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Lenovo M700 Tiny PC experiences


mobilenvidia

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On 10/4/2020 at 8:27 AM, Slipx said:

What an interesting thread. Hope you manage to get this stable. Looks like you are making good progress.

Yes it was interesting for me too, making this thread, I like to potter with some risk and just write my experiences and thoughts
But alas a forest fire destroyed our house and the M700 + everything we didn't wear as well
I'll probably get another Tiny machine as will make it our way to watch media, especially while we rebuild in the next year or two and renting a house
Hope to do a post when I can

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a lot has happened since last post
I've got a M900 Tiny PC and since modded to take and have working a Coffee Lake CPU (i3-9100T) in the M900
This should also work in a M700 and would be even easier to do on a M710q/M910q
Earlier post is updated with link to the files needed to make your own BIOS or just use the ones I've made (both M900 and M700)

Its working great

hwinfo_m900.JPG

CoffeeTime settings.JPG

CoffeeTime_extra_settings.JPG

m900_flash.JPG

hevc_main10_400mbps.JPG

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  • 4 weeks later...

Do you think there’s any chance at getting a n i5 8400T working? I’m going to poke around with what you have here tomorrow, got these two basically free and trying to marry them.  

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17 hours ago, Brow16 said:

Do you think there’s any chance at getting a n i5 8400T working? I’m going to poke around with what you have here tomorrow, got these two basically free and trying to marry them.  

The 8400T is a 6 core CPU you would need to modify the CPU pads for this to then work
DO NOT use this CPU without those pad mods, good chance you'll burn out either CPU socket pins or something else = Smoke on motherboard fire in the sky

The i3 is as good as it gets with no HW mods for Coffee Lake

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5 hours ago, mobilenvidia said:

The 8400T is a 6 core CPU you would need to modify the CPU pads for this to then work
DO NOT use this CPU without those pad mods, good chance you'll burn out either CPU socket pins or something else = Smoke on motherboard fire in the sky

The i3 is as good as it gets with no HW mods for Coffee Lake

Yeah, I’ll check the socket with a DMM in the questionable regions.  Will be messing with it in the next few weeks when I get off work.  This thread is very helpful, thank you!

 

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6 hours ago, Brow16 said:

Yeah, I’ll check the socket with a DMM in the questionable regions.  Will be messing with it in the next few weeks when I get off work.  This thread is very helpful, thank you!

 

Cool, let me know how you get on, not found a bargain CPU to do this my self yet

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I got your BIOS loaded, works great on the G4400T in it right now!  Have the same drive showing up in bios problem as you, but it finds the M.2 to boot up to.  I think I had WiFi working before, but after the flash it no longer works.  Bluetooth is still functional.  Do you have the same result?

Edited by Brow16
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Have you transferred your UUID/SN/MAC to the new bios?  If so, do you recall the addresses in the M900 bios to put these?

 

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5 hours ago, Brow16 said:

Have you transferred your UUID/SN/MAC to the new bios?  If so, do you recall the addresses in the M900 bios to put these?

 

Currently running with no UUID/SN
MAC address doesn't wipe (but not checked if same on different BIOS's)
There is a BIOS app that can suck the data from BIOS/FLash area and write it back
Know it exists but not done anything about seeing how it works

I'm not running WIFI so no need for that in my system, running the M900 with LAN, which works fine
As its an add on device its odd this isn't working, PCIe port conflict possibly

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I'm stuck.  I made a bios from the ROM that was in the folder with the correct microcode, and did the pinmod guide.  Double checked the pins, and the PC just turns on and immediately off.  Still boots with 4400.  😕 

 

My guess is that there is some pin that is different on the tiny PC vs every other motherboard... Anyone want an i5-8400T? 🙂 

Edited by Brow16
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2 hours ago, Brow16 said:

I'm stuck.  I made a bios from the ROM that was in the folder with the correct microcode, and did the pinmod guide.  Double checked the pins, and the PC just turns on and immediately off.  Still boots with 4400.  😕 

 

My guess is that there is some pin that is different on the tiny PC vs every other motherboard... Anyone want an i5-8400T? 🙂 

OK, the problem might be Lenovo enabling different pins as you said
Did you mod every pad for all manufacturers as per guide ?

Would be bugger (but good to know)

i3-9100T and over priced 9300T best bet the for now

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3 hours ago, mobilenvidia said:

OK, the problem might be Lenovo enabling different pins as you said
Did you mod every pad for all manufacturers as per guide ?

Would be bugger (but good to know)

i3-9100T and over priced 9300T best bet the for now

Yes, I blocked every pin (even the yellow ones) shown in the pin mod picture.  I used Kapton tape to insulate, and I used a piece of tin foil with double sided tape on the back for the socket on trigger.  Without the foil the PC (obviously) powers on and does not post.  With the foil, it powers on and instantly powers off.  Must be a short somewhere, not too interested in finding out where as it would probably be a huge PITA, if possible at all.  I guess I’ll list my 8400t on eBay and buy an 8100t.

 

Thanks for your help!

