thanks, also ordered some risers direct from Lenovo as a Hail Mary. We’ll see, I’ll report back
Lenovo Thinkcentre/ThinkStation Tiny (Project TinyMiniMicro) Reference Thread
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Hello. I have a Lenovo m75q gen2 motherboard/ according to the specification it is compatible with GE processors. Will the motherboard support processors with the G index? Perhaps someone has experience. Options to find a G processor at an affordable price, much higher than GE
Is the m90q gen2 with it's 11th gen processor still worth having? I've been trying to find a new mini-PC to change my lab and everything I see for sale either has Realtek NIC or not enough cores. I really want 8 cores (16 threads) but willing to start with 6 knowing that I can eventually upgrade to an 11700T. The gen3 devices are a bit out of my price range right now, but I'd certainly be happier with a 12th gen processor.
I also really want 10gbps capability which none of the new mini-pc short of about $700+ will give, so looking at these Lenovo m90 and p3xx machines to fill the void.
On the flip side, the DDR4 of this gen3 tiny will save a little money and I don't think I really need more than 64GB.
Goal for these will be XCP-ng or vSphere8 or maybe Nutanix hypervisors. I know XCP-ng will work, almost certain vSphere will work, Nutanix is the unknown since it seems to be fairly heavy compared to the other two systems. I currently have vSphere8 going together on HP T740 and seems to have enough available resources to get what I need done for learning the product.
Plan is for Supermicro dual SFP+ NIC card plus onboard and if needed an a+e Intel i226 NIC added. I'll have to find the support/bracket and proper PCIe riser to get there.
I also really want 10gbps capability which none of the new mini-pc short of about $700+ will give, so looking at these Lenovo m90 and p3xx machines to fill the void.
On the flip side, the DDR4 of this gen3 tiny will save a little money and I don't think I really need more than 64GB.
Goal for these will be XCP-ng or vSphere8 or maybe Nutanix hypervisors. I know XCP-ng will work, almost certain vSphere will work, Nutanix is the unknown since it seems to be fairly heavy compared to the other two systems. I currently have vSphere8 going together on HP T740 and seems to have enough available resources to get what I need done for learning the product.
Plan is for Supermicro dual SFP+ NIC card plus onboard and if needed an a+e Intel i226 NIC added. I'll have to find the support/bracket and proper PCIe riser to get there.
I have a few test clusters using M720q models. XCP-NG and vSphere 8 work perfect. Which ever VM is running the Acropolis for the Nutanix cluster is going to get it's lunch money taken from it though. Nutanix is incredibly heavy for really no reason.
Hmmm, so 8c/16t is not enough. They need to clean up their product. I'd like to learn the Nutanix way, but they sure are making it hard!
My current xcp-ng lab is on HP DL360 gen 8 servers that idle at 100 watts. I might have to use them for Nutanix if it will run on them. 20c/40t with 128gb of ram (three of them).
My current xcp-ng lab is on HP DL360 gen 8 servers that idle at 100 watts. I might have to use them for Nutanix if it will run on them. 20c/40t with 128gb of ram (three of them).
I made the mistake of starting to add up the costs for what I want to do... For three of these, roughly $900 with only 6 cores. Add another $300 to upgrade the ram to 64gb each. Then another $450 to get up to 8 cores. and another $80 for dual 10gb NICs.
Then another $300+ if I want to add a second nvme drive (only 1tb each).
Maybe I need to look harder at some of these newer mini-PC like the stuff from GMKtec, I might be able to get newer, faster processors and lower power for less money total. I would need to live with 2.5g NICs though. Chasing lower power/heat/noise is expensive compared to old server hardware, $800-$900 would give me a quad system with 128GB each and processors with lots more cores (supermicro X10 based bigtwin chassis).
Then another $300+ if I want to add a second nvme drive (only 1tb each).
Maybe I need to look harder at some of these newer mini-PC like the stuff from GMKtec, I might be able to get newer, faster processors and lower power for less money total. I would need to live with 2.5g NICs though. Chasing lower power/heat/noise is expensive compared to old server hardware, $800-$900 would give me a quad system with 128GB each and processors with lots more cores (supermicro X10 based bigtwin chassis).
