Help needed! I bought a used m720q on ebay a few days ago which turned on but won’t boot into BIOS and beep 4 times (3 long and 1 short). I have tried 1) booting with/without SSD; 2) booting with one and two stick(a) of ram (both are perfectly fine as they work on other systems); 3) clearing CMOS and 4) re-seating the battery.
Lenovo Thinkcentre/ThinkStation Tiny (Project TinyMiniMicro) Reference Thread
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Hi everyone,
I found this on reddit (credit to user theusu5000 in this thread):
I like the idea of creating a NAS out of a Lenovo minipc. He/She mentioned in his/her thread that you need to solder com wires to the board to supply power to the drives. I also read somewhere online that they would be able to run off a NVMe to SATA adapter if they are SSDs and not HDDs, which I do not think is correct. Reading through the thread here my understanding is that by default (for the newer versions) you have 2 NVMe and one SATA slot (and the W-Fi card slot) on the board that you could use to connect drives, but I also read that there is not enough power delivered by the board to the drives.
Is there a solution to power lets say 6 SSDs from the board without soldering?
Thanks!
I found this on reddit (credit to user theusu5000 in this thread):
I like the idea of creating a NAS out of a Lenovo minipc. He/She mentioned in his/her thread that you need to solder com wires to the board to supply power to the drives. I also read somewhere online that they would be able to run off a NVMe to SATA adapter if they are SSDs and not HDDs, which I do not think is correct. Reading through the thread here my understanding is that by default (for the newer versions) you have 2 NVMe and one SATA slot (and the W-Fi card slot) on the board that you could use to connect drives, but I also read that there is not enough power delivered by the board to the drives.
Is there a solution to power lets say 6 SSDs from the board without soldering?
Thanks!
THats awesome, I'd like to see some picks from the back side and a schematic if possible. The OP may be adding some pics and other notes soon.
Also I have a modded BIOS for M910X that allows for Xeon's too. If anyone wants a copy I'll back it up and share.
Also I have a modded BIOS for M910X that allows for Xeon's too. If anyone wants a copy I'll back it up and share.
Hi. I have an m920q with an i7-8700T on the way, also planning to use it with Proxmox (my 1st install). How much space did you need for the OS, and we’re you able to install a second M2 drive? I’d like to have RAID 1 for my data drives. Mine is coming with a 1TB M.2 NVME drive, and I can remove the Wi-Fi card to create space, as it will be over wired Ethernet. Ideally, I could put in a smaller 2.5” SSD for the OS and add a 2nd M.2 1TB drive for the RAID 1. I’m actually not 100% sure it supports 2 M.2 drives.
This is a fabulous resource. I’d welcome any advice you can share from your configuration.
This one does. This one in the link is "G4", which is Coffee Lake. I have a "G3" (Skylake/Kaby Lake) and it does NOT have two M.2 for storage. IDK about the newer generations.
https://www.servethehome.com/hp-elitedesk-800-g4-mini-tinyminimicro-guide-review/
Cheers!
Welcome!
Where were you thinking of putting the second M.2 SSD? It appears that the WiFi M.2 slot connector uses the "E" key. Generally, its hard to find SSDs that will work with E Keyed M.2. E Key has the gap in a different place than the M key that's usually used for NVMe SSDs. I could be wrong of course, but that's the way it looks?
Apparently the high end dell micro models do have dual m.2 slots:
Pretty much all of the HP "tiny's" G6 and newer have 2x m.2 slots. Some of the G4 models did too. On all of them using the 2nd m.2 slot requires that you do not install a 2.5" SATA.
per index on first page, m920q requires soldering to get the second m.2 slot.
Thanks for the reply! There is space for an internal 2.5” SSD too. But it also raises question for where to put OS.
Yep, saw that. I’ve done soldering, but not sure about doing so on a multilayer pcb with lots of SMDs. Open to other options. Also willing to consider the solder solution after I look at the board upon delivery today. Maybe I missed it, but has anyone seen instructions (ideally video) for how to do that and what components are needed?
update. Found this, which is way beyond me. Not soldering 0402 components GitHub - badger707/m920q-dual-NVME: Lenovo M920Q dual NVME, conversion to M920X.
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This could be the solution. I’m thinking I need to return this one to Amazon and get one with 2 m.2 that I can use for RAID 1, plus a 2.5” SSD for the Proxmox OS. Do you know if tophose dells can support all 3 at once?
After further consideration, with solid backup schedules, I won’t need the RAID 1. Therefore, the question becomes installing the Proxmox OS and VM storage on the same drive vs. getting another small 2.5” SSD for the OS.
Per my 920q documentation, that sequence of beeps means memory is not detected