Lenovo Thinkcentre/ThinkStation Tiny (Project TinyMiniMicro) Reference Thread

[owens]

I did measure some 18 months ago on an earlier Tiny, so it's possible they've rearranged the front antenna assembly to give a little more room. We've had people with issues with cards smaller than yours and some who had to take off (and replace afterwards) the front fascia to fit cards in, so I did try to be a little conservative (but not 16mm conservative!).

But I'll take your advice and re-measure, if we can expand the range of cards that will fit that's a good thing.

Mine is a Gen 1 m90q for reference. I was almost not going to buy it because I already had the DrayTek card and my heart dropped when it measured at 155mm. But I thought "to hell with it, I'll just massage it in". Luckily I didn't have to

Maybe we need another column in the model table for "max PCI-E length" for those cautious like me?

 

[Parallax]

Mine is a Gen 1 m90q for reference. I was almost not going to buy it because I already had the DrayTek card and my heart dropped when it measured at 155mm. But I thought "to hell with it, I'll just massage it in". Luckily I didn't have to

Maybe we need another column in the model table for "max PCI-E length" for those cautious like me?

Well the info is in the post if you go to the right section.

But yeah, it would be great to be able to reorganise the post to make it easier to use. The editing tools are limited though and there are no anchors, so I can't do a table of contents or index unfortunately. I've been sneaking in more tables over time, but I live in fear I'm going to hit some sort of character length limit in the post.

If the max PCIe card lengths vary by Tiny, I'll definitely need to add it into a table somewhere. I don't want to add even more footnotes!

In the meantime if some of you kind folks could measure the amount of PCIe card space there is and let me know what model, then we can get to a consensus since I only have P350s and an M75q gen 2 nowadays.

 

[AWBbox]

Hi everyone, my P360 arrived today and I'm beginning to mess with it. I plan to install a NIC in the PCI-E slot but I also need the use of a serial port.

I bought the unit with two serial ports, specified as "Rear COM Port: Serial Port Cable" and "Rear COM2 Port: Serial Port Card", but when it arrived it was fitted with two cards (SKU 5C50W00902, bottom left of photo) designed for connecting to the JBTB headers on the board.

To work around this, I bought the cable-connected part separately (SKU 04X2733, centre of photo) to connect to the COM header highlighted in red, but when this is connected to the header the device is unable to POST. If I connect it after it has booted then it powers off immediately.

Any ideas what I can do to get this working?

 

[Leonsio]

Hi. I have a few questions for you.
Has anyone tried if 2.5 gbit flex io lan adapter also fits tiny5? Has flex in pinout changed between tiny5 and tiny8. What connector is flex io. Would like to run the connectors to the outside.
When I install a PCIe card, I cannot use flex io connectors. And it is a pity.
My idea would be to run flex io connector out with 2.5 gbit lan. As well as m.2 a+e also as 2.5 gbit lan in an external housing to the outside.
thx Leo

 

[joeribl]

Hi. I have a few questions for you.
Has anyone tried if 2.5 gbit flex io lan adapter also fits tiny5? Has flex in pinout changed between tiny5 and tiny8. What connector is flex io. Would like to run the connectors to the outside.
When I install a PCIe card, I cannot use flex io connectors. And it is a pity.
My idea would be to run flex io connector out with 2.5 gbit lan. As well as m.2 a+e also as 2.5 gbit lan in an external housing to the outside.
thx Leo

Flex IO is a term which is generally used in combination with the HP micro pc. For Lenovo Tiny the only modules that exist (as far as I know) are serial, hdmi, DP and VGA.

Putting a 2.5 Gbit in the m2 a+e is possible as posted earlier

 

[Leonsio]

Flex IO is a term which is generally used in combination with the HP micro pc. For Lenovo Tiny the only modules that exist (as far as I know) are serial, hdmi, DP and VGA.

Putting a 2.5 Gbit in the m2 a+e is possible as posted earlier

You are probably right about the name. I couldn't think of a better name. There is also a LAN option c50w00908 for m90q gen3.
The question is whether tiny8=m90q gen3 pinout of the connector is identical to tiny3?

 

[flame7487]

Hi everyone, my P360 arrived today and I'm beginning to mess with it. I plan to install a NIC in the PCI-E slot but I also need the use of a serial port.

I bought the unit with two serial ports, specified as "Rear COM Port: Serial Port Cable" and "Rear COM2 Port: Serial Port Card", but when it arrived it was fitted with two cards (SKU 5C50W00902, bottom left of photo) designed for connecting to the JBTB headers on the board.

To work around this, I bought the cable-connected part separately (SKU 04X2733, centre of photo) to connect to the COM header highlighted in red, but when this is connected to the header the device is unable to POST. If I connect it after it has booted then it powers off immediately.

Any ideas what I can do to get this working?

