Lenovo Thinkcentre/ThinkStation Tiny (Project TinyMiniMicro) Reference Thread

[Helzy]

That's for tiny6

 

[animefans]

Does anyone know how to debug/troubleshoot m920q no video output?
just received a used 920q with quad port NIC from ebay

hooked up HDMI and DP to HDMI to my TV, and power up the unit

I see power LED comes on
I think I hear fan whispering
I see my USB thumb drive flashing, so there's activity
I see my USB keyboard and mouse lighted up

But there's no display

I am fairly certain my video cable are good, but I will try to swap and validate

Any other things I can try to see why there's no display to my TV?

Thanks

 

[Leonsio]

If anyone looking for a bracket for m90q/p340/p350/p360 found some on eBay at an acceptable price

NEW Caddy for Lenovo ThinkCentre M90q P330 Tiny Intel I350-T4 PCI Bracket | eBay

ETA 3 to 8 busines. We keep our promises that we will provide you with the best solution within 24 hours.

www.ebay.de

 

[chrisdm]

@Parallax My P360 Tiny came with a 5C50W00933 riser and I purchased an HP 546SFP+, part number 779793-B21.

This NIC has a Connect X-3 Pro chip and it worked perfectly with the riser, no compatibility issues straight out of the box.

 

[animefans]

Does anyone know how to debug/troubleshoot m920q no video output?
just received a used 920q with quad port NIC from ebay

hooked up HDMI and DP to HDMI to my TV, and power up the unit

I see power LED comes on
I think I hear fan whispering
I see my USB thumb drive flashing, so there's activity
I see my USB keyboard and mouse lighted up

But there's no display

I am fairly certain my video cable are good, but I will try to swap and validate

Any other things I can try to see why there's no display to my TV?

Thanks

son of a gun
turns out it is a bad HDMI cable...
the same cable (amazon basic) worked a few months ago...

BTW, does anyone know if DP connector work before OS is loaded? I have a DP -> HDMI cable, and that also doesn't work. This cable is like a few weeks old...

 

[Leonsio]

Both hdmi and dp work when booting.

son of a gun
turns out it is a bad HDMI cable...
the same cable (amazon basic) worked a few months ago...

BTW, does anyone know if DP connector work before OS is loaded? I have a DP -> HDMI cable, and that also doesn't work. This cable is like a few weeks old...

 

[chrisdm]

Hey. I apologize if this doesn't belong here.

I have thinkstation p360 tiny which I have upgraded heavily with new cpu, rams, nvmes, i350-t4v2 etc.. I disabled e-cores and permanently disabled computrace - next thing I know is my system hangs on lenovo splash screen and stays there and doesn't respond for anything. I've tried clearing cmos, removing parts to minimum but it issue persists.

Lenovo support rises their hands as the parts are not from lenovo. Althrough system had no issues prior these bios changes.

Is there any hope left or am I holding <1K paper weight on my hands?

Did you ever figure this out? If not I may possibly be interested in taking it off your hands.

 

[Terranigma]

The Sapphire Pulse RX 6400 has a plastic shroud I had to take off because of clearance. It idles at around 55c when closed and 50c when opened.
It's a different story during load tho.

The other thing that is making me uncomfortable is that the CPU fan isn't particularly silent. It sounds a little bit unbalanced. I'll give it a clean. But I can't really imagine having that running in the living room 24/7.

Maybe there's a time to rethink the whole project.

Does that fit? I see the specs says its over 160mm and the heatsink sticks out of the back quite a bit.

 

[f13dfx]

Hello All! Don’t know if this has been done before but I’ve retrofitted a T1000 pull from a ThinkStation P-Series into my M920x where I’ve replaced the Non-T i5-8500 (that it originally came with) with an i9-9900T. Had to hacksaw off one side of the plastic cpu fan shroud & aluminum base to make the T1000’s radiator fit. I’ve built this mainly to run a 24/7 Blue Iris surveillance system & do a little gaming (MotoGP 23 & F1 23). I’ve since ordered the OEM heatsink/fan to better my temps.