Just remember, core count isn't everything. The 12 thread CPU may actually do more work than an older Xeon can. Plus more efficiently. But yeah, there is a trade off for the size. While larger, loud, power hungry servers are more affordable, you lose out on... Well, all of not that.
I'm not entirely clear what you're asking. The m75q Gen2 does support GE processors, I have one; not sure about G.
I will try this for you in a few days when I receive my m75q gen 2 and report back.
So I only had a Ryzen 5 2600 to try not the g version and it did not work as far as I could tell due to the lack of igpu. Sorry I couldn't have answered your question better.
I've P360 Tiny. It has same SATA port flat ribbon connector. Not tested it.
As about GPU's: Not tried anything except supported T1000. But my feeling is that this gen have more restrictions than older ones. For example there is no way to keep 'iGPU' primary and use T1000 for pass-through.
I can test P360 tiny with LSI SAS controller card tomorrow if you want
As about GPU's: Not tried anything except supported T1000. But my feeling is that this gen have more restrictions than older ones. For example there is no way to keep 'iGPU' primary and use T1000 for pass-through.
I can test P360 tiny with LSI SAS controller card tomorrow if you want
Hey, nice build and thank you for sharing. Would you mind providing more details about the "Dual 2.5 Gigabit M.2 M+B Key Ethernet" you're using?
Hi there, could you please provide details at to how where you able to boot from the drive on the "WiFi" slot?I have a "new" M720q here since a few days and I'm able to run it successful with 3 SSDs:
I'm even able to boot form the Wifi Slot
- SATA SSD
- NVME PCIe3.0 x4
- + 1 additional NVME SSD at PCIe3.0 x1 at the "Wifi Slot" with an 2$ A-E to M Key Adapter
If it's anything like the P350 it does hold a 2.5" drive, but I couldn't find a compatible caddy and I had to buy the SATA ribbon cable (it's really a laptop part, you can buy it off eBay - just make sure the cable has the right number of "wires" in it). You just have to allow the drive to "flop around in there" (this is a technical term) unless you double-sided tape it to the chassis cover.
Or you can shuck (remove the plastic casing of) the SSD and wrap it in electrical tape, this usually will leave you enough space to put in a PCIe card as well.
P360 Tiny Quadro T1000 heatsink mod:
Hi,
I'm sharing my experience with adding Quadro T1000 to P360 Tiny. It's officially supported GPU, so it works out of the box (detected by BIOS, etc)
There are two kinds of these cards available:
1. PNY or any other generic OEM. Single slot low profile with small aluminum heatsink and fan. Brand new sometimes comes with two generic ATX rear brackets (high and low profile). None of these brackets will fit these tiny machines. But it's possibly to purchase original Lenovo rear bracket or just carefully use without bracket at all like here on photo:
2. Original Lenovo card comes with correct bracket and passive heatpipe. It's exactly same PCB, just with different cooling. Lenovo designed it to be silent by default. It basically reuse CPU fan for cooling down GPU. Heat pipe transfers heat to small heatsink that should be mounted close to CPU.
I've purchased used generic card because it was much cheaper. It was too loud. Most likely card has been used actively and the fan is already worn out. That was fine for me. I've ordered that original Lenovo heatsink. But observed that it'll not fit my system:
My initial idea was that I purchased wrong heatsink. But later I found that this thing is compatible only with 35W CPU. And 35W CPU comes with smaller fan. And in such case there will be space to mount T1000 heatsink...
As a plan B I've tried to relubricate this used T1000 fan but it became even worse... Here is photo of fan if somebody will try to find it:
Then I've tried to replace this fan completely. But I was not able to find original fan. Purchased a few 'replacement' fans (it should be 4pin PWM, 45mm diameter with 3 mounting holes with 39mm distance). It helped a bit, but I was not comfortable with them. Looks like their quality is worse than original fan.
My problem was 'idle' noise. I don't use that card actively. The goal was to passthrough GPU to Windows VM when needed. And disable it somehow if it's not needed. Unfortunately card don't do power management good enough. Even idle card consumes at least 10W of power. I've tried both Windows, Linux with nouveau and Linux with proprietary drivers. VRM area is hot and it don't have any heatsinks, etc. It's designed to be cooled down by air flow from GPU fan...
