Can I Fix These Broken Lenovo Mini PCs?

UPDATE/FAQ/RESPONDING TO A LOT OF COMMENTS: I've had a lot of comments recently and have been a bit busy, so I'm sort of responding to a lot of them here. First of all, thanks for all the incredible feedback and advice! I've learned a lot just from this video and appreciate all of you sharing your years of experience and knowledge. There are a few things I'd like to either answer, provide some more clarity, and/or update you guys on so here it goes: - I learned after the fact that flashing the BIOS directly from one mobo to another can be sketchy since OEMs put serials and other info on the UEFI. I guess it's common to edit this in UEFITool or something similar before flashing. Fortunately, I was able to boot into windows on these and use Lenovo's flash tool to not only update the BIOS but also insert the correct serial number. I'm not sure if there are any other issues, but so far I haven't come across anything. One is running debian and the other two are running windows just fine. - I'm aware that the BIOS chip could be faulty or susceptible to failing again on these. I plan to keep two currently and will only sell the one that had an issue with the RAM module. If I have issues with the UEFI corrupting again with either of the others, I'll look into replacing the IC. - I tested the faulty DDR4 module after substantial cleaning to no avail. I might try it in a different system but have no reason to belive it isn't faulty. - It was silly to jump to the CPU as fast as I did, but looking back, its clear to me that I was nervous about losing too much money on the deal and I was hoping to at least confirm that I had 3 CPUs and some RAM I could sell haha. It would've been much smarter to clear CMOS/remove and replace the CMOS battery before doing that. Speaking of which, I wasn't super clear in the video but I replaced all the CMOS batteries of camera giving both non working machines a good amount of time before putting the new one in. - Some people pointed out that I should only change one variable between boots, and this is a good idea when trying to pin down the exact problem. I partly didn't always do that for the same reason as mentioned above; I was hoping to just get a POST to hopefully feel better about buying three dead PCs. Also, if I can get a POST, I can always go back and start adding those same variables to see what was causing the issue, granted that can sometimes not work out and you'll get a POST after resetting something only for it to fail again down the road. So, thats fair criticism, but things are also different when filming a video haha. - Also, I guess I touch my face too much..? 🤔 At this point I'm really just typing my thoughts so feel free to stop reading, but having to explain all of the above is sort of the reason that I get a lot of the somments I do, which don't get me wrong, I love reading the comments and learning from them. However, just realize that for the sake of a video, it's impossible to address every single little thing. Even in a longer format like this. I don't say that to discourage comments. But I do hope that maybe this encourages you to be a bit more positive and open minded when dropping comments on your favorite creators' videos. Just because they or I like waffles doesn't mean that we hate pancakes (or ventoy). Okay I'm done. Thanks for watching this video and reading this mess. Stay curious 👍

As bit warning, these systems have now exact same serial number, UUID and OA3 Windows 10 key. But that can be fixed by moving serial-regions for broken BIOS image to working one with UEFITool. Also another warning for future repair videos: when testing CPUs from other systems: newer Lenovo business PCs, like Lenovo M75q Tiny Gen2, can vendor/PSB lock your AMD CPU.

Future tip, if you are just testing for post you don't absolutely need to put thermal paste and cooler back on.

I'm only to the first fix so far, but I'd warn that when troubleshooting, you should always try to make only one change at once. For instance, if you're removing the wi-fi card, immediately try booting again. When you change the RAM, put a different stick in the SAME slot. Love the video, and great effort. Keep at it!

I'm not sure if you intend on doing more repairs like this in the future but I think thermal pads would be a good investment at least for troubleshooting. No mess or clean up and the pads are reusable.

Just finished watching, amazing video as always! Love that you kept us along for the whole troubleshooting process, didn't expect that final outcome! Love the channel, used your videos for my own home media server and samba share : ) Keep up the good work!

Didn't expect to see a full size AM4 CPU honestly haha, great video man!

These large OEM machines often have a reset feature for the system management chip (it can crash and freeze sometimes), usually just holding the power button down for 60 seconds when connected to power will get it going if the firmware will not get to the screen init stage.

For those of you who don't speak AMD, GE means 35W. Now I'm wondering if these machines can get something like Ryzen 4600ge using a custom bios. And how good of a Batocera media PC these little machines can be. Great find, nice fix.

