550-T2, which is not officially supported, but upon checking the dimensions it definitely will fit.

I picked up a used ThinkCentre M920q from eBay for a very reasonable price, comes with i5-8500T, 512GB SSD and 8GB RAM. Then I found Lenovo has FRU 00MM860 an Intel X550-T2 card, and on eBay it is about $300. From enCompass I got the 01AJ940 PCIe adapter card (01AJ929 works too). And put them together - they work well! The whole build at this stage costs about $600. And it is a monster - small even counting the power brick, powerful with 2x 10Gbps and 1x 1Gbps Ethernet, and a CPU that is way better than any "industrial computer". And backed by Lenovo ThinkStation warranty and service.

M920q X550_003.jpg

proxmox network interface.png

Ok now here comes the only hard part - we don't have a bracket for the X550 card. It really does not need to be anything fancy as I don't use it for anything other than home environment, so I decided to 3D print it. Well that was a troublesome decision - but probably still easier than everything else. My design is uploaded to Thingiverse here: Bracket for Lenovo Intel X550-T2 on Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny M920q/M720q (Gen Tiny4) by ccl13

M920q X550_002.jpg

Current version (version 8.0) of the bracket is not designed to really fix down the card, but rather make sure it is not going to become loose during usage and cause trouble. It does not include screw holes or anything like that, but fits the mechanically complicated chassis and card well.

M920q X550_001.jpg

I am going to experiment pfsense on it later and see if I can replace my current router with this. Also note that this one comes with WiFi - so I might be able to replace one AP with it too. We will see about that!


A few quick FAQ:

Q: Is this the final design of the bracket?
A: No. At best this can be said to be working. There's still issues with the design, but none of which I consider a blocker. I will probably improve it later and publish on Thingiverse.

Q: Does the bracket fit other ThinkCentre Tiny computers?
A: Not all. It technically fits design generation Tiny4 - that is M920q/M720/M720q. Not too sure about M920x/P330 but it should fit. Older and newer generation will require a different design, although not too different.

Q: Does this bracket fit all X550-T2?
A: Well, probably at least original design ones. This card by Lenovo looks exactly the same as Intel original, so that should fit. But there are fake cards and other designs (some of them won't upgrade NVM properly), those I cannot be sure.

Q: Why there's no structure above the two Ethernet ports?
A: By spec, the ports almost take up the full height of the opening. I tried to add a think piece but it will be so think and weak it does not do anything without breaking immediately.

Q: Can I use your bracket design?
A: Feel free - I put it on Thingiverse as CC Non-commercial.

Q: Why not just use Intel i350-T4, which is officially supported on Tiny4?
A: Well, I did give it a thought but at year 2021 I want to be future proof. Also I am trying to build my network with a daisy-chained 10Gbps backhaul, so it would be beneficial to have a dual 10Gbps on router.

Q: Why not using something with SFP and cheaper?
A: I generally have no way to add fiber to my house and in my experience all SFP/SFP+/SFP28 RJ45 module are very, very hot. I do want to keep it cooler since I want to use it in my data cabinet.

Q: Why not using Intel X540?
A: It runs hotter than X550. However much cheaper at the same time. I wanted to keep it as cool as possible so I spent money on it.

Q: Why not using Intel X710?
A: I cannot source one at the time of this build (at a reasonable price, that is). Also I've seen reports on it not working properly, probably due to its too new.
 
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zer0sum

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Mar 8, 2013
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Lovely work there! :)

And I agree whole heartedly as I just got an m920q and am running ESXi and OPNsense firewall, along with some other perimeter security VM's at the edge of my network.
This little things are beasts and are cheap (relatively) virtualization nodes

The only difference is, I'm using a single port Mellanox Connect-X 3 card, as you can find them for $25 or so on Ebay and they will do 10/40/56G.
There's loads of space, and no reason you couldn't use the dual port version.
The bracket it comes with doesn't really secure it totally, but it does hold it in place once the lid is back on

1614785596285.pngIMG-2418.jpg
 
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ccl13

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Dec 28, 2020
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Lovely work there! :)

And I agree whole heartedly as I just got an m920q and am running ESXi and OPNsense firewall, along with some other perimeter security VM's at the edge of my network.
This little things are beasts and are cheap (relatively) virtualization nodes

The only difference is, I'm using a single port Mellanox Connect-X 3 card, as you can find them for $25 or so on Ebay and they will do 10/40/56G.
There's loads of space, and no reason you couldn't use the dual port version.
The bracket it comes with doesn't really secure it totally, but it does hold it in place once the lid is back on

(Removed image for length of post)
Yeah I did see options from Mellanox. I didn't choose them because of limitation of my house's network - There's probably no way to use fiber. Given that, and in my experience all SFP(/+/28) modules are very hot when converting to RJ45. And I do need two ports.
It actually is going to save some using X540, as a decent one from eBay can be less than $50. But I found that is much hotter than X550 when at load. Probably not really a concern, but I do want to keep it cool in my data cabinet.
 

unmesh

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Apr 17, 2017
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The only difference is, I'm using a single port Mellanox Connect-X 3 card, as you can find them for $25 or so on Ebay and they will do 10/40/56G.
...
This is very attractive. What is the model number of this card?

