Lenovo Thinkcentre/ThinkStation Tiny (Project TinyMiniMicro) Reference Thread

[pstn]

does anyone happen know when we can expect the think(centre/station) tiny refresh?

 

[bbchucks]

Don't see why not. If you intend to use multiple VLANs a four port card might come in useful, but two port is fine too and you can use the onboard NIC for management.

thank you!

 

[WarlockSyno]

For you guys that are crazy enough to run 40gbe Mellanox cards in these beasts, made this for y'all.

Printables

www.printables.com

 

[Chris.db]

Hey.

I am using M920q and now second M75q gen 2 as Proxmox HyperVisor with NAS functionality and I want to use as second direct attached network to connect to macbook. Ideal would be Thunderbolt 3/4 via usb-c to connect direct and get 10 or 20 Gbit line.

There are some thunderbolt extension cards, has somebody got it working ?

 

[Seraph]

Hey.

I am using M920q and now second M75q gen 2 as Proxmox HyperVisor with NAS functionality and I want to use as second direct attached network to connect to macbook. Ideal would be Thunderbolt 3/4 via usb-c to connect direct and get 10 or 20 Gbit line.

There are some thunderbolt extension cards, has somebody got it working ?

Haven't tested it myself but read on reddit somebody was successfully using OWC Thunderbolt 10G Ethernet Adapter.

 

[Chris.db]

Haven't tested it myself but read on reddit somebody was successfully using OWC Thunderbolt 10G Ethernet Adapter.

Yeah, but it shouls be possible to use direct usb-c to usb-c from macbook to lenovo and run network over tb3 or tb4

 

[Chris.db]

btw. did somebody modify 2Liter Tiny Cage from M600 passive to M920q or M75/M70-90 and use extra space for storage ?
how to swap front panel ?

 

[evil_santa]

btw. did somebody modify 2Liter Tiny Cage from M600 passive to M920q or M75/M70-90 and use extra space for storage ?
how to swap front panel ?

Mainboard doesn't fit in the M600.
And the upper cover doesn't fit on the m720/m920.
Have it at home.

 

[Chris.db]

Mainboard doesn't fit in the M600.
And the upper cover doesn't fit on the m720/m920.
Have it at home.

What is agains to fit M600 upper cover to M720/M920 ? I see only different fron panel with ports, maybe it is possible to cut/glue to M600 upper cover ?
Or I' missing something ?

 

[evil_santa]

I can take some pictures if I found some time.
The Metal fasteners in the side don't fit as far as I know.

@Chris.db
Look at this click
the Chinese guys using a M3600c cover

@Parallax
Can you please link this to your first post?

 

[WarlockSyno]

btw. did somebody modify 2Liter Tiny Cage from M600 passive to M920q or M75/M70-90 and use extra space for storage ?
how to swap front panel ?

Not much information I can find on this, but a guy did make a 3D printable case with some other stuff that lets you put 4x2.5" drives in.

Lenovo P330 DIY mini 2.5L server 4*2.5sata by Li n IT

makerworld.com

 

[MrWahWah]

There is no options in the bios to enable resizable bar or above 4g decoding.

To enable above 4G you need to use the setup_var method.
---The offset to enable Above 4G on my m720q using the latest bios was at offset 0xA49.

To flash the modified bios for ReBarUEFI, you'll need an external tool like a CH341A programmer because the lenovo bios is locked down.
---I haven't tested if ReBarUEFI will work by creating a modded bios and flashing it, but it should work.

Does it mean it is not possible to install an INTEL ARC A310 in a M90q gen1? Do anybody test it? It seems it is a nice second GPU to have for AV1 transcoding.

Thanks in advance

 

[j4cbo]

I'm working on a custom riser board to fit two more SSDs as well as a PCIe card into one of these, for a maximum of 4 M.2s. Overview on Github: GitHub - j4cbo/tiny5-m2-riser

If all goes well I'll build a batch for sale and/or open up the design, but for now I'm waiting on a second prototype board to arrive. More to follow...