So my next idea was to somehow cooldown VRM area with hope that this will reduce fan speed. These components even under no load are so hot that it's impossible to touch them. So here was my setup for some timee:
And it mostly works. not ideal, but much better. And I got idle fan speed. Unfortunately on this T1000 card idle is around 30% of maximum. So fan is noticeable.
Btw card works with detached fan connector. But even on idle passive cooling is not enough... Temperature goes up and eventually system fan (CPU fan) goes to almost maximum speed. I think somehow BIOS knows about this T1000 card, communicates with it and adjusts CPU fan to cool down GPU (and this will work for 'official' card and 35W CPU where they share same fan)
This was my working setup for a few months. But later I've found on Lenovo forums that somebody asked where to buy this original heatpipe: English Community-Lenovo Community And this PDF file was shared: https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/thinkcentre_pdf/ts_p3_tiny_power_configurator_v1.0.pdf The most interesting page for me was this:
So P3 Tiny supports 65W CPU and T1000 at the same time!. And again. It's custom heatsink with fan again. There was link to some Aliexpress seller that sells something similar to this heatsink. But I was not sure that it'll fit. I've found another seller on Aliexpress with free return and ordered it. And got this thing:
Note that it covers these VRM components! It fits almost perfectly. It's fully compatible with generic T1000 card. The only difference is that it requires different screws. Original T1000 comes with M2 screws (and they are same for 35W heatsink). But this new one requires M2.5 screws.
Card doesn't fit P360 Tiny case by default because of this:
But it can be easily fixed with pliers. And here is final result:
Everything works, fits. It's almost silent when idle.
Note that on photo from Lenovo PDF there is some metal shield near display port connectors. I think it was designed so that heat goes only up outside. P3 Tiny can have new top cover with more holes. I was not able to find it for reasonable price yet but it should looks like this: Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Tiny (30H0000FFR) - PC - LDLC 3-year warranty
Now a few notes related to GPU passthough to Windows VM: Unfortunately Lenovo screwed up with P360 BIOS. There is no way to make NVIDIA GPU secondary. There is option in BIOS setup called "Primary display" with three possible values: AUTO, PEG, IGD.
- AUTO and PEG do exactly same thing: NVIDIA graphics is primary, where BIOS is displayed and that is used by default until OS loads drivers.
- IGD makes Intel default (that I want). But unfortunately in such case NVIDIA GPU completely disappears from system. It's not present in `lspci`, or Windows device manager. Like not installed at all. So absolutely useless
I was still able to passthough by using PEG option and adding extra hacks to unload all framebuffer drivers, etc. But downside is that I can't access BIOS anymore and see system boot loader (because monitor is plugged to Intel card).. Btw looking-glass works well with this card. And have bonus: since it's Quadro card, it's possible to plug 'virtual' monitor to it. No dummy plugs needed.
As about power management: I've found that card is consumes less power with `nouveau` driver loaded with full modeset, comparing to `vfio_pci`. It's very clear (just replacing vfio_pci with nouveau reduces fan speed). So I'm using qemu hook to switch modules when needed.
Hope it'll help somebody to save time and money
Hi,
I'm sharing my experience with adding Quadro T1000 to P360 Tiny. It's officially supported GPU, so it works out of the box (detected by BIOS, etc)
There are two kinds of these cards available:
1. PNY or any other generic OEM. Single slot low profile with small aluminum heatsink and fan. Brand new sometimes comes with two generic ATX rear brackets (high and low profile). None of these brackets will fit these tiny machines. But it's possibly to purchase original Lenovo rear bracket or just carefully use without bracket at all like here on photo:
2. Original Lenovo card comes with correct bracket and passive heatpipe. It's exactly same PCB, just with different cooling. Lenovo designed it to be silent by default. It basically reuse CPU fan for cooling down GPU. Heat pipe transfers heat to small heatsink that should be mounted close to CPU.
I've purchased used generic card because it was much cheaper. It was too loud. Most likely card has been used actively and the fan is already worn out. That was fine for me. I've ordered that original Lenovo heatsink. But observed that it'll not fit my system:
My initial idea was that I purchased wrong heatsink. But later I found that this thing is compatible only with 35W CPU. And 35W CPU comes with smaller fan. And in such case there will be space to mount T1000 heatsink...
