Lenovo Thinkcentre/ThinkStation Tiny (Project TinyMiniMicro) Reference Thread

[bobbysteel]

Oddly it's intermittent and hotswap causes a hard freeze but the eGPU enclosure does get recognized with the x16 riser.

● Razer Core X
├─ type: peripheral
├─ name: Core X
├─ vendor: Razer
├─ uuid: 008891c8-0840-2701-ffff-ffffffffffff
├─ generation: Thunderbolt 3
├─ status: authorized
│ ├─ domain: c7010000-0070-6f08-23e6-6b03d461981e
│ ├─ rx speed: 40 Gb/s = 2 lanes * 20 Gb/s
│ ├─ tx speed: 40 Gb/s = 2 lanes * 20 Gb/s
│ └─ authflags: none
├─ authorized: Wed 14 Dec 2022 09:31:52 UTC
├─ connected: Wed 14 Dec 2022 09:31:52 UTC
└─ stored: no

Definitely seems like the card can work now though with the x16 riser. I need to try a DisplayPort dummy as I think the hangup now may be because I'm running it all headless.

I got the FRU: 5C50W00872 (5C50W00926) off eBay and it came with both the cables in the box so I assume that's the default.

 

[bobbysteel]

After a lot of fooling around I'm wondering if this is still broken unless using the x4 riser. I have one on the way, but although I can reliably get the Tbolt adapter seen and active, I can't get any downstream tbolt devices to show up. Although this could be part of my Ubuntu/GRUB configuration I don't have enough confidence to say either way.

 

[tangofan]

There's some discussion of this on the previous page in relation to earlier models and risers and I made some notes in the original post accordingly. We don't have enough information for the Gen 3 stuff to make any real recommendations except to say that older PCIe cards (like the popular I350-T4) may or may not work with either riser - the PCIe 4.0 slot that's the Gen 3 seems to have issues with some PCIe 2.0/2.1 generation cards.

Apart from that, the risers are more or less what they say they are, a choice between x4 bandwidth and "x16" (which is actually x8) so it depends on what you need from the card. For graphics cards the "x16" may be beneficial, but for 95+% of cases the x4 should be sufficient (and remember PCIe 4.0 has twice the bandwidth per lane of PCIe 3.0 anyway). That said, always worth having a look for the part number on Taobao via someone like Superbuy in case there's a deal to be had - I bought my P350 Tiny risers that way.

@Parallax , thanks so much for the detailed explanation of the situation. In the end I bought an x16 riser from eBay, since the price came down a bit. Taobao/Superbuy looked a little bit too intimidating to me.

Also as an aside please note that the reddit user who 3D-prints those brackets/baffles doesn't have them for the Gen 3 version of the M90q (at least as of this moment). Perhaps something to add to the original post...

 

[tinfoil3d]

I have two 01AJ902 and recently tested nvidia taken from p340 in m920q, it wasn't detected. two mlx3 dual-port 40gbe cards(354A) x8 were detected but were "limited by x4" in dmesg and were slow, as expected. Didn't have other devices on hand.
As for 720q i didn't test it myself, but made a conclusion from a series of posts by @Danjo in this very thread https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...yminimicro-reference-thread.34925/post-345065 my firsthand experience wasn't with m720q but m920q + 01AJ902 and i'm waiting for 01AJ940. 01AJ902 only works fine in P320 here.

To be clear, for m920q I did try resitting cardS and riserS(i tested two pieces of each), did try removing NVME thinking that may be affecting, tried setting x8 slot speed to auto and gen3 in bios, nothing produced an expected x8 3.0 result with these cards. And nothing helped to detect nvidia.

OK, I'll update the original post with warnings about the riser and advise people use the other models.

@Parallax Hello, confirming 01AJ940 works as x8 on m920q (tested with mcx354a, dual port qsfp+ mellanox 3 card) whereas 01AJ902 would either only produce x4 bandwith or would fail to detect completely, those are different pinouts and clearly m920 family needs 01AJ940.

 

[AWBbox]

Thanks to @Parallax for drawing my attention to this thread from the Lenovo forum.

I have been planning to build a SFF OPNsense box for a while, and hoping to use a tiny Lenovo chassis. The three main requirements for me being, small size, high throughput, and native RS232 to use as a PPS input for NTP.