 

[Nathan E]

Hello. First time poster. Awesome thread.

I have two Lenovo m920q devices running Proxmox 8. In addition to the internal 1G NIC, both have dual 10G Mellanox NICs which are working fine and a m.2 Intel i201 1G Ethernet NIC, which are not working. I ordered my m.2 cards in July 2023 from Aliexpress based on a link I got from this thread a few months ago.

The cards installed fine, so they are keyed correctly. There are link lights on both the NIC and my network switch, and they blink, meaning some packets are being processed by the NIC, likely ARP broadcasts. But Linux does not discover them.

I am 90% certain these NICs worked right after I got them a few months ago since I see evidence in the /etc/network/interfaces file that Proxmox had seen and configured them.

I was busy with other things and am just now getting back to setting up my Proxmox cluster. Perhaps it was a mistake, but a few days ago I updated the m920q BIOS to latest Lenovo release. I confess I didn't actually check the m.2 NICs prior to upgrading the BIOS.
BIOS Version: M1UKT75A
BIOS Release Date: 01/26/2024

Now, neither Linux nor the BIOS detect the card. Dmesg, lspci show nothing. F10 hardware diagnostics via Lenovo don't see it either. Is it possible Lenovo "blacklisted" my m.2 NIC? Has anyone seen this problem before? Are there any troubleshooting steps I should try before trying to reinstall an older BIOS?

PS: I just now rolled back to M1UKT74A and the m.2 NICs are still not found by Linux. On the Lenovo site, I could only find one previous BIOS version, which is much newer than what I had originally. I am now suspecting both these NICs are not compatible, even though the markings on the main IC seem to say it is an Intel i210 part. Since I only need this for the Proxmox heartbeat network, I am going to go with some USB-to-Ethernet dongles.

Thanks for any tips!

 

[jackfrost]

Does it mean it is not possible to install an INTEL ARC A310 in a M90q gen1? Do anybody test it? It seems it is a nice second GPU to have for AV1 transcoding.

Thanks in advance

If you're only going to use it for AV1 transcoding, you probably don't even need resizeable bar enabled... I think I remember reading somewhere that it's only a minor performance loss in that use case.

 

[jja2000]

Hi there! I'm planning to turn either a P320 or a M720q into my router and was looking around for NIC's to put in there.

I know about size constraints, but I've seen some people having success with adding a X710-DA4 (4xSFP+) card in there.

There are quite a couple on AliExpress for differing amounts of prices, but I was wondering if anyone here had any luck with one of them in particular and if they had a link to them so I can buy one :^)

Thanks in advance for the advice! My original plan was to use m.2 to 10GbE RJ45 cards, but I thought this would've been slightly more cost effective (since I already need an SFP+ card for use as the upstream port).

 

[ITN0B]

Hi, I have made easy sheet to view or compare the different models of Lenovo Tiny series

Lenovo Thinkcentre/Thinkstation Tiny Compression

الورقة1 Model Name Category,Lenovo ThinkCentre M710q Tiny,Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q Tiny,Lenovo ThinkCentre M920 (M920q) Tiny,Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Tiny,Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen2 Tiny,Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen3 Tiny,Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen4 Tiny,Lenovo ThinkCentre M80q Ti...

docs.google.com

 

[senso]

I'm working on a custom riser board to fit two more SSDs as well as a PCIe card into one of these, for a maximum of 4 M.2s. Overview on Github: GitHub - j4cbo/tiny5-m2-riser

If all goes well I'll build a batch for sale and/or open up the design, but for now I'm waiting on a second prototype board to arrive. More to follow...

That's very interesting!

Do you happen to know if the m720q also has those x4 PCH PCIe lanes?

