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Lenovo Thinkcentre/ThinkStation Tiny (Project TinyMiniMicro) Reference Thread

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mark118

New Member
Jun 7, 2022
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ms357 said:
Any idea where I can find a P350 Tiny PCIe x16 riser (part #5C50W00877) for sensible money? The only place that seems to have them in stock is Aliexpress, and they're gouging the heck out of the price over there

www.aliexpress.com

59.39US $ 10% OFF|Workstation Pcie16 Riser Card For Lenovo Thinkstation P340 Tiny 5c50w00877 - Laptop Repair Components - AliExpress

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com
www.aliexpress.com www.aliexpress.com

The riser for the older P330 tinys seems relatively plentiful on eBay, but I've compared these to photos of the newer one and the older riser has fewer pins on the motherboard connector so it's unlikely to be compatible.

I refuse to pay £60 / $70 for a basic PCB that probably cost $2 to make.
Click to expand...
I have a spare one i can sell you if you are in the UK, I ordered two from ebay as I thought I was going to get 2 p350 tinys but only ended up getting one

Genuine Lenovo ThinkStation P340 Tiny Workstation PCIE16 Riser Card 5C50W00877 | eBay you can always message these guys as well to see if they will be able to get more, I had to wait a good 3 weeks for it so assuming they order direct from lenovo.
 
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GenDufour

New Member
Jul 9, 2022
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GenDufour said:
I'll post the link later if I remember. It's not much different, but in the end, it worked for me
Click to expand...
Ha, I remembered. Here is the documentation that I've followed and worked flawlessly. Instead of the USB Fling, I used the Network Community Fling
What I've done also is create a .ps1 file with the contents:
Code: 
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot .\VMware-ESXi-7.0U3d-19482537-depot.zip
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot .\Net-Community-Driver_1.2.7.0-1vmw.700.1.0.15843807_19480755.zip
New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile 'ESXi-7.0U3d-19482537-standard' -Name 'ESXi-7.0U3d-19482537-M90Q-G2' -vendor 'gendufour'
Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile 'ESXi-7.0U3d-19482537-M90Q-G2' -SoftwarePackage 'net-community'
Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile 'ESXi-7.0U3d-19482537-M90Q-G2' -ExportToIso -FilePath .\ESXi-7.0U3d-19482537-M90Q-G2.iso
 
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ms357

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Jul 9, 2022
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Parallax said:
Yeah, it's a problem. I'm hoping this is a temporary issue relating to component shortages and it'll resolve itself during the northern summer.

If you think that's bad, the standard chassis screw (at the back, which you take out to access the internals) is a £25 spare part, which is why I added its size to the original post. It's a good move to replace it with a thumbscrew anyway.
Click to expand...
Mad. I'll be extra careful not to lose that one then.
 
M

ms357

New Member
Jul 9, 2022
5
0
1
mark118 said:
I have a spare one i can sell you if you are in the UK, I ordered two from ebay as I thought I was going to get 2 p350 tinys but only ended up getting one
Click to expand...
That would be helpful. How much are you asking, including standard UK postage?
 
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Parallax

Active Member
Nov 8, 2020
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London, UK
ms357 said:
Mad. I'll be extra careful not to lose that one then.
Click to expand...
I bought a pack of twenty M3.5 black metal thumbscrews for £3.50 delivered; I wouldn't worry about it. I do recommend you replace that screw with a thumbscrew anyway, since then the chassis is toolless and you can upgrade the RAM, add m.2 drives etc without hunting down a screwdriver.

But the high theoretical cost of the part did help me when an eBay seller sent me a Tiny without a chassis screw, and I said - well, see, it's £25 to replace, so they gave me a £25 discount...
 
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zer0sum

zer0sum

Well-Known Member
Mar 8, 2013
881
494
63
GenDufour said:
Ha, I remembered. Here is the documentation that I've followed and worked flawlessly. Instead of the USB Fling, I used the Network Community Fling
What I've done also is create a .ps1 file with the contents:
Code: 
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot .\VMware-ESXi-7.0U3d-19482537-depot.zip
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot .\Net-Community-Driver_1.2.7.0-1vmw.700.1.0.15843807_19480755.zip
New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile 'ESXi-7.0U3d-19482537-standard' -Name 'ESXi-7.0U3d-19482537-M90Q-G2' -vendor 'gendufour'
Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile 'ESXi-7.0U3d-19482537-M90Q-G2' -SoftwarePackage 'net-community'
Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile 'ESXi-7.0U3d-19482537-M90Q-G2' -ExportToIso -FilePath .\ESXi-7.0U3d-19482537-M90Q-G2.iso
Click to expand...
Proxmox and never look back!! :p
 
A

adman_c

Active Member
Feb 14, 2016
272
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43
Chicago
ms357 said:
Any idea where I can find a P350 Tiny PCIe x16 riser (part #5C50W00877) for sensible money? The only place that seems to have them in stock is Aliexpress, and they're gouging the heck out of the price over there

www.aliexpress.com

59.39US $ 10% OFF|Workstation Pcie16 Riser Card For Lenovo Thinkstation P340 Tiny 5c50w00877 - Laptop Repair Components - AliExpress

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com
www.aliexpress.com www.aliexpress.com

The riser for the older P330 tinys seems relatively plentiful on eBay, but I've compared these to photos of the newer one and the older riser has fewer pins on the motherboard connector so it's unlikely to be compatible.