P360 Tiny is Tiny8, has two (board to board) BTB connectors on MB
Earlier Tiny: 5; 6; 7 have only one BTB connector on SB. BTB2 HDR = second BTB connector
TBT HDR = Thunderbolt header for e.g. PCI card Tbd4
Yours the item highlighted in red is TBT HDR = Thunderbolt header for PCI card Tbd4 and for sure is not for COM attachment It is for PCI card Tbd as follows:
Bitland MR Thunderbolt miniLP | Part No 5C51H31593 | Commodity CARDS MISC INTERNAL | Substitutes (0)
Yours SKU 5C50W00902 Rear COM Port: Serial Port Cable is
BLD Tiny8 BTB COM card | Part No 5C50W00902 | Commodity CARDS MISC INTERNAL | Substitutes (0)
Alternative COM card:
Sunix 4COM card for Tiny8 | Part No 5C50W00898 | Commodity CARDS MISC INTERNAL | Substitutes (0)
But mentioned additional item SKU 04X2733 Rear COM Port as
Fru, 50mm Com2 cable w/levelshift | Part No 04X2733 | Commodity CABLES INTERNAL
is for Tiny4 ; 5 ; 6 ; 7 but not for Tiny8 means P360 Tiny
The appropriate COM connector should be on SB close to first BTB HDR (under first BTB )

 

[AWBbox]

P360 Tiny is Tiny8, has two (board to board) BTB connectors on MB
Earlier Tiny: 5; 6; 7 have only one BTB connector on SB. BTB2 HDR = second BTB connector
TBT HDR = Thunderbolt header for e.g. PCI card Tbd4
Yours the item highlighted in red is TBT HDR = Thunderbolt header for PCI card Tbd4 and for sure is not for COM attachment It is for PCI card Tbd as follows:
Bitland MR Thunderbolt miniLP | Part No 5C51H31593 | Commodity CARDS MISC INTERNAL | Substitutes (0)
Yours SKU 5C50W00902 Rear COM Port: Serial Port Cable is
BLD Tiny8 BTB COM card | Part No 5C50W00902 | Commodity CARDS MISC INTERNAL | Substitutes (0)
Alternative COM card:
Sunix 4COM card for Tiny8 | Part No 5C50W00898 | Commodity CARDS MISC INTERNAL | Substitutes (0)
But mentioned additional item SKU 04X2733 Rear COM Port as
Fru, 50mm Com2 cable w/levelshift | Part No 04X2733 | Commodity CABLES INTERNAL
is for Tiny4 ; 5 ; 6 ; 7 but not for Tiny8 means P360 Tiny
The appropriate COM connector should be on SB close to first BTB HDR (under first BTB )

Thank you for the guidance. It looks like I have made an error in my plans! It's very disappointing as it isn't how the description on the order made it seem. It looks like I should have bought a P350 when I had the chance.

I might return the P360 or try to bodge something using the M.2 2230 interface on the top of the board.

 

[flame7487]

Thank you for the guidance. It looks like I have made an error in my plans! It's very disappointing as it isn't how the description on the order made it seem. It looks like I should have bought a P350 when I had the chance.

I might return the P360 or try to bodge something using the M.2 2230 interface on the top of the board.

IMVHO, the simplest solution in your plan is P360 Tiny but with Thunderbolt card connection to external: e.g. NIC and COM port also disc.
BTW The P350 Tiny is Tiny7 so less advanced (e.g. CPU ; graphic ; chipset ; RAM etc.)
My advice, return the item and bay the P360 Tiny with build in Thunderbolt card for external connections.

 

[AWBbox]

IMVHO, the simplest solution in your plan is P360 Tiny but with Thunderbolt card connection to external: e.g. NIC and COM port also disc.
BTW The P350 Tiny is Tiny7 so less advanced (e.g. CPU ; graphic ; chipset ; RAM etc.)
My advice, return the item and bay the P360 Tiny with build in Thunderbolt card for external connections.

I didn't really give complete details of the NIC/COM plan. I will be using a AOC-STG-i4S (4xSFP+ NIC) and I need a native RS232 interface as I plan to use it for a PPS input for NTP and although I actually don't know how well that would work over Thunderbolt (if at all), it is typically recommended not to use anything other than native COM ports for that. Basically though, I don't think I can use Thunderbolt to fulfil all my requirements, and I'm going to need to figure something else out here.

 

[smstewart_9554]

Does anyone know the screw size for the 5 motherboard screws on a M90Q Gen 2 (Tiny7)? I want to buy an appropriate standoff to raise and secure a small SSD that I removed from a 2.5" drive by attaching to the motherboard screw near the SATA connection. I know others have 3D printed a carrier but I don't have a 3D printer. Thanks.

 

[zer0sum]

I did measure some 18 months ago on an earlier Tiny, so it's possible they've rearranged the front antenna assembly to give a little more room. We've had people with issues with cards smaller than yours and some who had to take off (and replace afterwards) the front fascia to fit cards in, so I did try to be a little conservative (but not 16mm conservative!).

But I'll take your advice and re-measure, if we can expand the range of cards that will fit that's a good thing.

@Parallax

There is definitely more space in the m90q compared to the m920q.

It is about 8-9mm difference, but the m920q also has a metal protrusion on one side that makes it even more pronounced, and probable more like 20-30mm

 

[loheiman]

FYI this seller is accepting offers for this M720q with i3-8100T for $120 shipped Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q, intel i3-8100T@3.10GHz, 128GB SSD, 8GB RAM, WIN 11 PRO | eBay

 

[axotopia]

RE: Nvidia Tesla P4 Low Profile GPU upgrade

Hi, been reading this post and figure I should contribute to what I learned from this posting.

