Tiny/Mini/Micro PC experiences

[nezumi]

I picked up a bundle of 6 M700s recently, and the Lenovo website is *so* painful to navigate for reinstalling Windows compared to the Dell Optiplex 3060s I had recently.

The installation media has to be downloaded separately for each device, and even then it isn't updated resulting in a lot of additional downloads once the installation is "complete".

Am I missing anything here? Is there a faster way to go about this?

 

[WANg]

I picked up a bundle of 6 M700s recently, and the Lenovo website is *so* painful to navigate for reinstalling Windows compared to the Dell Optiplex 3060s I had recently.

The installation media has to be downloaded separately for each device, and even then it isn't updated resulting in a lot of additional downloads once the installation is "complete".

Am I missing anything here? Is there a faster way to go about this?

Use the standard Win10 Installer ISO, Windows should be able to grab the digital entitlement license from the hardware and activate it directly - you shouldn't have to grab the installation media...unless you care about the factory image contents.

 

[Sean Ho]

Not to mention the Lenovo images tend to be full of bloatware.

The license is embedded in UEFI vars.

 

[macario]

Hi, what kind of PSU did you use to power the backplane? How do you turn it on? I was thinking of using an ATX PSU, but it will not turn on if not connected to a motherboard

I have taken my P340 i7-10700 to the limit, I think. Anyone who has 'more', let me know ;-)
1. 64Gbytes of memory
2. 2x NVMe drives in the 'native' slots (256Gbytes for the OS, 1Tbyte for cache/SLOG/whatever)
3. A PCIe switch card in the 1/2 height PCIe slot. (this provides 4x m.2 slots).
4. 3x 1Tbyte NVMe SSDs (making 4 total with the one in 2: above).
5. A m.2 2280 -> PCIe slot card to connect a LSI 3008i controller (connected to the external power supply)
6. A BPN-SAS3-216EL1 backplane (with in-built SAS expander) to connectup to 24x 2.5" drives (SAS or SATA). (connected to the external power supply)
7. A 2.5Gbit RTL8125B interface in the A+E wifi slot.

Just up to step 2, I have an idle Wattage of 3-4W

P.S. Yes, I still have to add the 2.5Gbit RTL adapter, it's still in the post (China), but I was able to add it on the M900 I also have, so I forsee no problems there: The M900 experience,
P.P.S. I know there is a limitation to the storage of 4Gbyte/sec, but that's plenty.

 

[Camprr23]

I used an ATX PSU 'helper' that shorts the power_OK and 'on' signal, like here: How To Turn On An ATX Power Supply Without A Motherboard But you can buy these are ATX psu connectors with the short in them. As I am just using the 5V and 12V (not the CPU connector, that works fine.

https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005004601648039.html

 

[edge]

So I am getting a few mini pc. Starting with 2 elite mini 800 g9, probably 4 more will follow. While the chassis stack nicely, I am not looking forward to a power brick farm and the excess cables. 6 of these shouldn't pull more than 700 watts fully maxed out. 700 watts can be handled by 1 power supply.

Is there an off the shelf solution for powering multiple mini PC's off on power supply, or does anyone here have the experience of jury rigging a solution? Please share, as a sensible power solution would be a great addition to project mini / micro,

 

[Helzy]

Lenovo has an OEM splitter if you search this thread:

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/lenovo-thinkcentre-thinkstation-tiny-project-tinyminimicro-reference-thread.34925/

I think you should find it in here

 

[ghost792]

Use the standard Win10 Installer ISO, Windows should be able to grab the digital entitlement license from the hardware and activate it directly - you shouldn't have to grab the installation media...unless you care about the factory image contents.

I know this is a few days later, but for posterity, once you have Windows installed, get the Lenovo Vantage app from the Microsoft Store and run it. That should grab all the drivers and any UEFFI updates for the machine.

 

[esCap@des593]

I am looking for a low power machine, that will eventually run exclusively from solar.

I am also looking for something which is inexpensive used, right now.

For the moment, I just need it to run software that will only run on Windows. This use wont be very demanding on hardware.

I just prefer to use Linux on my other devices.

However, I will likely use it to run a home server in the future, so I imagine the demands on hardware will grow when that happens. The only thing on my mind at the moment, is running a NextCloud instance. I could also see it running as a media server, and probably other things that I won't know till I start doing it.

I am looking at the STH youtube videos. There is a lot of information. Can anyone narrow down the best options I should be looking at, or at least a good place to start?

 

[esCap@des593]

I ended up getting a Dell Optiplex 7050 USFF i5-7500 8GB RAM 128GB SSD. It has a HDMI output on the unit, so I didn't need to bother with getting an extra cable. It was a B-Grade unit, so had some cosmetic damage - scratches to the paintwork on the upper surface. It cost $144 AUD, or about $92 USD.

