I’ve removed all other bootable drives from the system, bios was in UEFI-only mode, no CSM. The drive should be uefi compatible, i.e. have a fat32 ESP partition with /efi/boot/bootx64.efi as bootloader. This combo worked for me
Lenovo Thinkcentre/ThinkStation Tiny (Project TinyMiniMicro) Reference Thread
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Has anyone seen or 3d printed a case mod to add extra PCIE slots?
I've bought a PowerRiser ( GitHub - nandfarm/PowerRiser: PowerRiser – NVMe 2230 and 2242 Expansion board for Lenovo Tiny 5 Series / Lenovo M720q M920q/x PCIe & M.2 NVMe Riser Board by NandFarm on Tindie ) - I'd have bought TinyRiser but it's been OOS for some time now - and I plan to convert the M2 slot to a PCIE slot using a riser to add 10GBE or alternatively, do M.2 to 10GBE directly via https://lr-link.com/products/lres2130pf-2sfp_.html
The original PCIE Slot is going to be used for HBA.
I've bought a PowerRiser ( GitHub - nandfarm/PowerRiser: PowerRiser – NVMe 2230 and 2242 Expansion board for Lenovo Tiny 5 Series / Lenovo M720q M920q/x PCIe & M.2 NVMe Riser Board by NandFarm on Tindie ) - I'd have bought TinyRiser but it's been OOS for some time now - and I plan to convert the M2 slot to a PCIE slot using a riser to add 10GBE or alternatively, do M.2 to 10GBE directly via https://lr-link.com/products/lres2130pf-2sfp_.html
The original PCIE Slot is going to be used for HBA.
I have ordered an AC113 based 10gbe m.2 off Ali express, I”m hoping to remove the stock HS and use it in one of the underside m.2 slots, with the cable routed through to the port mounted on the baffle at the back.
Hoping to wedge it in with thermal pads on both sides or thermal putty and utilise the case as a heatsink. My pcie slot is also taken by a HBA.
The AC113 looks like it’s about the same thickness as an SSD without the heatsink so I’m hoping it works out, the Realtek units I have found have the thick isolation transformer on the main m.2 board so I don’t think they will fit.
AC113 version
Realtek version
Hoping to wedge it in with thermal pads on both sides or thermal putty and utilise the case as a heatsink. My pcie slot is also taken by a HBA.
The AC113 looks like it’s about the same thickness as an SSD without the heatsink so I’m hoping it works out, the Realtek units I have found have the thick isolation transformer on the main m.2 board so I don’t think they will fit.
AC113 version
Realtek version
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I doubt you can run the AC113 without a heatsink. It's max 5 Watt coming out of a package of 12x14mm (or could even be 7x7mm depending on exact AC113 chip). With Heatsink it can get upto 50/60 degrees.
Not planning to try without any form of heatsink, going to try to utilise the chassis as a heatsink.
will see it should arrive tomorrow
Update on shoehorning the AQC113 into one of the underside m.2 slots.
removed stock heatsink on network card.
on the underside of the m.2, there were a couple of bigger components that would not fit with the stock pads.
Removed thermal pads and replaced with thermal putty.
Removed main board and threaded cable under and out around to the top side near the pci slot within the chassis.
Fed cable out back and connected to RJ45 board, this is just sitting there hanging at present. Removed from bracket (going to see if I can remix the baffle to make a mount and reprint)
Reinstalled main board, used a copper ram shim with some thermal paste on the top of the chip, then a thermal pad to reach the ram/ssd cover.
Proxmox detected and installed drivers automatically, adapter was present after reboot anyway.
Adapters thermal sensors show in lmsensors and proxmonitor.
Running at 2.5Gb, still need to buy another 10g switch, general use and Plex the adapter is 43c, under sustained copy 47c.
going to call that a success.
removed stock heatsink on network card.
on the underside of the m.2, there were a couple of bigger components that would not fit with the stock pads.
Removed thermal pads and replaced with thermal putty.
Removed main board and threaded cable under and out around to the top side near the pci slot within the chassis.
Fed cable out back and connected to RJ45 board, this is just sitting there hanging at present. Removed from bracket (going to see if I can remix the baffle to make a mount and reprint)
Reinstalled main board, used a copper ram shim with some thermal paste on the top of the chip, then a thermal pad to reach the ram/ssd cover.
Proxmox detected and installed drivers automatically, adapter was present after reboot anyway.
Adapters thermal sensors show in lmsensors and proxmonitor.
Running at 2.5Gb, still need to buy another 10g switch, general use and Plex the adapter is 43c, under sustained copy 47c.
going to call that a success.
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Got some time today to remix the baffle and add a mount for the RJ45 board.
It’s not perfect but it works and I won’t see it once it’s in the rack anyway.
also took some pictures of the installation and cable routing.
It’s not perfect but it works and I won’t see it once it’s in the rack anyway.
also took some pictures of the installation and cable routing.