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Did you try with the CMOS battery removed (flashing) ?
Remembering back to my tinkering, I would get no boots or on instant off, removing battery with flash seemed to sort that issue
Or at least clear CMOS, before switching on

My M900 would boot twice, at very first boot after a flash, I assume to make new CMOS settings, can be misleading, 2nd boot can be a couple of seconds after first

I would go (and have) a 9100T as it has turbo boost 8100T lacks and HW mitigation for Spectre/Meltdown bugs

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Yeah, CMOS was removed for all of my testing.  I also noticed the double boot thing.. this was unfortunately different.  The power light would almost instantly turn off and not turn back on again.  I’m also not sure if the M700’s cooling capacity is enough for the 8400T - the TDP is rated at the base frequency and it turbos quite high.  I think it is wise to stick with a quad core.

 

Unfortunately, eBay has no 9100Ts within my price range right now. Maybe if I find one I’ll buy it and sell the 8100T.

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All the 'T's are 35w, so any of them should work all the way up to 9900T, but Lenovo might be doing funny business in the BIOS

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Yes, but the 35W TDP is only at power level 1 (PL1), which is defined at the base frequency.  The 8400T has a base frequency of 1.7GHz, with a turbo up to 3.3GHz.  Given that a regular 8400 has a 65W TDP and a base clock of 2.8GHz, even if the T variant is a binned low power chip, I’d say it’s likely that it will require substantially more than 35W of cooling when turboing.  The cooling on the M720q (ships with 8400T) looks to be redesigned with a larger fan, and an air duct.  Is probably better to get a quad core turbo chip which would hopefully keep turbo TDPs more inline with what is expected.  Anything much higher will (probably) leave a lot of performance on the table with thermal throttling and low turbo-on times.  I have no numbers, perhaps if I end up getting a 9100T I will do benchmarks with turbo disabled/enabled.

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From memory the 9100T never got to 35w with stress testing
Should do a proper test, now that someone is interested 🙂
Was a lonely world by my lonesome in Modded Tiny land
But I have my M900 on 24/7 and it just sits there week after week doing its thing, been very impressed with it
The work M92 and M72 units are also chugging away logging their respective load cells

 

The M910(x) and beyond has the ability to support 65w TDP CPU's
The heatfins looking in from the bac look different on a 9x0q Tiny
Motherboards are shared, with the q lacking PCIe slot

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  • 2 weeks later...
4 hours ago, Brow16 said:

8100T has same issue.  No idea whats going on here.  Instantly turns off.

 

What's your System a M700 ?
I've done the Kaby Lake BIOS mod on the M700, but then house burned down in Wild Fire and I lost that
Then found a M900 where I've done the Coffee Lake mod on as I'm currently running

I would assume the Coffee Lake Mod would work on both systems

Can you upload our original BIOS backup (16MB) some where, I'll have a looksy

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Yeah, it's an M700.  I assume it's a hardware issue, I uploaded a bios without the microcode for the G4400T to test what happens when there is no correct code.  The PC turned on and the green LED stayed lit.  With the 8100T installed (just like the 8400T), the PC turns immediately off.  I guess with different chip sets it's possible M700 is not coffee lake compatible?  Here is my BIOS: https://gofile.io/d/L5psxO

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Grabbed your backup and compared to mine, all drivers are same version, no surprise as M700 and M900 use same BIOS
I think you're running an older BIOS looking at Microcode version for Sky Lake
Maybe update to latest BIOS (November) then start again, this is my base for mod

Are you running original ME version? below is my modded working BIOS (on left) with original ME version, as can be seen from your BIOS on the right
I tried a newer ME (even newer than CoffeeTime) and had similar issue with Coffee Lake
Change all other drivers but not ME

image.png

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  • 3 weeks later...

So, a bit has happened.  My M700 is now sitting with it's G4400T doing essential business.  I just couldn't stop, though, and I now have an M910q originally shipped with an i5-7500t.  I backed up my bios, and concatenated the bios update from Lenovo's site into the last half of my backup.  Ran coffeetime, and got the same issue described above with the 8100T.  I downgraded the ME version to 11.0.0.1168, and now the fan spins but no POST.  Hmmmmm.

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6 hours ago, Brow16 said:

So, a bit has happened.  My M700 is now sitting with it's G4400T doing essential business.  I just couldn't stop, though, and I now have an M910q originally shipped with an i5-7500t.  I backed up my bios, and concatenated the bios update from Lenovo's site into the last half of my backup.  Ran coffeetime, and got the same issue described above with the 8100T.  I downgraded the ME version to 11.0.0.1168, and now the fan spins but no POST.  Hmmmmm.

With the M910q you shouldn't have to copy and paste a BIOS as the M910q already supports Kaby Lake (the only reason for copy/pasting as M900 doesn't support Kaby Lake)
You should just be be able to get a backup of your M910q BIOS (16MB) then run CoffeeTime over it, then copy the result back to EEPROM

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  • 5 weeks later...

Hi @mobilenvidia,

There's some tasty Lenovo M800's I could get for a decent price. It has the q150 chipset and I think there are not any newer lenovo pc's that are using the q250 chipset. Do you think it is possible to mod that thing for coffee lake?

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