NEW HP T640 Thin Client Ryzen R1505G 4GB 16GF - NO KB/MOUSE, NO OS INSTALLED - $109

[tmux]

@tmux were you able to get any USB functionality out of that board without the white cable?
[/QUOTE]
Not yet, there's still nothing super useful in

dmesg

, but I could build a kernel with

CONFIG_USB_DEBUG

set and do some more digging. The one thing I noticed is that it appears to be on the same bus as the wifi module:

lsusb -t
/:  Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/4p, 10000M
    |__ Port 4: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 5000M
        |__ Port 1: Dev 17, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/1p, 5000M
/:  Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/6p, 480M
    |__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Wireless, Driver=, 12M
    |__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 1, Class=Wireless, Driver=, 12M
    |__ Port 4: Dev 3, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M
        |__ Port 1: Dev 21, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/2p, 480M
            |__ Port 1: Dev 22, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=usb-storage, 480M
    |__ Port 5: Dev 4, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
/:  Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci-pci/1p, 480M

After I finish a system update I'll try removing the wifi module and see if it can draw enough power then.

 

[tmux]

No dice, it seems the cable is required for full functionality.

 

[ru me]

There is another, different module from the same seller which includes a cable HP USB-C 3.1 Gen2 Port Flex I/O Card DAF83TB14A0 L25754-001 with CABLE | eBay. It looks like it might be just long enough or just too short. Hard to tell from the pictures. I went ahead and bought one. I will report whether it works.

 

[WANg]

There is another, different module from the same seller which includes a cable HP USB-C 3.1 Gen2 Port Flex I/O Card DAF83TB14A0 L25754-001 with CABLE | eBay. It looks like it might be just long enough or just too short. Hard to tell from the pictures. I went ahead and bought one. I will report whether it works.

Nope - got my Chagal12 card - the cable is too short. I'm scouring eBay looking for something workable - probably get a bunch of pre-crimped JST-SH cables and do it myself.

 

[tmux]

I think I saw some HP laptop cables that might have been similar on eBay. I'll do some more digging this weekend. Or someone could bite the bullet and call HP support directly

 

[Freebsd1976]

want add console port to optional port will hp 906312-001 work ?
or anyone knows part number of the optional console port

 

[csp-guy]

Guys,

i would like to inform all of you, the windows 11 pro working well on t640. I updated from w10 using windows update.

 

[WANg]

USB-C signaling runs on 12 differential pairs, and that ASIC on the board might provide support for USB-PD. Both the t540 / t640 thin client might be low-draw enough to make it feasible (maybe). Especially since the board looks as if it has a voltage regulator IC(D2604) on board.

@tmux were you able to get any USB functionality out of that board without the white cable?

Oh yeah, to follow up on my own thread - eeeh, I just bought a "new" t640 that came with the USB-C card pre-populated. In case you are wondering what the 10 pin cable is doing going from the option port card to the motherboard - it's a USB-PD cable. So yes, it's totally possible to power the thin client with a 45 watt USB-C power brick (that's 15w, 3A, basically the same output as a Ravpower PD Pioneer 20wHr power bank) - mine does come with the cable. However, I can't seem to find a second source for that cable..I think it's the same one as those supplied to other HP USB-C option port cards...but I can't be sure. It really would be nice to have a USB-PD powered mini-server that can take a MiniPCIe based i350 dualport card...but right now you can only have one...or the other. Seriously, HP, for the next thin client series, make it USB-PD, AMD V2000 series (or whatever AMD cooks up in their embedded division) and make it so it'll take an RX6400 or Geforce T200 discrete card...please. It's not like Dell is doing anything interesting to compete...

I am also checking Taobao for a source for the serial port option since it's actually rather useful to have as well, and all I got searching on evilBay are freaking Pokemon trading cards.

 

[Dave Corder]

Well, for now, you can always try one of these USB C PD adapters: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SMFD1QR/

(I have one and I've been able to confirm that the T640 will POST with it, but not much beyond that yet.)

 

[tmux]

Mine has still been running rather well for being on 24/7 and for the price it machine owes me nothing.

 

[JayRandom]

Has anyone else had cooling problems with the NVME slot in particular? I have a pair sitting in a closet on a rack shelf, and I ended up taking off the top covers and running an 120mm fan at the side of the shelf. Before that, I was seeing 70+C on the NVME and CPU temperature sensors at near-idle running Linux as part of a Kubernetes cluster.

 

[WANg]

Has anyone else had cooling problems with the NVME slot in particular? I have a pair sitting in a closet on a rack shelf, and I ended up taking off the top covers and running an 120mm fan at the side of the shelf. Before that, I was seeing 70+C on the NVME and CPU temperature sensors at near-idle running Linux as part of a Kubernetes cluster.

Are you running it with the octagonal stand on the VESA mount holes (horizontally), stood up on the stand (vertically) or is it sitting without any elevation? There should be an air gap under the thin client to allow convection cooling to happen.

The t640 by itself usually idles at the high 50s/low-60s, and with moderate activity it can go up to 70. Technically having it on 70+ isn't an issue since the APU is designed to run sustained at up to 105 C, but you can also attach heatsinks onto the NVMe card to help wick away heat. The passive heatsinks on the t640 is not nearly as nice as the one on the Wyse 5070 or the Monderro IEC4650/4660 - probably due to the "more plastic" nature of HP's thin clients.

 

[nasbdh9]

The motherboard will not perform ECC. If ECC is forced to be turned on, a memory error will be reported during the self-test phase (through the buzzer and system indicator light).

 

[Dave Corder]

Nope - got my Chagal12 card - the cable is too short. I'm scouring eBay looking for something workable - probably get a bunch of pre-crimped JST-SH cables and do it myself.

Did you ever try making your own cable for the USB-C module?

 

[WANg]

Did you ever try making your own cable for the USB-C module?

No, mine came with the PD cable already. Although it would be interesting to measure the connector using a caliper set to see if it's really JST-SH 1mm pitch.

 

[Dave Corder]

No, mine came with the PD cable already. Although it would be interesting to measure the connector using a caliper set to see if it's really JST-SH 1mm pitch.

Answering my own question....I ended up making my own cable, and it's working great. It's a JST SH 10-pin connector and the pin-out is straight-through (same order on both ends).

I used this kit: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PDQKHJ2 for the connector and pre-crimped wires.

 

[WANg]

Answering my own question....I ended up making my own cable, and it's working great. It's a JST SH 10-pin connector and the pin-out is straight-through (same order on both ends).

I used this kit: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PDQKHJ2 for the connector and pre-crimped wires.

Great discovery - I have been using the t640 as a troubleshooting box for NVMe/SATA builds where all it needs is a good USB-C dock/monitor and a solid keyboard/mouse connected to the dock. The fact that it’s USB-PD and cheaper-than-a-Pi4 makes it almost a no-brainer.

Oh yeah, it's straight through, but when assembling the cable (which is basically stabbing the terminal into the housing using the provided tweezers 20 or so times(, you do need to do it back-to-front, that is - do 1 to 10 on the left end with 1 on top, and on the right end, do 10 to 1 with 10 on top. When the cable is assmbled it should work correctly. Took me a few minutes of staring at the OEM cable to figure out the correct orientation during assembly.

 

[WANg]

The motherboard will not perform ECC. If ECC is forced to be turned on, a memory error will be reported during the self-test phase (through the buzzer and system indicator light).

Yep. You also can't force the functionality via linux module options - the ECC RAM will function, just not with parity checking/corrections.