And does it automatically configure to 10G with a 10G DAC cable or would the OS need to support that?
 

zer0sum

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Mar 8, 2013
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This is very attractive. What is the model number of this card?

And does it automatically configure to 10G with a 10G DAC cable or would the OS need to support that?
You just need to search for MCX353A on Ebay - MCX353A-QCAT MELLANOX CONNECTX-3 InfiniBand 10GigE SINGLE PORT QSFP+ CARD CX353A | eBay

I was using it with a DAC connected to little 5 port Mikrotik switch
Works natively with Windows server 2019, and with latest Mellanox ones.
It also works natively with esxi without any issues
 

unmesh

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adman_c

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Feb 14, 2016
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I'm pretty positive that the only SSD slot is an M.2, which is located on the bottom side of the motherboard. So...yes.
Au contraire. There's a SATA interface on the front of the motherboard via a little ZIF cable. Pretty sure the M920q even comes with said cable and a caddy for a 2.5" drive. I actually have a 2x 10Gb SFP+ card via riser and a 256GB "half-slim" SATA SSD (i.e. a SATA SSD removed from its plastic case) on the top side of my P350's motherboard. Plus another 2 NVME drives on the back. These little Tiny PCs are amazing!
 

epicurean

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Sep 29, 2014
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Au contraire. There's a SATA interface on the front of the motherboard via a little ZIF cable. Pretty sure the M920q even comes with said cable and a caddy for a 2.5" drive. I actually have a 2x 10Gb SFP+ card via riser and a 256GB "half-slim" SATA SSD (i.e. a SATA SSD removed from its plastic case) on the top side of my P350's motherboard. Plus another 2 NVME drives on the back. These little Tiny PCs are amazing!
Awesome. Can you show exactly how you achieved this? especially the type of 10gb SFP+ card used? and how you mounted the Sata SSD?
 

Kelvarr

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Sep 1, 2022
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Au contraire. There's a SATA interface on the front of the motherboard via a little ZIF cable. Pretty sure the M920q even comes with said cable and a caddy for a 2.5" drive. I actually have a 2x 10Gb SFP+ card via riser and a 256GB "half-slim" SATA SSD (i.e. a SATA SSD removed from its plastic case) on the top side of my P350's motherboard. Plus another 2 NVME drives on the back. These little Tiny PCs are amazing!
I thought the 920q only has a single NVME M.2 slot? The p330(?) are the ones with 2. Or a 920x.
 

adman_c

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Feb 14, 2016
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Awesome. Can you show exactly how you achieved this? especially the type of 10gb SFP+ card used? and how you mounted the Sata SSD?
I'm using a Supermicro AOC-I2S-STGN v2 card, which fits quite nicely in the Tinys. Then I'm using an old 256GB ssd that I removed from its shell and wrapped in electrical tape to prevent shorting. It's not mounted to anything right now, bc I haven't found a good place to mount it. Fortunately, the Tiny just sits there so it's not like the drive is bouncing around. I don't have a pic of both installed, but you can get the idea from a combo of these two albums: it's the NIC and bracket from here, in the chassis and with the drive from here. I have some concern about temps with the SSD being wrapped in electrical tape, but it's a SATA SSD, not NVME, and it's not like these drives were designed to have any heat removal, active or passive--they're just floating in a sealed plastic case. If smart can be trusted, it sits around 33C in the Tiny.
 

flicknot

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Mar 26, 2023
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I just wanted to say thanks for this post! It's funny I found your post a few days after I bought the same hardware to do pretty much exactly the same thing. In my case I wanted to get a T series for low power with vPro (which I did). I have an X520-DA2 but to your point, SFPs(+) generally do run hotter because the slot and the transceiver are consuming power, it's generally expected there will be some amount of air movement which doesn't really translate to these kinds of builds or use cases; yes you can do it (lots of ppl do) and I'll probably try mine at some point. I actually went with a dual I225-V/LM myself for the add-in which the data sheet shows 2W S0-Max 2500BASE-T vs 5.3W/8.4W 1GbE/10GbE (x550); those are Singe-port numbers. I might get the X550-T2 in the future but where I don't currently have 10G I'll likely stay with that for now

Wonderful work on your 3D printed bracket! I am definitely going to try it with the dual i225 the card dimensions and port layout are extremely close so I'm hoping it works. If it doesn't I'll probably break down and buy the X550-T2 haha :D
 
Nov 17, 2023
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Hello,

Does the Lenovo x550-t2 support 2.5 and 5 gb?

Intel ark spreadsheet says yes (for the x550-t2 spec) but Lenovo website just says 10gb.

I have a x710-t2l that is 7" long, so I don't think will fit.

Trying to find a NIC that will fit that supports 5gbp connection to my ATT box.
 

Catlike

New Member
Mar 24, 2023
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Hello,

Does the Lenovo x550-t2 support 2.5 and 5 gb?

Intel ark spreadsheet says yes (for the x550-t2 spec) but Lenovo website just says 10gb.

I have a x710-t2l that is 7" long, so I don't think will fit.

Trying to find a NIC that will fit that supports 5gbp connection to my ATT box.
Yes, the Lenovo x550-t2 supports 2.5/5gbe. I have one installed in my opnsense router connected to ATT 5Gbps service.