I was going to buy a P350 tiny originally but saw that the P360 was coming and figured I would wait for the newer tech. Little did I know that the P360 would trade the native JST-style COM1 header on the P350 for proprietary "I/O board connectors" that sit right where I'd need the network interface card to go... I think I should probably still be able to engineer a way around that nonetheless.

My main concern is what I have read in both this thread and the one on the Lenovo forum, around the potential (or lack of) to use after-market NICs with PCI-E risers on the P360 tiny. I am planning to use this card from FS.com which should be physically compatible, and I'm comfortable with the risk associated with the potential heat issues.

The I350-T4 is a x4 card whereas the XL710-BM1 is x8, and I wasn't planning on ordering a P360 with any card at all. Does anyone know if a riser is included by default? Or am I going to need to buy one afterwards?

My second question is what the difference is between spare part numbers 5C50W00910 and 5C50W00933?

I'm especially keen to hear from @Vorwrath as to whether you got a NIC working with your 5C50W00910 riser? Because @nimik seems to be doing fine with theirs, so I feel like there are conflicting reports here.

 

[Parallax]

I am planning to use this card from FS.com which should be physically compatible, and I'm comfortable with the risk associated with the potential heat issues.

The I350-T4 is a x4 card whereas the XL710-BM1 is x8, and I wasn't planning on ordering a P360 with any card at all. Does anyone know if a riser is included by default? Or am I going to need to buy one afterwards?

My second question is what the difference is between spare part numbers 5C50W00910 and 5C50W00933?

Welcome! I'll be interested to hear if you can fit the card in, the space is around 149-150mm depending on the model. Also your feedback on the heat would be much appreciated to put into the first post.

You will have to buy the riser separately, yes. You only get it included if you buy the machine configured with eg a GPU installed. The riser can be tricky to find at the moment.

And finally I'm afraid I don't know the difference between the two risers, I hadn't come across the 5C50W00933 in the wild. I tend to use the reports here plus the service manuals to identify the suitable parts and it hasn't come up in either so far.

 

[tangofan]

M90q Gen 3 doesn't boot with SuperMicro AOC-STGN-i2S connected to switch

So I installed the SuperMicro AOC-STGN-i2S (Hardware Rev. 2.11) together with the 5C50W00910 (x16) Riser Card into my M90q Gen 3, and installed the Intel Drivers (v27.7) from Intel® Ethernet Adapter Complete Driver Pack FWIW I just executed autorun and picked the first option to install the drivers only.

The card is recognized both in the BIOS and by the HWInfo tool in my Windows 11 Pro (22H2) setup, but whenever I boot with the 10G DAC cable connected to my switch, the M90q is stuck on the main boot screen with the Lenovo logo. It does show the F1, F12 and F11 options and I can go into the BIOS, but it won't boot into Windows, even though the m2 SSD is set as the first boot device in the bios. I waited 10 minutes, but it was stuck.

When the 10G DAC is disconnected, the unit boots fine into Windows. I tried a different DAC cable with a different port on my switch (both confirmed to work), but had the same result.

Is there something I need to configure on the NIC to get it to work? Or does anybody have any other suggestions how I can overcome this problem? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Update: At this point I'm suspecting FWIW that I need a different DAC Cable that is SuperMicro/Intel "compatible". ( My switch is MikroTik crs305-1g-4s+in ). I'm currently looking to buy this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B47ZC17?th=1 , but any other recommendation is appreciated.

 

[AWBbox]

@tangofan I can recommend FS.com for DAC cables etc, I have been using their "Generic" coded ones for many years with many different vendors and have yet to find any they don't work with. Check them out here.

I've been doing some more digging on the FRU 5C50W00910 vs 5C50W00933 quandary and I'm beginning to suspect that the latter is simply a newer hardware revision. Lenovo only have photos for 5C50W00910 but I found an AliExpress shop claiming to sell the latter. Comparing them appears to show the following:

• Rev1.1 on 5C50W00910 vs Rev1.2 5C50W00933
• A single 100uF 35V electrolytic capacitor on 5C50W00933 replaces what I assume are 4x 25uF 35V SMD capacitors and 2x SMD voltage regulators(?) on the 5C50W00910. This would probably be easier/cheaper to manufacture
• No other discernible changes to the design, suggesting that they would be operationally identical

I don't seem to be able to reach out to Lenovo parts department directly without a serial number. I may have to take the plunge without being 100% sure if my NIC is going to work, but that idea doesn't appeal to me too much.