I refuse to pay £60 / $70 for a basic PCB that probably cost $2 to make.
Click to expand...
I can confirm that the Tiny5 riser does not work with the Tiny6 chassis. It does fit, right down to the screw placement and where it puts the PCIE card, comparing with the Tiny6 PCIE x4 riser I got from encompass and a x4 single 10GbE NIC. But the box will not power on with the Tiny5 riser in it. I have a couple Tiny6 x16 risers on backorder from encompass with a currently expected ship date of 8/30. I hope they can hit that!!

In other P350 news, I'm slightly disappointed to see that this model idles a few watts higher than the M720qs I have in my cluster. Even with a single 10GbE NIC vs a double, it idles in Proxmox at 19-20w, vs 14-15w with the older boxes. I'm sure the bigger power supply plays some role, since at idle these things are floating around 10-12% load, which tends to be pretty inefficient for most power supplies. I also need to turn everything off in the BIOS though just to make sure. Of course, 17000+ passmark, 32gb of RAM, 10GbE, and space for 3 SSDs in a ~1L enclosure is pretty darn tough to beat.
 
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adman_c

Active Member
Feb 14, 2016
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Chicago
rafale77 said:
@adman_c, Have you tried undervolting yet?
Click to expand...
I have not. Do you have links/how tos you can share?

Oh, and @Parallax I can't remember if you already verified this, but the SATA connector on the P350 motherboard does indeed work just fine with the older models' SATA cables. Booting from a shucked 256gb SATA SSD as we speak in my tiny monster hypervisor.
 
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GenDufour

New Member
Jul 9, 2022
5
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zer0sum said:
Proxmox and never look back!! :p
Click to expand...
I do run Proxmox on my Whitebox built from spare parts ;)
For now, I've settled with ESXi on them as it provides more learning value/skills development for work.

Nonetheless, a good suggestion I shall try in the future :D
 
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Parallax

Active Member
Nov 8, 2020
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London, UK
rafale77 said:
Wow... what are you planning for them?
Click to expand...
Well, this has been a bit of a journey :

VersionInventoryOS / HypervisorUsecase
Pre home lab ("the wilderness years")HP Microserver iterations, N36L/N40L/N54L/Gen8Xpenology / NoHome file sharing
1.0HP Microserver Gen10+Open Media Vault / KVMHome file sharing, media "acquisition" via container, LXCs
2.0HP Micro Gen10+, M720q (router)Open Media Vault / ProxmoxHome media, better network protection, Docker
3.0 ("the Covid edition")HP Micro Gen10+, 2x M720q, 4x M920qOpen Media Vault / ProxmoxHome media, network modelling, firewalling, monitoring, learn k8s, Rancher
4.0 ("I'm too ESXi")HP Micro Gen10+, 2x M720q, 4x M920qProxmox (HP Micro) / ESXiHome media, learn ESXi/NSX-T, visibility/monitoring, k8s, Harvester, Elastiflow
4.5 ("the winds of change")HP Micro Gen10+, 2x M720q, 4x 2x M920q, 2x M70q, Firewalla PurpleOpen Media Vault (HP Micro) / ESXiHome media, Home Assistant, simplification and consolidation, proxying and authentication, Git and GitOps
5.0 ("the next generation")HP Micro Gen10+, 2x P350, 2x M70q, Firewalla PurpleOpen Media Vault (HP Micro) / ESXiHome media, Home Assistant, various work-related experiments to do with zero trust
5.1 (coming this weekend)HP Micro Gen10+, 2x 4x P350, 2x M70q, Firewalla PurpleESXiA major tidy up and redesign of workloads
 
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Parallax

Active Member
Nov 8, 2020
455
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London, UK
adman_c said:
I have not. Do you have links/how tos you can share?

Oh, and @Parallax I can't remember if you already verified this, but the SATA connector on the P350 motherboard does indeed work just fine with the older models' SATA cables. Booting from a shucked 256gb SATA SSD as we speak in my tiny monster hypervisor.
Click to expand...
I suspected but hadn't verified, so thank you. I'm going to test out a random "laptop" SATA cable/connector off eBay 'cos that's a cheaper way to do it and will post back. How are you securing your naked SSD?
 
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adman_c

Active Member
Feb 14, 2016
272
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Chicago
Parallax said:
I suspected but hadn't verified, so thank you. I'm going to test out a random "laptop" SATA cable/connector off eBay 'cos that's a cheaper way to do it and will post back. How are you securing your naked SSD?
Click to expand...
Make sure the laptop SATA connector has the same number of pins. Several of the ones I looked at appeared to have a different number. My naked SSD is currently wrapped in electrical tape to prevent shorts and is wedged against the back of my NIC. Since these drives live their life in an enclosed plastic space I figured the electrical tape wouldn't make it cook but it's a good reminder that I should check the SMART data for temps just to verify.
 
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