In the process of upgrading my M920q. Just added a NVidia Tesla P4 Low Profile with a 01AJ940 PCIe connector. Setup is with i5-8500T, 8Gb RAM, Win 11 Pro.

Drilled some holes in the cover and attached a USB fan (Eluteng USB 120mm 2sp) to the back USB port, which turns on when the system boots.
Works pretty good so far.

Did a rough GPU test with Topaz Photo AI on a 40Mb image, P4 vs stock UHD630 ... Image processed (DeNoise, Sharpen, Face, Enhance) took P4 2:05min vs UHD630 13:07min. This includes both CPU time and likely some disk swapping on 8Gb.
Temperature with the cover plate removed, P4 is about 90 Celsius without fan, 75 with fan on low, and 65 with on high.

The P4 fits but had to remove the rear plate. Also removed the front plate to facilitate fan cooling. I'll probably modify the back plate in the future to cover the back chasis a little better, also may put some resilient blocking to secure the P4 inside the case a little better.

Got the P4 on fleabay making an offer for $90. Hoping to receive a i9-9900es from AliX next week to see if I can run the CPU on stock 01MN633 fan-cooler with some extra cooling form my external 120mm USB fan.

EDIT
Currently using 528.89 data center Tesla drivers from Nvidia driver download. After install, to use WDDM mode, in Command Prompt window, go to "C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvgridsw.inf_amd64_d73757dc15285182" or something similar, and type "nvidia-smi -dm 0"
You may need to reboot to see the P4 in Windows Task Manager

EDIT 6/4/23
Install the Tesla driver from Drivers for NVIDIA RTX Virtual Workstation (vWS) | Compute Engine Documentation | Google Cloud to default run in WDDM mode. You can use nvidia-smi to switch to TCC mode if needed. The NVidia Download Center driver does not appear to support WDDM.

The i9-9900ES seems to run well in the M920q. Temps under load are roughly 75-84 Celsius under computational load, 30-31 when idle (@ ambient 25). Base is 2.6Ghz, boosts around 4.3-4.5Ghz, CPU-Z Stress Test stabilizes at 3.6Ghz (36x multiplier) probably due to temps with the small heat sink and SFF. No CPU throttling.
Ended up buying the copper heatsink (01MN631) from Lenovo who had the lowest price. That dropped overall CPU load temps by around 4 Celsius.

 

[zer0sum]

RE: Nvidia Tesla P4 Low Profile GPU upgrade

Hi, been reading this post and figure I should contribute to what I learned from this posting.

In the process of upgrading my M920q. Just added a NVidia Tesla P4 Low Profile with a 01AJ940 PCIe connector. Setup is with i5-8500T, 8Gb RAM, Win 11 Pro.

Drilled some holes in the cover and attached a USB fan (Eluteng USB 120mm 2sp) to the back USB port, which turns on when the system boots.
Works pretty good so far.

That fan is begging for more holes to be drilled so it can provide some real airflow

 

[Leonsio]

Got the P4 on fleabay making an offer for $90. Hoping to receive a i9-9900es from AliX next week to see if I can run the CPU on stock 01MN633 fan-cooler with some extra cooling form my external 120mm USB

Don't want to disappoint you, but the „ES“ CPUs will not work

 

[sprucestream]

hey this is pretty cool axotopia I wonder how this would fare in my m90q gen1! I feel like I want to jump on this but understandably doesnt seem like I could keep it cool without an aftermarket fan.. got a p400 for now but cant stop looking at the P4 now! only thing that holds me back is that its a tad long.. anyways thanks for sharing look forward to any updates!

 

[sprucestream]

also im curious what the max gpu length is and if it differs across models

got a few single slot cards that are about 10-15cm longer than my P400 wonder what the options are

M90q, Mx20q, etc,

I saw it was mentioned here but if the tesla can fit too now im wondering

also I saw a post with one of these tinys with an rtx a2000 lol, imagine if it was an actual single slot (I gues T1000 8GB is closest for now)

 

[axotopia]

also im curious what the max gpu length is and if it differs across models

got a few single slot cards that are about 10-15cm longer than my P400 wonder what the options are

M90q, Mx20q, etc,

I saw it was mentioned here but if the tesla can fit too now im wondering

also I saw a post with one of these tinys with an rtx a2000 lol, imagine if it was an actual single slot (I gues T1000 8GB is closest for now)

Card is about 6 5/8" (PCB+Heatsink) with the backplate removed, and 2 3/4" from top of P4 PCB to face of PCB of the 01AJ940 PCIe connector. Card extends over the front USB connector assembly, but seems to rest on top of the front USB connectors on the M920q. There are some cushion pads on the USB connetors anyway, so no contact on the PCB.
No issues putting the chasis cover back on on the M920q.

 

[axotopia]

Don't want to disappoint you, but the „ES“ CPUs will not work

Bummer! Oh well, should be coming next week, so will use it on another mod if it doesnt work. thanks for the heads up.