Lenovo Thinkcentre/ThinkStation Tiny (Project TinyMiniMicro) Reference Thread

[sw1]

Hey guys, is there a way to update the first post? It's been ~1.5 years since the last update, and there's just so much information that gets lost in the many pages this thread already has, and the search function is not really that useful when there's information scattered across a few years now.

For instance, the first post has no information whatsoever about connecting a 2230 drive, and while you may think that's common knowledge, it's really isn't and takes digging to find the proper adapter name and the steps to get it to work.

That applies to many other things like, what cards fit, what cards fit but don't have good Proxmox or OPNsense support, what 3D models are already in place for things like extra fans or "baffles" for certain cards, or custom PCI-E risers and all that stuff that gets kind of lost in the pages (with many more I still don't know about because such information is not as easy to find)

 

[jlist]

Agreed, I think this thread has outgrown it's original purpose. I've suggested making separate threads for similar gens (6/7th, 8/9th, AMD Ryzens, etc.) to make the discussions more focused and relevant.

Well aside from the OP here, there's also Wifi's tiny-secrets repo which has collated tons of information together. GitHub - a-little-wifi/TinySecrets: Technical information about small 1L Lenovo, Dell, HP and Acer PCs

 

[besseddrest]

Agreed, I think this thread has outgrown it's original purpose. I've suggested making separate threads for similar gens (6/7th, 8/9th, AMD Ryzens, etc.) to make the discussions more focused and relevant.

Well aside from the OP here, there's also Wifi's tiny-secrets repo which has collated tons of information together. GitHub - a-little-wifi/TinySecrets: Technical information about small 1L Lenovo, Dell, HP and Acer PCs

+1, I just went through a 2 month ordeal of trial and error updating from m75q Gen 2 4650GE => 5650GE with a lot of learnings

Obvi I'm late to the party and some of the BIOS related things might be more obvious to those with more experience with this, but I just kinda had to figure it out (which, honestlywas a good learning experience) butI'm surprised there weren't more people running into the issue i had been experiencing

 

[sw1]

Agreed, I think this thread has outgrown it's original purpose. I've suggested making separate threads for similar gens (6/7th, 8/9th, AMD Ryzens, etc.) to make the discussions more focused and relevant.

Well aside from the OP here, there's also Wifi's tiny-secrets repo which has collated tons of information together. GitHub - a-little-wifi/TinySecrets: Technical information about small 1L Lenovo, Dell, HP and Acer PCs

Thank you, I had no idea about that repo and I've been following this thread for over a year. Somehow I missed it

I like your idea of separate threads, that'll keep the conversation relevant, easier to follow, and easier to keep the first post updated. I, for instance, have an M920q so I have to filter through comments about M90q and other models whose discussions aren't relevant for my case and that's how I easily get lost

 

[besseddrest]

I've posted an issue with my findings re: m75q gen 2 on the TinySecrets github repo mentioned above:

m75q gen 2 CPU upgrade info · Issue #5 · a-little-wifi/TinySecrets

Thought I'd leave some info here because I've been at this for two months and I think this could be helpful to those trying to upgrade m75q gen 2 at a higher level - by the looks of the psref spec ...

github.com

If the issue is no longer visible, hopefully its info has been added to the repo!

 

[good4y0u]

I am trying to add a Intel I350-T4 PCI Express x4 Quad Port Low Profile Ethernet Card to a m910x tiny, does anyone know if a lenovo m920x bracket fit on m910x tiny?

Ebay has more of those style brackets listed with risers. Some of the listings say m910x, m920x but others do not.
(ex
Lenovo ThinkCentre M920q M920x M910x M720q P330 Tiny5 PCIE16 Riser Card 01AJ940
Lenovo ThinkCentre M920q M920x M910x M720q P330 Tiny5 PCIE16 Riser Card 01AJ940 | eBay )

 

[ChrisP21]

FYI in case it helps prevent you from spending $300 on a science experiment. I tried using the 128GB (2x64GB) kit in the M90q gen 3 and no luck. It won't POST. The machine lets out an audible 3 short beeps and one long beep. I also tried upgrading BIOS to the latest version on Lenovo's site (from April 2025) but it doesn't look as though it matter. If anyone has any tricks, let me know otherwise back to Amazon they go

 

[good4y0u]

Well I did take the plunge and after a bit of back and forth, I ended up with an M910X version of this NAS through Superbuy delivered to Alberta at roughly $500CAD:

闲鱼商品详情

market.m.taobao.com

this seller has a video on BiliBili

联想2L 迷你主机/NAS主机/万兆软路由主机_哔哩哔哩_bilibili

基于@跑路的靓仔 开源的4盘2.5寸硬盘架方案制作，主机配置就不介绍了，纯享版，目前尚未上架，有需要的可以关注我闲鱼, 视频播放量 55078、弹幕量 8、点赞数 334、投硬币枚数 95、收藏人数 549、转发人数 90, 视频作者 LiuCH_CN, 作者简介 闲鱼ID：LiuCH_CN，相关视频：【开源】 Lenovo 2L迷你主机 DIY NAS/小型服务器，万兆全闪NAS？小型炼丹炉？软路由？什么？还带BMC？，联想 改4盘 NAS 最终优化版本，联想3600c 最小双3.5 NAS...

www.bilibili.com

As it turns out, the machine appears to work as advertised (highly modded BIOS BTW) and is running an OS with no issues however, buyer beware.

I bought the V1 which used a 600g connection on the Wi-Fi key to the backplane of the drive cage.
-No RAM
-No NVMe or SSD
-i7-7700T
-4 port 2.5G nic

The seller contacted me after the initial build was decided and offered V2 at no extra cost which used one of the NVMe slots to connect to the drives in the cage. His reason was that the V1 build apparently had a conflict with the Realtek NIC. I said fine. Upon arrival and inspection I have to admit a bit of disappointment, the build quality and fitment is kind of awful. I did get the Realtek NIC, however, he did send a V1 machine which was fine with me as I prefer having two NVMe drives anyway and so far, no issues or conflict with the 2.5g nic. This one appears to be https://www.amazon.ca/GLOTRENDS-RTL8125BG-PCI-Express-Bandwidth-Compatible/dp/B0BLN9VRZM with the fan removed although the seller did include it and the box the nic came in withthe package. I suspect the 'conflict' might have been the card length, this is the shortest 2.5g 4 port nic I've seen and there is plenty of clearance for the power module and the A+EE adapter in the Wi-Fi slot.

The lower mount point on the 3D printed drive cage is broken off, and instead the unit is held together with 2 screws that were drilled through the cover on either side. The front faceplate is broken off and as you can see in the picture that notes the removable memory/NVMe cover it was glued with some sort of black adhesive, it sticks out oddly in that if you have a USB-A connector like a small kingston data traveller with no plastic casing it will work fine, however, if you have a typical USB stick with a plastic casing, it won't fit far enough into the slot to make a connection. The bottom cover has a 2mm hand bent flange that I'll fix with a grinder, but in the process of bending it, it was warped. One of the cpu fan screws was missing, however, I noticed it was actually stuck to some glue on one of the pcb's for the drive cage.

NAS

Kind of odd if you ask me. Suberbuy took pic's but they didn't include either front nor back which I thought odd at the time. I thought they had a reputation for being meticulous but in this case, not so much.

Going to let Hyper-V whirl on it for a bit, but again if I could have only found the M600 cover literally anywhere, I would do my own mod for certain. a DIY from China I guess is again, buyer beware.

Okay I have a lightly used, unmolested M910X in my basement. Anyone know where I can get an M600 cover?

EDIT - Well added known working SSD's in the drive cages. not recognized at all. Boo... I'll remove the 4 port Realtek to see if indeed there is some sort of conflict.

I know this is an old thread, but do you know which m910x pcie riser is being used here? I can't figure out which is the correct one and I am trying to put a NIC in mine. (I posted about it here https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...iny-and-supports-the-intel-i350-t4-nic.47916/ )

 

[evil_santa]

I know this is an old thread, but do you know which m910x pcie riser is being used here? I can't figure out which is the correct one and I am trying to put a NIC in mine. (I posted about it here https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...iny-and-supports-the-intel-i350-t4-nic.47916/ )

I bought this one from AliExpress click
It's an X8 Riser and works fine with my bifurcation mod. Be sure it's labelled with "Tiny 4"
Many sellers mixing the fru numbers, the right number is "01AJ902" and only these for m910x

 

[Parallax]

Heyo. I'm still around, just lazy on the updates because my job has been significantly busy over the past couple of years.

Splitting the post up into multiples covering the different Tiny gens (for example) would involve some complexity because there's a lot of commonality between the models, and a lot of work. But it's possible, sure. I'd worry that gen 3 onwards seem to be used a lot less comparatively, at least in terms of post volume I've seen, so those threads might not get much traction.

On the same sort of topic it seems like the Mx20q series remains the most popular. I could split the newer models off into a new thread, that might be easier but doesn't solve the issue of the size of this thread.

I could build a whole site with a forum just to discuss Tinys, but there's been a lot of benefit visibility-wise from being on STH and I feel grateful for that.

Any other suggestions?