 

[Parallax]

One thing I've tried to confirm but still don't believe is why Lenovo support says that you can only pair a discrete GPU (ie. T1000) with a T-Series CPU (ie. i9-9900T). So my current i5-8500 won't work with the T1000, or so they say. Has anyone tried this out to see if it works OR am I just late on the scene & it's a known fact?

Well, I can confirm that this is true (that Lenovo only sells the discrete graphics cards with 35W CPU options) bit I don't know whether they do that because of a specific technical reason or it's an abundance of caution. As I noted in the first post the units with graphics come with an uprated heatsink so I suspect their concerns are heat dissipation rather than anything else.

 

[Terranigma]

The Sapphire Pulse RX 6400 has a plastic shroud I had to take off because of clearance. It idles at around 55c when closed and 50c when opened.
It's a different story during load tho.

The other thing that is making me uncomfortable is that the CPU fan isn't particularly silent. It sounds a little bit unbalanced. I'll give it a clean. But I can't really imagine having that running in the living room 24/7.

Maybe there's a time to rethink the whole project.

It does NOT fit here, P340 Tiny, had to take out the wifi antenna because it first blocked it, but even with shorud off, and me breaking off the tabs on the pasteic front, it still doesnt fit, must hit the metal frame in the top case.

Also, contrary to what i read, it does NOT run cooler then the XFX at all either.

 

[sunseeker2k5]

Good Day All,

New to the TMM crowd, just ordered my P330 (Intel Core I5-9500T/16GB/512GB)
I am planning to run Proxmox on my box, with Pfsense virtualized. Also a few VMs/CTs like Linux desktop, Pi-Hole etc.
I went thru the entire thread of 55 pages in the last 2 days and I learnt a lot from the experience of this community.

I am currently contemplating on what network card to buy :

What I need now : A card that can work with my existing 1Gbit/1Gbit Internet connection (RJ45)
I350-T4 : i have concerns about being able to whitelist non-Lenovo cards and Lenovo ones are prohibitively expensive. Does the invalid serial / name trick work for all non-Lenovo cards ? Is there a guide how to re-program the BIOS as I have only seen the process described in high level details (maybe there is not much to it, i just don't have experience with it yet)

Future Proofing : My internet provider offers up to 2Gbit/2Gbit speeds so i am trying to prepare for a potential upgrade (still RJ45)
1.QNAP QXG-2G4T-I225 : 2.5Gbe is a nice step up but having the same concerns on being able to whitelist the card. I have not seen any reference in the forum about these cards. Also not sure about the heat generated as this card comes with a fan for a reason.

2.Supermicro AOC-STGN-I2S : Ultimately the goal is buying a 10G aggregation switch (USW-Aggregation) and equip my NAS and the P330 with 10G networking for for fast access to large files on the NAS.

My sense is to buy the AOC-STGN-I2S and use it with 1Gbit RJ45 SFP+ modules as a start and upgrade to 10G when I am ready to make the next step on this journey. I know the RJ45 modules tend to run hotter on both the card and the switch side but i don't have any real life experience here.

Your advice would be much appreciated.

 

[AWBbox]

Good Day All,

New to the TMM crowd, just ordered my P330 (Intel Core I5-9500T/16GB/512GB)
I am planning to run Proxmox on my box, with Pfsense virtualized. Also a few VMs/CTs like Linux desktop, Pi-Hole etc.
I went thru the entire thread of 55 pages in the last 2 days and I learnt a lot from the experience of this community.

I am currently contemplating on what network card to buy :

What I need now : A card that can work with my existing 1Gbit/1Gbit Internet connection (RJ45)
I350-T4 : i have concerns about being able to whitelist non-Lenovo cards and Lenovo ones are prohibitively expensive. Does the invalid serial / name trick work for all non-Lenovo cards ? Is there a guide how to re-program the BIOS as I have only seen the process described in high level details (maybe there is not much to it, i just don't have experience with it yet)

Future Proofing : My internet provider offers up to 2Gbit/2Gbit speeds so i am trying to prepare for a potential upgrade (still RJ45)
1.QNAP QXG-2G4T-I225 : 2.5Gbe is a nice step up but having the same concerns on being able to whitelist the card. I have not seen any reference in the forum about these cards. Also not sure about the heat generated as this card comes with a fan for a reason.