On that "bad" DIMM. One of the things I have found in experiece is that sometimes, the pins get a layer of oxidation. To fix this, you can use a touch of rubbing alcohol and a cleaning wipe to renew the contacts, or some electronics cleaner, or use a good pencil erasers on those contacts. The color change should be apparent.

12:20 yes these are the standard business-oriented, non-overclocking BIOSes typically seen in these kind of machines. I have one of these ThinkCentre mini PCs from several generations back and the outside, inside and BIOS look exactly the same. My Lenovo Legion laptop also has a similarly spartan advanced mode BIOS. I've been using my own ThinkCentre as a DNS server and docker host because they're so low-power I don't feel bad leaving it on 24/7.

I like your style. You're upfront about what you can do and what you can't do. I'm in the same boat myself; I'm trying to learn more about electronics because my job is starting to require it, however my formal training is in software/programming.

Wow! Experienced technician, here… NICE WORK! I’m super proud of you for sticking with it and getting this done. How cool a feeling is that?

Since they are all working you could always update the BIOS to the latest version then you can be certain that there are no faults associated with the BIOS program as well... Great work, you are officially no longer a LARPer. Btw the humility seems to be a big help when dealing with these things. The lower your expectations the less frustration will be involved because frustration leads to failure and overlooking possible points of failure, not to mention causing failures...

Nice work, I would like to see you using this systems to create some sort of a cluster like a Proxmox cluster

Nice work. I would have never considered the BIOS as the problem. Excellent fix.

Retired electrical engineer / computers just a long time hobby. My experience is to suspect mechanical failures before worrying about failed silicon. Surplus computers get slung around a lot and the memory board mountings aren't made to handle violent accelerations. So your instinct to open it up and unplug and plug things is a good one. That said the next thing I worry about is power supply failures - some regulator component allowing 3.3v or 1.8v to go way too high which damages everything it's attached to. For this reason very early in troubleshooting I'd check the power supply rails with a multimeter. That keeps you from plugging damaged components into a good system board or plugging a good RAM, for instance, into a system with a 3.3v rail running at 8 or 10 or 19 volts! A fascinating video which I enjoyed very much - happy hunting!

you have a pretty decent idea of what it takes to do this for other people . Hobbies don't always need to have a return though. , sometimes the freedom is what keeps it fun. Ch341a is such a massive pain in the ass , BIOS chips are so slippery . I want to make a an 8 pronged set of needles that rest on the chips with a small adjustable stand. Full size chips could use 2866/3000 mhz ram too i believe.

I just stumbled on your video great work! I was thinking RAM and data retention issues with the BIOS chip too. Such cute little computers, would make great little studio PCs running something like Reaper or even Cubase 👍

Nice video there. I very recently bought a M900 Tiny with i5-6500T and was using it for a NAS because the Tiny series are tiny so it will save me some precious desktop space, after I watched your videos about the home NAS. I have an old Lenovo laptop and I was upgrading the Wifi card for it, and Lenovo's part-compatibility check was tight to say at least; they are even worse for locking CPUs now. You have a great voice btw!

Well done. Very enjoyable video. I have one of those that I bought used on ebay. I used it as a backup while I rebuilt my main system. Not a bad little computer. The graphics were not amazing, but that's not what they're built for.

A little luck, a lotta work swapping stuff around, and 1-2 bad RAM chips later...you have all three pc's working! Enjoyed watching this little journey.

Time for the Perfect Amount of Thermal Paste(tm)! Well done with the BIOS reflash too; it's a bit dicey reflashing in place, but if it works, it works.

I love trying to fix videos! All your content is great, keep it up!

Keep track of the troubleshooting on three slips of paper, one for each system. Each sheet has a table to track which components are working or not.

@12:12 because you loaded default values. The default is Enabled. Secure boot works with certificates and checksums before the operation system it does it's wizardly things and either loads the OS when the check is complete or refuses to boot an OS. Resetting to Set-up mode clears all checksums and certs that were remembered. You should also enter in to this option so it shows load default keys (or something along the lines of that). You are then set to go. The error you got on booting to the OS was related to the secure boot settings.

I have a few of these I use for a Proxmox cluster. A couple had original ram issues as well. I’ve seen a few of these fail Bios upgrades so it’s right on par with your video. Glad you got them working. They usually go for $180-250 each on eBay.

