(US) 90 dollar Wyse 5070 Thin client/mini-server?

[WANg]

Oh yeah, speaking of which - I ran into a snag doing benchmarking (in anticipation for a review) on this machine - I have to prep an M2 SATA SSD for Windows 10 2004 - looks like the M2 SATA drive with Windows 10 that worked in my t740 and the Gigabyte Brix i5 Pro simply refuses to load. I'll have to do the install when I have some more bandwidth.

 

[arglebargle]

The part #'s can be determined by going to Dell site and configuring a 5070 with the parts, then look at the summary page (you may have to delete the VGA port, and wireless).

I've seen a 5070 for sale on ebay with the SFP for $$$.

I don't have a source for the parts though, don't know if they're available for order. I've seen the pages you're talking about.

I've ordered a RJ45 off of ebay from China and plan to try and 3d print a part for the option slot.

Yeah, the part numbers were easy enough to find back in Feb when I bought my 5070. The actual part on the other hand...

My guess is that the SFP is the Transition Networks M2-SFP, which is muy dineros (225 USD quoted). As for RJ45...maybe something generic M2 A+E compatible like the Ableconn or the Commell M2 cards? I simply do not see that many Dell quoted parts in the open market. Maybe ask the guys who sold the 9 dollar HP fiber cards on eBay if they can source a few and quote pricing on them? Those cats deal with Dells as well.

I don't think the Realtek based Ableconn is really worth considering unless there are no alternatives. Commell is, though the last time I got in touch with them they wanted an extra ~$25 on top of standard cost plus shipping to ship to the US due to coronavirus logistics disruptions. That may be sorted by now, I don't know, but at the time the extra NIC would have cost about what I paid for the whole thin client.

That's a good idea reaching out to the liquidator with the HP parts, I might try that.

---

Does anyone have a line on a properly sized m.2 standoff yet, or are we all using long 6-32 screws and nylon spacers? I think I tried a motherboard standoff in mine at one point but it's a bit too tall to work well.

 

[yrxuthst]

Does anyone have a line on a properly sized m.2 standoff yet, or are we all using long 6-32 screws and nylon spacers? I think I tried a motherboard standoff in mine at one point but it's a bit too tall to work well.

I am just using a 6mm motherboard standoff. The m.2 card doesn't sit flat, but it seems to work fine. The correct height is 4mm, so you could file it down to size without much trouble.

 

[WANg]

I am just using a 6mm motherboard standoff. The m.2 card doesn't sit flat, but it seems to work fine. The correct height is 4mm, so you could file it down to size without much trouble.

I just used some blue gaffer’s tape...

 

[hk92doom]

ADT-Link makes M.2 WiFi to PCIe x4 Extenders with lengths from 3cm to 100cm. Has anyone used them before?

 

[cageek]

I am just using a 6mm motherboard standoff. The m.2 card doesn't sit flat, but it seems to work fine. The correct height is 4mm, so you could file it down to size without much trouble.

I don't have an M.2 card yet, but I just tried this and it seems great. It's a 10 minute job with a file and and a drill.

 

[hk92doom]

I chatted with Dell CSR about the availability of network adapters.
2nd Network RJ45 - Part #403-BCBU / GH0AR76
Fiber Ready (SFP) - Part #403-BCBV / G3BEJK1

Of course, they couldn't find them in the system. Promised me that they would notify the inventory department to have them in stock.
Perhaps if one or two of you do the same, there will be enough pressure to have more parts available for our thin clients.

Dell Parts Store

 

[WANg]

Has anyone tried to install Windows 10 x64 version 2004 into your machine? I am running into an issue where the machine is both slow and unstable when it is equipped with 32GB of RAM. Not sure why, but when I am running on only a single 16GB SODIMM the machine tends to behave well, but with 2 installed it's either slow, or unstable, or both, and this behavior persists regardless of BIOS versions, drivers installed and whatnot.

 

[lopgok]

I installed windows 10 x64 on mine. I was getting a lot of bluescreens related to WDF Violation . This means a driver issue. I used a program called drive easy which identified 7 drivers that were out of date. I updated all of the drivers (some of which did not find updated using the device manager and the 'update driver' button). After updating all drivers, I have not had a bluescreen in about a month.I have yet to have any crashes running Linux.

The drivers updated included the intel display driver, and the intel wifi driver. No idea why newer drivers weren't installed with rev 2004 or why the 'update driver' button didn't find the latest windows certified driver....

 

[WANg]

I installed windows 10 x64 on mine. I was getting a lot of bluescreens related to WDF Violation . This means a driver issue. I used a program called drive easy which identified 7 drivers that were out of date. I updated all of the drivers (some of which did not find updated using the device manager and the 'update driver' button). After updating all drivers, I have not had a bluescreen in about a month.I have yet to have any crashes running Linux.

The drivers updated included the intel display driver, and the intel wifi driver. No idea why newer drivers weren't installed with rev 2004 or why the 'update driver' button didn't find the latest windows certified driver....

Hm...I am using Dell SupportAssist to grab the official drivers, although given that they are shipped with Win10 IoT x64 in most cases, those drivers are probably biblically outdated at this point.