 

[Tressy]

Hello to all Tiny owners!
I bought an M720q (i3-8300T/16/256)+135W power supply and want to install an XFX RX6400 Low Profile graphics card in it. The maximum consumption of the video card is 53 watts. Dimensions 15.5 x 6.8 x 1.5 cm.

Has anyone installed something like this on this computer?
Is there enough PCI-E power for the normal operation of the graphics card?
What about the video card mount?

Thank you in advance for any information!

I plan similar this, if works submit some pictures and benchmark please!

 

[dinjo]

Should we also capture power consumption at idle? I know hardware luxx has list of pc with power details but not many tiny pcs.

I wanted to know what is power consumption for m70q all gen?

 

[Vorwrath]

I'm especially keen to hear from @Vorwrath as to whether you got a NIC working with your 5C50W00910 riser? Because @nimik seems to be doing fine with theirs, so I feel like there are conflicting reports here.

No, I never got the I350-T4 working with the x16 riser on the P360. I eventually managed to obtain the x4 riser (5C50W00909) and that seemed to solve the problem, the NIC was immediately detected by the OS as expected (the system could just never see the card at all with the x16 riser). I've only given it a very quick test and haven't run the system long term yet though. I got busy on a project that I needed a working Proxmox server for, so still haven't got around to swapping my old one out. So if there are any weird problems or instability I wouldn't have encountered them, but my current belief is that the x4 riser solves the problem.

I don't think there's conflicting information, since Nimik is using a different card with 10GbE. Whatever the incompatibility is, I imagine it's limited to certain cards or a certain PCIe generation. It might even just be the I350 specifically that doesn't work.

I actually got the x4 riser from https://www.lenovopartsales.com/ which I haven't seen mentioned here before and appears to be Lenovo's EU business to business website. It's a bit of a weird site that looks like it was designed about 20 years ago, but I was able to order the part and it eventually arrived after about 3 weeks. I paid £37.70 after VAT and delivery. The site seems to be aimed at businesses so you need a VAT number to order from there. According to Reddit they don't actually invoice it and you can use any VAT number though (I didn't do that since I registered through my real business). So that site might be worth checking out if anyone needs obscure Lenovo parts - while it's really clunky, it's probably a better bet than aliexpress.

 

[Numbernine]

Well, once you get the remains of the plastic clip out it's just a hole in the motherboard you're dealing with. I've seen solutions where you push a screw in from the opposite side and hold it there, then you position the NVME drive in the slot, slightly raised at the end, and screw the standoff post down - it has a groove that holds the end of the NVME drive, which you've pushed down a little to engage with it as you screw it down. So essentially you're clamping the standoff to the board with the screw. If finding the right sized standoff is too hard, I suppose you could get a longer screw, push it through, then pile a few small rubber or silicone washers on it to get to the right height. Then put the NVME in, add one more washer to protect it, then a small nut.

I had a couple of goes to try to write this in a way that doesn't end up sounding suggestive, but ...

Thanks again for the suggestion Parallax - I bought a cheap package of M.2 standoffs and screws from Amazon and they seem to do the trick. The standoff-and-nut combination doesn't stay perfectly in place, but it's better than nothing at all and a much more affordable price than replacing the blue plastic thingy!

 

[MrWahWah]

M90q Gen 3 doesn't boot with SuperMicro AOC-STGN-i2S connected to switch

So I installed the SuperMicro AOC-STGN-i2S (Hardware Rev. 2.11) together with the 5C50W00910 (x16) Riser Card into my M90q Gen 3, and installed the Intel Drivers (v27.7) from Intel® Ethernet Adapter Complete Driver Pack FWIW I just executed autorun and picked the first option to install the drivers only.

The card is recognized both in the BIOS and by the HWInfo tool in my Windows 11 Pro (22H2) setup, but whenever I boot with the 10G DAC cable connected to my switch, the M90q is stuck on the main boot screen with the Lenovo logo. It does show the F1, F12 and F11 options and I can go into the BIOS, but it won't boot into Windows, even though the m2 SSD is set as the first boot device in the bios. I waited 10 minutes, but it was stuck.

When the 10G DAC is disconnected, the unit boots fine into Windows. I tried a different DAC cable with a different port on my switch (both confirmed to work), but had the same result.