2.Supermicro AOC-STGN-I2S : Ultimately the goal is buying a 10G aggregation switch (USW-Aggregation) and equip my NAS and the P330 with 10G networking for for fast access to large files on the NAS.

My sense is to buy the AOC-STGN-I2S and use it with 1Gbit RJ45 SFP+ modules as a start and upgrade to 10G when I am ready to make the next step on this journey. I know the RJ45 modules tend to run hotter on both the card and the switch side but i don't have any real life experience here.

Your advice would be much appreciated.

I'm not aware of any validation of PCI-E cards? I have a P360, so not the same model, but my AOC-STG-i4S has been working just fine without any modifications to it or the computer.

Something to consider is that the AOC-STGN-i2S/AOC-STG-i4S use the Intel XL710 chipset which means the SFP ports will only negotiate at either 1 or 10 Gbps and only with certain SFPs.

I've had a bit of an adventure on this front actually. I've been hankering to try an SFP which incorporates a SGMII interface, which effectively separates the PHY and MAC negotiation speeds entirely. I bought this from fs.com (not affiliated) https://www.fs.com/uk/products/178041.html?attribute=58324&id=1845437.

I originally bought a generic coded version and it did not work!! You must buy an Intel coded part to work with AOC-STGN-i2S/AOC-STG-i4S. Even allowing unsupported transceivers will not help you otherwise, i.e. "hw.ix.unsupported_sfp=1" in /boot/loader.conf.local on OPNsense. But now my NIC only sees a single 10Gbps Twinax device, but the RJ45 end can operate freely at 10M/100M/1G/2.5G/5G/10Gbps. This might be useful for your potential future proofing needs.

 

[zer0sum]

I'm not aware of any validation of PCI-E cards? I have a P360, so not the same model, but my AOC-STG-i4S has been working just fine without any modifications to it or the computer.

Something to consider is that the AOC-STGN-i2S/AOC-STG-i4S use the Intel XL710 chipset which means the SFP ports will only negotiate at either 1 or 10 Gbps and only with certain SFPs.

I've had a bit of an adventure on this front actually. I've been hankering to try an SFP which incorporates a SGMII interface, which effectively separates the PHY and MAC negotiation speeds entirely. I bought this from fs.com (not affiliated) https://www.fs.com/uk/products/178041.html?attribute=58324&id=1845437.

I originally bought a generic coded version and it did not work!! You must buy an Intel coded part to work with AOC-STGN-i2S/AOC-STG-i4S. Even allowing unsupported transceivers will not help you otherwise, i.e. "hw.ix.unsupported_sfp=1" in /boot/loader.conf.local on OPNsense. But now my NIC only sees a single 10Gbps Twinax device, but the RJ45 end can operate freely at 10M/100M/1G/2.5G/5G/10Gbps. This might be useful for your potential future proofing needs.

The AOC-STGN-i2S actually uses the older Intel 82599 chipset
The AOC-STG-i4S uses the X710

STH article covers it in detail here - https://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-aocstgni2s-dual-sfp-intel-82599-10gbe-controller-review/

 

[AWBbox]

The AOC-STGN-i2S actually uses the older Intel 82599 chipset
The AOC-STG-i4S uses the X710

STH article covers it in detail here - https://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-aocstgni2s-dual-sfp-intel-82599-10gbe-controller-review/

I stand corrected!

 

[sunseeker2k5]

I stand corrected!

Thank you both for the information, the SFP is exactly what I was looking for. Can you actually set the speed manually to 1G/2.5./5/10 or does it auto-negotiate with the other end (switch)?
What about heat generated by the card with the RJ45 SFP module(s) in it ? Can the P360 chassis dissipate it or are you doing something special to get rid of the heat ?

 

[AWBbox]

Thank you both for the information, the SFP is exactly what I was looking for. Can you actually set the speed manually to 1G/2.5./5/10 or does it auto-negotiate with the other end (switch)?
What about heat generated by the card with the RJ45 SFP module(s) in it ? Can the P360 chassis dissipate it or are you doing something special to get rid of the heat ?

The RJ45 end appears to be auto negotiated only, I'm not aware of any mechanism to control anything that happens within the SFP module itself. If you wanted it to run at a specific speed then you could always manually set the speed of the interface it's connected to.