 

[cageek]

1. Linux kernels between 5.4? and 5.6? seems to have on Gemini Lake processors.
I tried to boot:
- Fedora 32 Workstation Live (rev. 6).
- ubuntu-20.04-live-server
They boot, but quick reach a blank screen after the kernel starts. This seems to be because of the i915 driver, which seems to be fixed in 5.7? (at least it works in 5.7.9 & 5.8.0rc). The alternatives seems to be:
- boot a nightly live (Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-Rawhide-20200721.n.0.iso)
- boot an old version (an old Fedora 30 worked)
- boot current version, but update the kernel (this takes some work)

Freebsd doesn't seem to have a problem:
- pfSense-CE-memstick-2.4.5-RELEASE-p1-amd64 worked

Ref: Linux Kernel 5.5 Will Not Fix The Frequent Intel GPU Hangs In Recent Kernels
Ref: 109267 – [GLK DSI] Display not working with i915 driver

2. Alsa can be problematic with snd-hda-intel module. Lots of messages in dmesg related to snd_hda_intel.

sudo echo "options snd-hda-intel probe_mask=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf

I guess this is a common problem (looking for more codecs or something).

Ref: HdaIntelSoundHowto - Community Help Wiki
Ref: [SOLVED] Audio stopped working in linux 4.7 / Laptop Issues / Arch Linux Forums

3. Also found out that the layout of the emmc is quite weird. There are 4 partitions on the emmc, with the 4th being the EFI system (vfat) partition being used by dell to store BIOS recovery information. However, the whole disk is not used, therefore, if you want to keep this partition and keep stuff tidy, you may wish to move it.

 

[lopgok]

I installed Mageia 7 64 bit linux with no issue. Also updated with no issue. It is a 5.x kernel, likely 5.6.
I installed to m.2 sata, and left the emmc alone.

 

[lopgok]

Hm...I am using Dell SupportAssist to grab the official drivers, although given that they are shipped with Win10 IoT x64 in most cases, those drivers are probably biblically outdated at this point.

I am not a big fan of dell support assistant. It does the bios updates, but on my older dell hardware, it takes forever. I have also had issue with the support assistant finding old drivers. I have a dell 3050 and sometimes there are issues with the realtek HD audio while shutting down. Dell had no updated driver, so I found one on the realtek site. Still have the minor issue during shutdown :-(

The drive easy program isn't very user friendly (for the free version), but it seems quite good about finding the latest drivers. I don't know which ones I needed to update to get rid of my bluescreen with the 5070, so I updated all 7.

 

[cageek]

I installed Mageia 7 64 bit linux with no issue. Also updated with no issue. It is a 5.x kernel, likely 5.6.
I installed to m.2 sata, and left the emmc alone.

Says 5.1 on the Wiki - as long as you jump over some of those middle ~5.5 ones, I think you're fine (or probably if you disable the video driver or not include it). You could tell... uname -r. I did get Fedora 32 Workstation Live running off a USB stick and also installed fine on the emmc.

 

[lopgok]

Says 5.1 on the Wiki - as long as you jump over some of those middle ~5.5 ones, I think you're fine (or probably if you disable the video driver or not include it). You could tell... uname -r. I did get Fedora 32 Workstation Live running off a USB stick and also installed fine on the emmc.

5.6.14

 

[WANg]

I am not a big fan of dell support assistant. It does the bios updates, but on my older dell hardware, it takes forever. I have also had issue with the support assistant finding old drivers. I have a dell 3050 and sometimes there are issues with the realtek HD audio while shutting down. Dell had no updated driver, so I found one on the realtek site. Still have the minor issue during shutdown :-(

The drive easy program isn't very user friendly (for the free version), but it seems quite good about finding the latest drivers. I don't know which ones I needed to update to get rid of my bluescreen with the 5070, so I updated all 7.

Well, Dell SupportAssist is more because I am lazy. I also installed the Intel Driver agent and it found updated drivers for the UHD600 GPU, but the same issue persists...I can’t get Windows 10 x64 Version 2004 running on 32GB of RAM. It works just fine on 16GB, but 32 will either make it crawl or it’ll fail to boot. Very strange.

 

[WANg]

Okay, anyone got some ideas on how to torture a 5070 for...science? Keep in mind that this is a 5070, not a 5070 extended, so it’s not like I can pelt it with 40GbE traffic until it dies...

 

[Samir]

CDW has the garbage-in/garbage-out syndrome. Take this machine for instance - its possibly a good deal but since no one else except CDW uses that Dell manufacturing # (not even Dell seems to list it or have a Lenovo PSRef lookup equivalent for it), so you don't know what you are dealing with. With HP and Lenovo products they usually give you the #ABA code (HP) or the product # used with Lenovo PSRef (unless it's a CTO model, but you can cross-reference similar Lenovo CTO offers on eBay).

With Dell? Not much luck on that one - I got a feeling it's the completed chassis code used by the build manifest but you can't directly query it (unless Dell has a hidden API for stuff like this). Oh well, when in doubt, quiz your CDW rep and see if they'll yell at their Dell counterparts for the info.

I think these are some custom built-to-order/government models that don't have an equivalent. So yeah asking a rep for more details is probably the only way to find out what it is.

Too bad you guys got all the iot models. I was eyeing an upgrade to the Wyse z90s7 I've been using for a few years. Still a lot of thin os models left, and here's an easy link to all of the 5070 models in the CDW Outlet:

Search Results

www.cdw.com

 

[Samir]

Okay, anyone got some ideas on how to torture a 5070 for...science? Keep in mind that this is a 5070, not a 5070 extended, so it’s not like I can pelt it with 40GbE traffic until it dies...

Plex server?

 

[hass.io]

HI all, I joined to get involved with the 5070 thread here, I currently run home assistant but have like many others have, been plagued with sd fails, so we are looking to migrate to an alternative, after much study these wyse machines seem to be the best bang for buck, out pricing the Lenovo m600 and nuc. I found out about this machine today (i brought mine from ebay UK) and it seems there is not much known about these machines as a viable step up from pi. Would like to ask you all if you could share any information about the 5070 that i can report back to the home assistant group it would be great, all the best