Lenovo ThinkCentere M700 Mini Restoration x4

[Windows7ge]

Recently I came into possession of four Lenovo ThinkCentere M700 Mini's that'd been thrown in the e-waste bin and thought it might fun to piece them back together and find them a new purpose.

 

 

Now given they were thrown in the bin they are of course in various states of disrepair. Many of the internal components have been pilfered. There's some body damage. Many missing parts but before taking these home I was able to verify that they all still boot an OS fine.

 

In total I have three w/ i5-6500T Intel processors and one with an i3-6100T.

 

 

The plan from here is to:

• Identify which is missing what
• Create a parts list
• Buy the replacements as affordably as possible
• Get these back into service and doing work!

Given I procured these used in a electronics recycling bin I like the idea of finding similarly 2nd hand market components to replace the internals so not everything is going to end up factory in the end but I plan to try and get close starting with procuring two more side panel covers as I scoured the bin and they we nowhere in sight.

 

For now my main source of components will most likely be eBay. If people feel like pitching in their two cents on good deals for the parts we're missing I'm all ears. Otherwise the hunt is on!

[jaslion]

These still fetch a decent chunk on ebay even so nice find. Since everything is integrated on the board I've used these and other lenovo minis as purpose build all in one boards for projects. They are a treat to use for the purpose.

[Windows7ge]

17 minutes ago, jaslion said:

These still fetch a decent chunk on ebay even so nice find. Since everything is integrated on the board I've used these and other lenovo minis as purpose build all in one boards for projects. They are a treat to use for the purpose.

I already know what I'm going to do with one. Maybe the 2nd. Unsure about the 3rd & 4th but for their size I agree they have very respectable capability which would be why I snatched them up. No need to leave them for the scrappers.

[Windows7ge]

First thing's first. I need a means to distinguish each of these PC's from one another. Immediate answer would be S/N but that's very long and not every sticker is present. Easier would be the 2nd half of the NIC MAC address.

 

So I can call them:

M700-B4849C

M700-B9334A

M700-BA0792

M700-CAA5BB

 

Now I can start figuring out what's missing what.

 

M700-B4849C:

1. Power adapter
2. Wi-Fi antenna
3. Side panel
4. VGA module
5. 2.5" mounting bracket
6. SSD
7. RAM
8. CMOS battery

M700-B9334A

1. Power adapter
2. Wi-Fi antenna
3. Side panel
4. VGA module
5. 2.5" mounting bracket
6. SSD
7. RAM

M700-BA0792

1. Power adapter
2. Wi-Fi antenna
3. 2.5" mounting bracket
4. SSD
5. RAM

M700-CAA5BB

1. Power adapter
2. Wi-Fi antenna
3. VGA module
4. 2.5" mounting bracket
5. SSD
6. RAM

So that's:

4x power adapters

4x Wi-Fi antennas

2x side panels

3x VGA modules

4x 2.5" mounting brackets

4x SSD's

4x RAM

1x CMOS battery

• Now I have Wi-Fi antenna's kicking around. What I don't know is if the kind matter between 2.4GHz & 5GHz...
• I don't NEED a VGA module in these but it would be nice considering they only support DisplayPort out.
• I don't NEED the 2.5" mounting brackets but they'd be a nice to have thing. I might just 3D print my own.
• Storage & RAM I'm thinking either 128GB or 256GB M.2 & 16GB. I want dual channel memory and even though 8GB would be enough I don't even know how common 4GB DDR4 SODIMMs are. Depends on prices...

Time to start scouring.

[Windows7ge]

I was worried this was going to be kind of expensive...and I was right.

 

Power adapters: $12.59 (x4: $50.36)

Wi-Fi antennas: $10.50 (x4: $42)

Side panels: $20.00 (x2: $40)

VGA adapters: $25.88 (x3: $77.64)

2.5" trays: $14.38 (x4: $57.52)

8x4GB RAM: $55.60 (eight included)

SSDs: $81.48 (four included)

DisplayPort adapters: $1.92 (x4 $7.68)

 

If I buy everything that's going to cost me at least $445.26 or about ~$110 a head...hmn...I wonder what I can do without or if anybody can find better deals than what I did in the past hour or two.

[Windows7ge]

It looks like I'm probably going to go this route:

 

Power adapters: $12.59 (x4: $50.36)

Side panels: $20.00 (x2: $40)

8x4GB RAM: $55.60 (eight included)

SSDs: $81.48 (four included)

DisplayPort adapters: $1.92 (x4 $7.68)

 

If this works, after everything considered it should cost me $253.93 or about $63.48 per computer.

 

I have Wi-Fi antennas but it's unknown how well they will work in this application.

I don't need VGA but it would have been a nice to have. Why eBay wants $30+ for most of them is beyond me.

I don't need the 2.5" trays and as it turns out Lenovo mounted a Bluetooth module to it. Good news is I don't need BT or the bracket so I can chop that.

As I was afraid the value of RAM has held up and going 16GB/each would be too much money. 8GB is fine. Dual Channel will be more valuable to me.

 

If I find that my antennas aren't doing the job I'll have to pick up Lenovo's which'll be another $10.50/head.