Attachments
thank you for the pics!
how difficult is it to remove the motherboard to route the cable? how thick is the copper shim?
Two questions ....
1) What is the best occulink pcie card for the pcie gen 3 tiny's? e.g. m90q gen 2? These have a x8 slot, right? All the occulink cards I'm seeing are x8 dual occulink x4.
EXAMPLE - Amazon.com
But, I'd like to have full pcie gen3 x 8 speed, not x4 speed.
2) are there any occulink to ethernet adapters? Could I go from the gen3x8 pcie to BOTH an occulink x4 and an ethernet x4?
Thanks!
1) What is the best occulink pcie card for the pcie gen 3 tiny's? e.g. m90q gen 2? These have a x8 slot, right? All the occulink cards I'm seeing are x8 dual occulink x4.
EXAMPLE - Amazon.com
But, I'd like to have full pcie gen3 x 8 speed, not x4 speed.
2) are there any occulink to ethernet adapters? Could I go from the gen3x8 pcie to BOTH an occulink x4 and an ethernet x4?
Thanks!
Not oculink but this will give you x8 (actually goes to x16 if the host system supports it)
You could also go full tilt and add a pcie switch which would allow multiple cards (all sharing the x8 link back to the host)
this one is also x8
Found some more information here
You could also go full tilt and add a pcie switch which would allow multiple cards (all sharing the x8 link back to the host)
this one is also x8
Found some more information here
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Woah, that's some nice work there. I considered going single 10 GBe but decided against it given the replication/VM traffic vs services & network traffic.
Have you run into any issues with the NIC being outside the case like that?
Not a single problem, for reference the Nic PHY and controller are on the M.2. Board, it’s just the isolation transformer and rj45 that is mounted externally. NIC reports 0 drop/errors since installation, temperature has not exceeded 50c (running 2.5gb, yet to get the 10Gb switch).
That's pretty sweet. I took another look and found other SFP+ connectors but I think I'm just going to bolt the one I found previously, to the case and power it via USB -> Sata connector tbh. It'll look ugly/janky but it'll work well and give me dual ports.
On paper, this one looks like the better fit; EGPL-T2F1 | M.2 2242 / 2280 to Dual 10GbE LAN Module (SFP+)
But the community go to is Mellanox, so err'ing on the side of caution is probably a good idea heh
I've created a git repository that explains how to extract recent tiny BIOS files and use it to unlock the hidden Advanced BIOS menu. With the EFI application SREP (not mine) you can patch the running BIOS image. The original source at Github was taken offline, but I've forked a static dump with version 0.1.4c. There is also a more recent Russian maintained version if you'd like to use that (SmokelessRuntimeEFIPatcher-RUS). Both work, but I missed instructions how to compile the source code and actually use it on the tiny.
I've also added a small Setup EFI application that allows you to run the BIOS Setup from an EFI shell.
You can find it here GitHub - ren-e/SmokelessRuntimeEFIPatcher: A Simple Tool to patch EFI Modules at Runtime , and I've tested it on the P3 Gen 2 and m90q Gen 6.
I've also added a small Setup EFI application that allows you to run the BIOS Setup from an EFI shell.
You can find it here GitHub - ren-e/SmokelessRuntimeEFIPatcher: A Simple Tool to patch EFI Modules at Runtime , and I've tested it on the P3 Gen 2 and m90q Gen 6.
Attachments
this is very interesting, is ram speed adjustment and overlocking/undervolting functional, it looks to be accessible?
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Yes, the overclocking menu is available and functional. I've just tested to overclock the memory from 5600 to 5800 and it works:
Code:
$ sudo dmidecode --type 17 |grep MT
Speed: 5800 MT/s
Configured Memory Speed: 5800 MT/s
Speed: 5800 MT/s
Configured Memory Speed: 5800 MT/sLenovo ThinkStation P350 Tiny (IQ5X0IL1) Bricked - Need Full 32MB Dump / BIOS Rebuild Help
Hi everyone,
I am repairing aLenovo ThinkStation P350 Tiny motherboard.
Board information:
I am looking for a complete 32MB SPI BIOS dump read from a working P350 Tiny / M90q Gen 2 machine.
I have already tried the official Lenovo BIOS and several reconstructed BIOS images, but the motherboard still does not boot correctly. At this point I would really like to test a genuine dump from another working machine.
I do not need my original MAC address, serial number, UUID, or DMI information. A dump from another machine is fine.
If anyone has a working dump for:
I would really appreciate it if you could share the full 32MB BIN file.
I have a programmer and can read/write the SPI flash myself.
If you have one, please send me a download link or contact me by private message.
Thank you very much for your help!
Hi everyone,
I am repairing aLenovo ThinkStation P350 Tiny motherboard.