I spent a couple of days watching videos from STH. That was really helpful - Thanks STH : )

I figure that when I find enough time to think about setting up a home lab for other needs, more recent units will probably have come down in price, so I'll buy another one then.

This unit has arrived, is working and all set up running the windows software I need. So, am pretty happy.

 

[diskdiddler]

Hello all!

I have what might be a really stupid question but I can't be sure of the answer(s)

What is the difference between the HP 805 and 405 G8 series, BESIDES the dual m.2 slots and the egpu option? Is anything else lacking?
There's reference to "out of band management" on several pages for the 405 but none of it is concrete.

Can I get a HP 405 series system with a 5650GE and remotely turn the unit on and off and remotely see the screen / bios / input keyboard commands etc? I'm positive that's possible on the 805. I totally need those features.

I'm more accustomed to the HP 800 Intel series remote management, using mesh commander (meshcommander?) Which I quite like.
I've never used AMD DASH / remote management.

 

[tinfoil3d]

I'm more accustomed to the HP 800 Intel series remote management, using mesh commander (meshcommander?) Which I quite like.

Sorry I don't have an asnwer to dash, but rather a question on AMT, is it stable in your setup? I have lenovo and hp boxes, they both tend to just go unresponsive after some time(days? weeks?), AMT ip just becomes inaccessible and only reboot helps. I tried all the various options in config menu, it always acts the same way. Just wondering if this is a common problem or am I doing something wrong(honestly no idea what though, i just want to have remote serial console at times when i mess up my firewall)

 

[diskdiddler]

On the unit I have none of the AMT has ever been a problem, but I have a very basic network.

Is it possible you have dynamic IP or something like that?

 

[diskdiddler]

I've spent the entire day trying to find out, if the Lenovo M75Q can actually do DASH / KVM / VNC properly, the results across the web are very very poor, sounds like a lot of maybe, no, possibly from a variety of people and a lot of frustration.

Has anyone got one of these? Preferably Gen 2 and can confirm if you can just remote into the unit and see what it's doing? Window,s Linux, BSD, whatever -and or power on / off? It's all I need.

 

[tinfoil3d]

specs say an unrelated m75n-iot can do it too, but I've also spent some time trying to even find a place to config it like AMT(Alt+P or Ctrl+P was it?), I didn't get anywhere. NIC is dead silent upon powerup too. Sounds like our only option is serial port
And PDU for power.

 

[diskdiddler]

specs say an unrelated m75n-iot can do it too, but I've also spent some time trying to even find a place to config it like AMT(Alt+P or Ctrl+P was it?), I didn't get anywhere. NIC is dead silent upon powerup too. Sounds like our only option is serial port
And PDU for power.

I've found some indication it may be f10 or shift f10

It's not clear, at all

 

[tinfoil3d]

Thanks for the hint. What does that show you?

Took me a while to find meshcommander back in the day. It's like, THE only tool that works, and it's not obviously linked to from intel resources despite being somewhat related, to say the least. Also the fact that this AMT thingy never heard of VLANs truly makes life miserable.
Unfortunately I don't have any free AMD boxes to do DASH tests now. I remember I tried experimenting with dash tools for linux that AMD themselves provide but that also didn't get me anything.

 

[Styp]

Any tiny-mini-micro with decent cooling for a 5700G?

 

[diskdiddler]

Thanks for the hint. What does that show you?

Took me a while to find meshcommander back in the day. It's like, THE only tool that works, and it's not obviously linked to from intel resources despite being somewhat related, to say the least. Also the fact that this AMT thingy never heard of VLANs truly makes life miserable.
Unfortunately I don't have any free AMD boxes to do DASH tests now. I remember I tried experimenting with dash tools for linux that AMD themselves provide but that also didn't get me anything.

Yes MeshCommander really saved my bacon, it works really well.
The AMD AMC tool (I grabbed it, despite no machines) actually looks maintained, updated and not half bad (IF ALL THE BUTTONS IN THE TOOL DO STUFF!)

My entire worry / complaint, is that I'm going to buy a Lenovo unit, which actually doesn't implement the full DASH protocol - so KVM doesn't work on it. (according to multiple people across the web)
Not a huge fan of hand editing XML files or whatever it is, injecting them into the device, which MUST run Windows, MUST run a particular driver version (!?)
However I'm hoping / praying that once you've established a proper connection and set it up? You can just reboot into bios / boot off USB and install linux / truenas / opnsense / proxmox etc. (that's how AMT works)

We shall see, I don't mind my remote control 'device' being Windows* but I'll be damned if I can only DASH to Windows based machines.


*I have a single core, 4GB, lite Window 10, stripped out VM just for doing mesh commander.

 

[tinfoil3d]

meshcommander works on linux too, it spins local webserver through which you instruct it to connect to remote boxes.