As a plan B I've tried to relubricate this used T1000 fan but it became even worse... Here is photo of fan if somebody will try to find it:
Then I've tried to replace this fan completely. But I was not able to find original fan. Purchased a few 'replacement' fans (it should be 4pin PWM, 45mm diameter with 3 mounting holes with 39mm distance). It helped a bit, but I was not comfortable with them. Looks like their quality is worse than original fan.
My problem was 'idle' noise. I don't use that card actively. The goal was to passthrough GPU to Windows VM when needed. And disable it somehow if it's not needed. Unfortunately card don't do power management good enough. Even idle card consumes at least 10W of power. I've tried both Windows, Linux with nouveau and Linux with proprietary drivers. VRM area is hot and it don't have any heatsinks, etc. It's designed to be cooled down by air flow from GPU fan...
So my next idea was to somehow cooldown VRM area with hope that this will reduce fan speed. These components even under no load are so hot that it's impossible to touch them. So here was my setup for some timee:
And it mostly works. not ideal, but much better. And I got idle fan speed. Unfortunately on this T1000 card idle is around 30% of maximum. So fan is noticeable.
Btw card works with detached fan connector. But even on idle passive cooling is not enough... Temperature goes up and eventually system fan (CPU fan) goes to almost maximum speed. I think somehow BIOS knows about this T1000 card, communicates with it and adjusts CPU fan to cool down GPU (and this will work for 'official' card and 35W CPU where they share same fan)
This was my working setup for a few months. But later I've found on Lenovo forums that somebody asked where to buy this original heatpipe: English Community-Lenovo Community And this PDF file was shared: https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/thinkcentre_pdf/ts_p3_tiny_power_configurator_v1.0.pdf The most interesting page for me was this:
So P3 Tiny supports 65W CPU and T1000 at the same time!. And again. It's custom heatsink with fan again. There was link to some Aliexpress seller that sells something similar to this heatsink. But I was not sure that it'll fit. I've found another seller on Aliexpress with free return and ordered it. And got this thing:
Note that it covers these VRM components! It fits almost perfectly. It's fully compatible with generic T1000 card. The only difference is that it requires different screws. Original T1000 comes with M2 screws (and they are same for 35W heatsink). But this new one requires M2.5 screws.
Card doesn't fit P360 Tiny case by default because of this:
But it can be easily fixed with pliers. And here is final result:
Everything works, fits. It's almost silent when idle.
Note that on photo from Lenovo PDF there is some metal shield near display port connectors. I think it was designed so that heat goes only up outside. P3 Tiny can have new top cover with more holes. I was not able to find it for reasonable price yet but it should looks like this: Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Tiny (30H0000FFR) - PC - LDLC 3-year warranty
Now a few notes related to GPU passthough to Windows VM: Unfortunately Lenovo screwed up with P360 BIOS. There is no way to make NVIDIA GPU secondary. There is option in BIOS setup called "Primary display" with three possible values: AUTO, PEG, IGD.
- AUTO and PEG do exactly same thing: NVIDIA graphics is primary, where BIOS is displayed and that is used by default until OS loads drivers.
- IGD makes Intel default (that I want). But unfortunately in such case NVIDIA GPU completely disappears from system. It's not present in `lspci`, or Windows device manager. Like not installed at all. So absolutely useless
I was still able to passthough by using PEG option and adding extra hacks to unload all framebuffer drivers, etc. But downside is that I can't access BIOS anymore and see system boot loader (because monitor is plugged to Intel card).. Btw looking-glass works well with this card. And have bonus: since it's Quadro card, it's possible to plug 'virtual' monitor to it. No dummy plugs needed.
As about power management: I've found that card is consumes less power with `nouveau` driver loaded with full modeset, comparing to `vfio_pci`. It's very clear (just replacing vfio_pci with nouveau reduces fan speed). So I'm using qemu hook to switch modules when needed.
Hope it'll help somebody to save time and money
New member here. So if I am posting this in the wrong spot forgive me and direct me to the correct location.
I have a Lenovo P330 32 GB 1.5 TB. It is my 3rd or 4th tiny.
Does anyone know if the P330 would fit into one of the Lenovo external DVD/CD bracket?
THNX
I have a Lenovo P330 32 GB 1.5 TB. It is my 3rd or 4th tiny.
Does anyone know if the P330 would fit into one of the Lenovo external DVD/CD bracket?
THNX