Is there something I need to configure on the NIC to get it to work? Or does anybody have any other suggestions how I can overcome this problem? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Update: At this point I'm suspecting FWIW that I need a different DAC Cable that is SuperMicro/Intel "compatible". ( My switch is MikroTik crs305-1g-4s+in ). I'm currently looking to buy this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B47ZC17?th=1 , but any other recommendation is appreciated.

I am in the same situation, but I have that cable you mention before...

What power supply do you have?, mine is a 65w but I don't know if this could be powerful enough.

Many thanks

 

[Antec]

About to get a Tiny P320 with Quadro P600 gpu fitted, if i was to take the GPU out, would a Mellanox ConnectX-3 MCX312A 10Gb card fit with the included riser at full speed? (to be used with pfsense)

also, would this baffle work: Lenovo Tiny PCI-E Bracket by simbaja

Thanks!

 

[Phenic]

About to get a Tiny P320 with Quadro P600 gpu fitted, if i was to take the GPU out, would a Mellanox ConnectX-3 MCX312A 10Gb card fit with the included riser at full speed? (to be used with pfsense)

also, would this baffle work: Lenovo Tiny PCI-E Bracket by simbaja

Thanks!

It should work. I used my M920Q with that same NIC and opensense for a bit. I didn't get the 3d printed bracket though, I just installed the NIC with the low-profile bracket the card came with. It's not secure as you can't screw it to the case but it fits.

 

[tangofan]

M90q Gen 3 doesn't boot with SuperMicro AOC-STGN-i2S connected to switch

So I installed the SuperMicro AOC-STGN-i2S (Hardware Rev. 2.11) together with the 5C50W00910 (x16) Riser Card into my M90q Gen 3, and installed the Intel Drivers (v27.7) from Intel® Ethernet Adapter Complete Driver Pack FWIW I just executed autorun and picked the first option to install the drivers only.

[...]

Update: At this point I'm suspecting FWIW that I need a different DAC Cable that is SuperMicro/Intel "compatible". ( My switch is MikroTik crs305-1g-4s+in ). I'm currently looking to buy this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B47ZC17?th=1 , but any other recommendation is appreciated.

The problem was apparently not with the DAC cable. I finally gathered my wits and tested the AOC-STGN-i2S in my main desktop and it worked just fine with all of my DAC cables no matter what the encoding. So the problem is definitely with running it in the M90q Gen 3.

I did try all of the following in various combinations:

• Disabled network boot for the NIC in the BIOS
• Changed PCIe settings from "Auto" to "Gen 3" and then later "Gen 2"
• Updated the M90q Gen 3 BIOS to the latest version M4GKT22A (The upgrade froze at the "Backup BIOS" step, but the M90q was able to recover, when I power-cycled it after waiting for 9 hours.)

Nothing helped and now I am at the end of my wits. Perhaps I should purchase the x4 riser to try that out, but I'm not particularly keen on spending even more money on this.

 

[tangofan]

I am in the same situation, but I have that cable you mention before...

What power supply do you have?, mine is a 65w but I don't know if this could be powerful enough.

Many thanks

I have a 90W power supply, so that's not the issue. (Just posted another updated before this reply, which I didn't see in time.)

Are you using the x4 or the x16 riser?

 

[tinfoil3d]

About to get a Tiny P320 with Quadro P600 gpu fitted, if i was to take the GPU out, would a Mellanox ConnectX-3 MCX312A 10Gb card fit with the included riser at full speed?

Yes, even mcx354a fits and works(dual qsfp+)

 

[Antec]

It should work. I used my M920Q with that same NIC and opensense for a bit. I didn't get the 3d printed bracket though, I just installed the NIC with the low-profile bracket the card came with. It's not secure as you can't screw it to the case but it fits.

thanks. wonder why the p320 isnt stated in the first post? Is it an older model ?

I may just try using it with the low profile bracket. As long as it’s not going to just drop out I’m sure it will be fine.

Yes, even mcx354a fits and works(dual qsfp+)

perfect. I’ve just upgraded the Firmware on the MCX312A in preparation.

 

[MrWahWah]

I have a 90W power supply, so that's not the issue. (Just posted another updated before this reply, which I didn't see in time.)

Are you using the x4 or the x16 riser?

I have a x16