The SFP module does get hot! I've only been running it for a week or so and so I don't have exact figures yet, and haven't assessed whether I need to take preventative action. I'm not doing anything special yet, my build looks the same as it did when I first posted it here and here. I'll whip the top of the case off this evening, take a some temperature readings and get back to you!

 

[sunseeker2k5]

The RJ45 end appears to be auto negotiated only, I'm not aware of any mechanism to control anything that happens within the SFP module itself. If you wanted it to run at a specific speed then you could always manually set the speed of the interface it's connected to.

The SFP module does get hot! I've only been running it for a week or so and so I don't have exact figures yet, and haven't assessed whether I need to take preventative action. I'm not doing anything special yet, my build looks the same as it did when I first posted it here and here. I'll whip the top of the case off this evening, take a some temperature readings and get back to you!

Great info, thank you. I have high hopes that the perforated top with ventillation holes and the possible omission of the baffle (last resort) could create enough airflow to keep temps under control.

 

[damex]

Any insights as to which Lenovo Tiny's can run ESXi 8.0 cleanly? @damex mentioned they had ESXi 8 running on a m920q.

(I know, run Proxmox. I already have a Topton 4 x 2.5G box running Proxmox, but want to migrate back to ESXi since I use it in enterprise environments.)

I'm currently looking at the M920q / M920x / P330, M90q / P340, or M90q Gen 2 / P350, because I'm looking for vPro for Remote Management, a PCIe slot for a 10GbE Adapter, and want to reuse 64GB of DDR4 3200 SO-DIMMs I have.

Regarding the 10GbE adapters, is it better to go with an SFP+ (X710-DA2 or X520-DA2) or a RJ45 (X540-T2 or X550-T2) to decrease heat load on the Lenovo Tiny? My switch has space for either uplinks SFP+ or RJ45, and I can use SFP+ DAC (Twinax) or SFP+ SR modules.

I'll probably also add the i210 M2 AKey Lan card to get one more GbE NIC. Looks like the i210 is on the ESXi 8.0 HCL.

Thanks for everyone's great input on this thread and @Parallax for creating the reference thread.

sorry for such late reply.

esxi 8 works out of box on m720q, m920q and multiple p330tiny machines that i own. i recently upgraded everything to latest esxi8 build without any issues.

2230 drive boot in wifi slot works for esxi install too. i described procedure earlier in this thread.

vpro also works well. just don't forget to plug in hdmi dummy to get remote video output.

i am using multiple revisions of AOC-STGN-I2S and 2.x shortie revisions seem to be the best. stock lenovo ethernet baffle works 'fine' with 'rubber screw' as i described in earlier posts but one can 3d print perfectly matched baffle since rubber screw does not perfectly align and will wiggle (not enough to force card out).

X520-DA2 or anything else with 82599 chipset is the best thing to get. x710 has newer stuff that has lots of quirks (we got rid of all x710 at work due to issues and x520-da2 have been running well since). i wouldn't go for *T variants with RJ45 not because of heat but because of versatility loss and due to quirkiness of cards in general. good ones are still pretty expensive.

i am using all of them and all machines that run esxi 8 use i9 9900t (ES) and there is no problems. they have maxed out memory at 2x32gb ram. i also did recently upgrade to 135w power brick (can't vouch for authenticity but serial numbers and barcode match) and i notice bump in performance. power brick upgrade was due to grounding support. 65w and 90w psus only had 2 prongs and no ground which complicates connection to PDU. with 135w power bricks i could use c14 to c5 cables.

pick storage as you go or just boot things temporarily from 2230 nvme drive

 

[AWBbox]

Great info, thank you. I have high hopes that the perforated top with ventillation holes and the possible omission of the baffle (last resort) could create enough airflow to keep temps under control.

The result... not too bad! Considering there is no airflow over the card, no modification to the case, and the computer itself is inside a TV cabinet. Reading 60ºC on the chipset heatsink and 42ºC on the cage where the SFP-10GM-T resides. I even took the SFP out to check, and the temperature immediately after removal was 40ºC.

I swear the SFP was getting way hotter before when I was testing, before it was actually functional. It could have been drawing too much power before I had it recoded to Intel and got the drivers figured out in OPNsense. I call this a win though