Board information:
- Model: Lenovo ThinkStation P350 Tiny
- Board: IQ5X0IL1
- Board ID: NM-D321
- Chipset: Intel Q570
- SPI flash: 32MB
I am looking for a complete 32MB SPI BIOS dump read from a working P350 Tiny / M90q Gen 2 machine.
I have already tried the official Lenovo BIOS and several reconstructed BIOS images, but the motherboard still does not boot correctly. At this point I would really like to test a genuine dump from another working machine.
I do not need my original MAC address, serial number, UUID, or DMI information. A dump from another machine is fine.
If anyone has a working dump for:
- P350 Tiny
- IQ5X0IL1
- NM-D321
- M90q Gen 2 / same platform
I would really appreciate it if you could share the full 32MB BIN file.
I have a programmer and can read/write the SPI flash myself.
If you have one, please send me a download link or contact me by private message.
Thank you very much for your help!
Hi everyone!
I wanted to share my recent Project TinyMiniMicro build that fixes a very common headache: cooling a passive server GPU inside a micro-PC.
I managed to fit an **NVIDIA Tesla A2** inside my **Lenovo ThinkCentre M920x Tiny** to use it as a compact local AI / media node. Since the card is completely passive and the Lenovo Embedded Controller (EC) is locked (making software fan control via OS impossible), I had to build a hybrid hardware-software solution.
I designed a custom fan shroud, mounted a **5V laptop blower fan** onto the Tesla's heatsink, and wired it to an **Arduino Nano** (wrapped in Kapton tape for insulation).
The best part? The entire setup runs **completely off a single USB port** for both 5V power supply and serial data! No external 12V power bricks or extra cables needed.
On the software side, I co-created a lightweight **C# .NET WinForms background application** that communicates directly with the NVIDIA driver using native **NVML API** (zero-CPU overhead, no `nvidia-smi` polling). It features:
* An animated Task Manager-style tray icon grid tracking GPU Load, Temp, or RPM.
* A streaming real-time double-click monitoring graph.
* An interactive Cooling Curve Editor where you can drag Min/Max target nodes with your mouse.
**Hardware Failsafe:** To keep it bulletproof, the Arduino runs a 6-second watchdog timer. If the Windows app crashes or the OS freezes, the Arduino automatically overrides the signal and spins the fan to 100% to protect the GPU.
It runs whisper-quiet at idle and keeps the Tesla A2 stable at around 60-63°C under a sustained 100% AI/compute load.
I've opened the entire project (full C# source code, compiled standalone .EXE, translated Arduino sketch, and 3D printable files) on GitHub for anyone facing the same cooling limits:
github.com
Hope this helps someone trying to squeeze enterprise compute power into these awesome Tiny nodes!
I wanted to share my recent Project TinyMiniMicro build that fixes a very common headache: cooling a passive server GPU inside a micro-PC.
I managed to fit an **NVIDIA Tesla A2** inside my **Lenovo ThinkCentre M920x Tiny** to use it as a compact local AI / media node. Since the card is completely passive and the Lenovo Embedded Controller (EC) is locked (making software fan control via OS impossible), I had to build a hybrid hardware-software solution.
I designed a custom fan shroud, mounted a **5V laptop blower fan** onto the Tesla's heatsink, and wired it to an **Arduino Nano** (wrapped in Kapton tape for insulation).
The best part? The entire setup runs **completely off a single USB port** for both 5V power supply and serial data! No external 12V power bricks or extra cables needed.
On the software side, I co-created a lightweight **C# .NET WinForms background application** that communicates directly with the NVIDIA driver using native **NVML API** (zero-CPU overhead, no `nvidia-smi` polling). It features:
* An animated Task Manager-style tray icon grid tracking GPU Load, Temp, or RPM.
* A streaming real-time double-click monitoring graph.
* An interactive Cooling Curve Editor where you can drag Min/Max target nodes with your mouse.
**Hardware Failsafe:** To keep it bulletproof, the Arduino runs a 6-second watchdog timer. If the Windows app crashes or the OS freezes, the Arduino automatically overrides the signal and spins the fan to 100% to protect the GPU.
It runs whisper-quiet at idle and keeps the Tesla A2 stable at around 60-63°C under a sustained 100% AI/compute load.
I've opened the entire project (full C# source code, compiled standalone .EXE, translated Arduino sketch, and 3D printable files) on GitHub for anyone facing the same cooling limits:
GitHub - romkaork-stack/NVIDIA-Tesla-Smart-Fan-Controller: Automatic smart fan controller for passive NVIDIA Tesla GPUs using Arduino and .NET WinForms (NVML).
Automatic smart fan controller for passive NVIDIA Tesla GPUs using Arduino and .NET WinForms (NVML). - romkaork-stack/NVIDIA-Tesla-Smart-Fan-Controller
github.com
Hope this helps someone trying to squeeze enterprise compute power into these awesome Tiny nodes!