 

[jlist]

These machines tend to show up on ebay after 3-5 years of service as companies start to rotate them out, so the M720Q and related models are at the timeframe where they're getting cheap enough to play with while also still being decently performant.

In a few years, I wouldn't be surprised if the 10/11th gen models (and 12/13th gen way later on) gets as much discussion as the 8th gen ones once ebay is flooded with them, much like how discussion around the M910Q/P320 started off strong but gradually died down over time.

In regards to what to do moving forward, I'm also unsure of what's the right approach. I've read the STH main page articles and lurked for a while before signing up here recently so like you mentioned, being in STH seems to attract participants. Having a separate website (using a separate account) will add too much friction, so engagement will be massively reduced as the community gets split off elsewhere.

Maybe we can reach out to a mod or admin of STH forums to create a dedicated sub-forum for Tinies? That way all Lenovo related posts will still be in one location while also having the flexibility to branch off in a different topic for in-depth discussions . Stickies can be created per gen to centralize/summarize any interesting findings.

 

[besseddrest]

FYI in case it helps prevent you from spending $300 on a science experiment. I tried using the 128GB (2x64GB) kit in the M90q gen 3 and no luck. It won't POST. The machine lets out an audible 3 short beeps and one long beep. I also tried upgrading BIOS to the latest version on Lenovo's site (from April 2025) but it doesn't look as though it matter. If anyone has any tricks, let me know otherwise back to Amazon they go

Just have to ask - did you clear CMOS

 

[besseddrest]

The fan for m75q Gen 2 with the 5650GE (11JN) is much louder than its previous iteration 11JJ 4650GE. Here's how to reduce the fan noise:

The m70q Gen 3 fan has longer blades. I bought one on Amazon for $14 - and it fits into the fan shroud of the m75q Gen 2, so you can just swap them. The m70q Gen 3 fan assembly won't fit into the m75q Gen 2

The part number is 5H40U93050.

The difference is night and day! SILENT! I can't take credit for this, I found this tip on Reddit.

 

[flipper203]

Hello, I'm getting a M90q Gen 3 wich is not a vPro model, with a nvidia graphical card attached. If I change the processor with a vPro compatible, is there a way to use vPro with this model or will it be impossible ?

 

[ChrisP21]

Just have to ask - did you clear CMOS

I did not specifically clear the CMOS. I shipped the RAM kit back though. I'll reinvest if anyone else comes up with some magic to make it work. The gen 12 chips do support 128gb so I'm sure a hack is possible.

 

[ChrisP21]

I have several of the gen 3 m90q systems, all of which have vPro. I can access them remotely through meshcommander just be sure to get yourself one of the hdmi/displayport emulators depending on which ports your machine has. You need to trick them into thinking a monitor is attached in order to get a proper remote desktop session going.

Something like this works just fine.

https://www.amazon.com/Headless-Emulator-Compatible-Multiple-Resolutions/dp/B0B5XVQVJ9/ref=asc_df_B0B5XVQVJ9?mcid=3f3516256ccd32a1b7e13f9348a71495&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693411594194&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9843401936856050078&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001990&hvtargid=pla-2064067513617&hvocijid=9843401936856050078-B0B5XVQVJ9-&hvexpln=0&th=1

 

[Nozle]

Today my M90Q Gen 4 with 13500 decided to die after a BIOS update.

When I press the power button, nothing appears on the screen (the fan is spinning), and after 20 seconds it shuts off...

I tried clearing CMOS without success.

Any recommendations for getting it back on?

 

[evil_santa]

Today my M90Q Gen 4 with 13500 decided to die after a BIOS update.

When I press the power button, nothing appears on the screen (the fan is spinning), and after 20 seconds it shuts off...

I tried clearing CMOS without success.

Any recommendations for getting it back on?

Try a Bootblock recovery, bring your BIOS update on a USB key and bring the jumper to CMOS reset.
Plug in the usb key and start your machine.
Wait until it's done (shuts off) and try if it worked.

 

[Nozle]

Try a Bootblock recovery, bring your BIOS update on a USB key and bring the jumper to CMOS reset.
Plug in the usb key and start your machine.
Wait until it's done (shuts off) and try if it worked.

This is the first thing I did.

I downloaded the M90Q Gen 4 BIOS for USB (.zip), unzipped everything to a USB drive, and completely disconnected the computer.

Then I set the jumper to Clear CMOS (center pins). The computer turned on, but there were no beeps or anything on the screen. After 20 seconds, it shuts off.

I don't know if I actually did something wrong or if the maintenance jumper isn't correct.

 

[evil_santa]

Is the usb key formatted in fat32?
Never tried another filesystem but maybe this is the problem.