 

[Johnny Danger]

Sure, but no need for attribution, I just followed the Dortania's guide part regarding CFG_Lock turn off, when I "hackintoshed" my M720Q. Thanks to this guide, I understood it was possible to modify other hidden Bios features, we're lucky Lenovo didn't lock it! On the Lenovo thread, brandon099 did a good job at explaining the process to enable thunderbolt card support on M720Q after I explained him the basics by private messages, so I suppose attribution should go to him and dortania who provided easy guides.

Some examples, my M720Q bios version is M1UKT62A M1UKT67A, so regarding this version and after creating a grub USB boot disk like brandon099 explained (or an OpenCore one, for hackintosh):

-enable Thunderbolt 3 card to function on M720Q (spare part 01AJ968 ):
setup_var_cv Setup 0x521 0x01 0x01

-Turn Off CFG-Lock (mostly for hackintosh I suppose):
setup_var_cv Setup 0x721 0x01 0x00

-Allow CPU undervolting and PL1 PL2 settings with tools like throttlestop, Voltageshift (for hackintosh), intel-undervolt (linux,didn't try this yet but will do). I Was very motivated by this one because I've installed an ES i9 9900 in my M720Q, so, the cooler the better (even replaced the default aluminium heatsink by the copper one which equips M920x/P330, spare part 01MN631)...
setup_var_cv Setup 0x7BD 0x01 0x00

I recently bought another used M720Q with i3 9100T cpu for 120€. Will add an I340-T4 nic for a start and try to install and understand proxmox... Then install openwrt and some docker oriented VM on it.

EDIT: added a voltageshift screenshot for example of my ES i9-9900 undervolting.
View attachment 23411

EDIT 2:
forgot about it, regarding my DIY egpu, I suppose it won't be very interesting for a server but, who knows, you'll need:
- Lenovo riser (took the 01AJ929, because ADT-Link R23SG is pci-e x4).
- ADT-Link R23SG (random aliexpress link, but this one has nice describing pics, prefer the 50cm long cable one)
- ADT-Link R22SF extender (random aliexpress link, optional but with some tweaking, it will do a nice pci-e x4 female port at the rear of your Tiny, for easier cable management. I took the 10cm cable option, it's a bit long but OK, this way you can even keep the 2.5" SSD if you remove its caddy).
- a psu, preferably Small Form Factor if you plan to put all this stuff in a case, or a cheap Dell DA-2 adapter if your gpu needs less than 200W.
- a case + some fans (optional, it can be 3D printed, really cheap but effective, or scavenged from a dead UPS like mine).

Pros:
- cheaper than thunderbolt solution (Razer/Mantiz/etc thunderbolt egpu cases and Lenovo thunderbolt 3 card 01AJ968 are expensive)
- will work with linux, hackintosh, windows and others, it's just a pci-e port, no thunderbolt firmware/drivers hassles.
- you own a tiny beast, able to run any games or 3D softwares flawlessly.

Cons:
- will require some DIY work.
- only pci-e x4 speed so expect lesser performances (I would say 15%) compared to x16, but it's still very good (some benchmarks from my good old 1080ti).

Hello @poulpor and apologies for replying after so long.

I have an m720q with an i5-8500 (non-T). Using your guide I was able to unlock undervolting, and am able to sustain 35W under full CPU load. (Most important step being to disable BD PROCHOT)

My question to you is, how were you able to push your system to draw more than 35w? Did it require further Bios modification?

If anyone else has anything to add to this conversation, please feel free to chime in!

Thanks!

 

[flame7487]

I'm working on a custom riser board to fit two more SSDs as well as a PCIe card into one of these, for a maximum of 4 M.2s. Overview on Github: GitHub - j4cbo/tiny5-m2-riser

If all goes well I'll build a batch for sale and/or open up the design, but for now I'm waiting on a second prototype board to arrive. More to follow...

Is it possible to add a 12V power supply socket for an additional extractor fan on the additionally perforated cover of the Tiny5 ?