Info Lenovo m720q (Tiny) 10T8 Project

[Charagma]

Figured that since I have bits and pieces of the little future project (My LOTTO project) here in various places, I will start a thread where everything can be in one place. I will add where my research is at the moment as well as pitfalls I get along the way. You are welcome to comment if you see information I have that might be different to what you know.

Much of the information I have comes from various sights, will just make it much easier for it to be all in one place. This will give the advantage of tracking progress on the project as well. A huge pitfall I have found is most bloggers do not say what they have tried that did not work or something they looked into that did not work. They just go with what they did. Makes it a bit difficult to know whether your plan or idea will work if no one mentions that it has been tried and failed because of A,B or C.

 

[Charagma]

The Lenovo m720q tiny is a magic little 179 x 34 x 182 mm in size currently fitted into a VESA bracket hanging of the back of my Screen. They say it can hold 1L of liquid but must admit it is untested by myself so taking their word for it.

The specific one I have it the 10T8 which has a B360 chipset and can use 8th and 9th gen CPUs. My specific model uses a 35W CPU (Celeron G4900T) 8th Gen, but is upgradable to a i9-9900T via a LGA1151 Socket.

The Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q has several internal and external ports.

The rear of the unit comes with a DisplayPort (1.2), HDMI port (Unsure about version) , as well as an optional VGA port with a RJ45 Ethernet. It has four USB ports, two of which are USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A (5Gbps) ports and two are USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A (10Gbps) ports.

The front of the M720q has a power button, status LED, 3.5mm headset and mic outputs, as well as USB-C 3.1 and USB-A 3.1 ports.

It Has Dual SO-Dimm RAM slots (Upgradable to 32GB but some internet pages say it can go up to 64GB), a 2,5 HDD bay and a M.2 PCIe SSD slot.

It has a built-in speaker (Not very loud) and a Lenovo (Special) PCIe slot. This requires a special riser board to be used.

There is a set of pins top left-hand side (Unit facing to the front) that might indicate an additional port but have found no reference to it. It has similar outlay of an USB pin layout so might be an additional USB port.

Mine I added Bluetooth and Wi-Fi but in some configurations it comes standard.

The cooling system is silent. I once heard it while fidgeting in the BIOS and set the fan to maximum. Sounded like a hair dryer. This is the only time I ever heard any sound (apart from the speaker) from the unit.

All this runs off a 65W external 20V PSU with a rectangular yellow plug (Internet refers to it as the Lenovo large square plug) that works no matter which way you plug it in.

My Current System Specs:

OS: Windows 11 64bit 24h2
RAM: 4GB
CPU: Intel Celeron G4900T
SSD: Samsung evo 850 (500GB)
GPU: Integrated Intel UHD610

Aim:
RAM: 32GB
CPU: i5-9600k
Storage: Multiple Drives
GPU: Gaming friendly (No lag and no hick-ups)

The Idea of the project? Expanding the little machine to the max of its ability. See how far it can be pushed and still be stable.

Biggest problems: Lenovo Proprietary Products

Work arounds: Trial and error.