 

I'mma get these parts ordered and we'll start getting things figured out as they come in.

[Windows7ge]

Finally all of the parts arrived and I found the time to unpackage everything.

 

 

I also needed to pick up a classic CR2032 CMOS battery, screws to secure the lids since Lenovo couldn't be bothered to use standard M3 or M4. They used a standard that basically combines the two. Off the top of my head I think they were M4x6 with 0.70 thread pitch. So they are the diameter of a PSU screw but the thread of an SSD screw. , Additionally I needed Wi-Fi antenna's. It's unclear right now if these will work for both 2.4 & 5GHz knowing these were used exclusively with 2.4GHz cards. Guess we'll find out.

 

So each unit will have 8GB of RAM (dual channel though) & 256GB of SATA M.2 storage. I only had enough time to unpack these today but hopefully I'll find time to start moving through each of these M700's in the coming week.

[Windows7ge]

Getting started on the first M700 Mini a few problems are immediately apparent including the heatsink being skewed and an issue with the standoffs for the M.2 SSD.

 

 

Hopefully this won't be too hard to just bend back.

 

I'll also be populating the CMOS battery, RAM, & SSD slots.

 

 

The issue I'm running into with the SSD is that the peg for what I assume is M.2 2240 is too tall and pressing against the bottom of my 2280 SSD. So I removed the peg entirely.

 

 

Now the SSD sits properly along side the RAM & battery.

 

In this time I also got the CPU cooler and all thermal paste removed.

 

 

Decided to go ham and dismantle the heatsink as deep as I could. The dust build-up wasn't terrible but I wanted to be thorough anyways.

 

 

 

As it turns out the heatpipe is very soft and malleable. Correcting the skew mentioned earlier was a breeze.

 

 

From here it was just a matter of putting the lid on and plugging it into power which I did on my workbench.

 

 

Now there's no OS installed yet so it's not going to boot into anything but I was able to get it to boot off the attached thumb drive.

 

 

So that's the first M700 Mini restored. Now to start on the other three.

[Windows7ge]

M700 #2 & #3 were nearly identical restorations with the exception of a few details I’ll go into.

A detail I’m noticing is what looks like these M700’s did not all come from the same work enviroment nor do I believe they have the same milage as indicated by the varying level of dust.

This one’s blower was actually covered in a film of oil. It’s hard to say where it came from but the dust mixed into it and just tacked itself on. It was rather gross.

 

Getting it taken apart it seems at a time Lenovo changed fan suppliers and either went from AVC → Delta or Delta → AVC. Either way it looks to me like AVC just overbuilt the fan even more by included a brass outer race for the bearings to rest inside. Crazy.

 

I removed as much dust and oil residue as I could and I’m happy with the results.

 

I also decided to modify the plastic retention pins used to secure the M.2 SSD. The plastic…string? I might call it, interfered with 2280 SSD’s once installed in the enclosure so to make things easier I just chopped it out. I better not lose those pins now but I suppose I also now have extras if I do. 

 

I also decided to replace the body (or shell) of the case since getting my hands on two lids actually came with two lower halfs too. I’m not worried about matching S/N’s and the like but given someone tore the stickers almost completely off the bottom I might find some of the generic information helpful in the future.

 

One of these particular units came with a VGA module.

 

Removal is necessary to unplug the CPU fan. Inconvenient but not a chore with the right hexagonal socket or a pair of pliers.

 

I’m both amazed and disappointed to find if I had bought three of these (for the other Mini’s) it would have ran me in excess of $100. I don’t know what black magic is inside of them but they are not cheap on eBay. 

 

For now that’ll be it. Currently working on Mini #4 which is slightly different from the others. Good in some ways. Not good in others but dumpster divers can’t be choosers. 

[Windows7ge]

This particular M700 Mini came with an RS232 optional add-on

 

Pretty standard rear I/O port on a variety of equipment like servers, old computers, and some laptops but nice little feature to have if I ever want to console into something like a network switch.

 

Something that should be noted and I’m glad I looked into it prior to buying storage is the M.2 header on the motherboard.

It’s SATA only even though it will accept a NVMe keyed SSD.

 

This detail is outlined in the M700 Mini user manual.

The motherboard uses the B150 Chipset which does provide PCI_e lanes but it’s unclear what they’re being used for as the only PCIe device looks to be the x4 Wi-Fi card. 

 

This is the particular unit using the i3-6100T.

 

I haven’t mentioned it but for TIM I’ve been using a generic industrial version of IC Graphites Thermal Pads. It’s a material I found you can buy in sheets and cut to size. Good value. Very effective in my applications.

 

With that, re-attaching the cooler and putting the lid on I now have four M700’s which all P.O.S.T. and boot to USB storage.

 

I still need to test if their new (second hand) internal storage is any good and if they can run off it OK. The plan currently is to install Ubuntu Server 22.04.1 LTS on all of them but certain services will change depending on what I want to task each client with.

 

If anybody is interested in the software testing & setup of things let me know. Otherwise I hope everyone enjoyed. 

[Senzelian]

We use these little machines for our Teams meeting rooms. They're pretty neat.