Really nice video and didn't expect for the 2 off them to have corrupted BIOS. This BIOS Flasher is a nice tool. I'll get one too

@10:23 I work with these machines on a daily base. It is correct that you can boot the PC with ALT+P... because these machines are designed to put in a Thinkcenter monitor (that snugly fits the tiny desktop on the back of an LCD screen). The connector at the back of the monitor has a Display link port, a power plug and a USB plug that gets pushed into the desktop. You can then use ALT+P to boot the machine.... Although most of the time this still does not work :P

You can try to connect an external GPU with a pci-e extender that connects to the pci slot for internet inside of the mini pc.

Hey hardware Haven! Nice video, I like the PC's because how easy they are to dismantle too! I have not watching ur videos because of school, and the ones Ive watched, I forgot to comment or Im just lazy. I can see you are loving to create content! Your videos are much better than the ones that you were a small KZitemr. By the way, you are growing fast! In the previous, previous previous video, I swear I saw you were at 50k and now you are at 70k!! I can't wait for your reaction to hit 100k subs!!!

Ah yes... The BIOS, the most likely chip to do funny things in a motherboard, good job there. I'm gonna be honest though, when you put the freshly cleaned heatsink on the uncleaned APU I was like "Noo... Oh, god no please! Don't! Just use the heatsink of the other system!" 🤣

I wonder if you could get an up to date BIOS (build date showing 2018) and test newer G ryzen cpus in it. Since you have bios chip reader you could also try injecting the microcode for newer cpus but not sure how well that works with ryzen. I have the m910q which has 6/7th gen intel cpu in it but I am planning to flash 8/9th gen support to it then install a laptop 1440 Xeon with a socket adapter.

You should have tried #2 and #3 without any ram installed to check the beeping post code 🔉

When swapping CPUs to see if they post, you don't need to remount the fan assembly. Just blow a small desktop fan at high setting across the CPU.

Nice video as always :) And yes, you can absolutely yank an AM4 CPU out of the socket when you pull on the heatsink.

28:20 The CPU doesn't have to be dead, sometimes this also happens if a motherboard doesn't support the cpu right for example the BIOS needs an update on order to properly function with the CPU.

Great job, good video. From now on, when confronted with a machine that won't post I'll check the BIOS first before moving to a teardown.

Well that was a good buy. It is possible something in the eeprom is wrong and making it not boot up. Really a good computer should not have that problem. I had an older board that would just fan spin and do nothing just like that unless the cmos battery was at a certain voltage level. In theory it is logical to move around 'good' parts. One thing there though is hardware that has really gone south can potentially damage other hardware. So in that way you risked a known system by putting its parts on other systems. At a fundamental level the power supply supplies a certain amperage of certain voltages. The the hardware is supposed to accept those voltages at certain places and not short the supply past its current ratings. Bad hardware can try to be protected by inline fuses or something but are capable of bridging dangerous voltages or shorting the supply. I've seen cases of just reseating things is the problem like memory.

That's super awesome you flashed the bios, & it worked! When these little pc's break though...You have to wonder how the bios was corrupted in the 1st place right? Because you wouldn't want it to happen again in the future

Bios issue I think, I have a m715q that had the same issues after it failed during a bios update. I re-flashed the older bios onto the windbond chip using a programmer and it worked fine after that. I'm guessing that the failure during bios upgrades are pretty common with these models. EDIT: just saw the video ending lol.

Thats pretty sweet! Am curious about that bios flash equipment you have. Looks quite cool!

The indirect lighting is better. It actually has a cinematic mood. Nice!

Makes you wonder about what the people were doing to mess up the BIOS/RAM earlier. Strange how they managed to brick 4 computers.

Loading BIOS defaults is always a good idea on unknown systems. As is clearing the CMOS, but don't press the power button if the power cable is still attached ! The idea with using the power button is to discharge any stored charge on the board which it won't do if the power cable is plugged in. Also, that antenna cable can be removed from the Wi-Fi adapter easily enough. It has 'slide on' tabs.

Hello Hello From Canada!!! Great job doing the A#1 trouble shooting. Keep up the awesome content and I think your lighting, sound and camera angles were just super for your channel's level. I can't wait to see what you do next. 🤘😁👍

The BIOS could be different between them, allowing some cpus to post but not others, you can probably find documentation somewhere about the bios versions and cpu

the best way too clear cmos is too pull the battery, leave for 2 mins and then retest. also test battery voltage in circuit, should be above 3.1 volts in circuit. have never used the jumpers dont trust them, an old tech told me once just pull the battery. nice video, well presented

No need for thermal paste when checking if a CPU posts, you can hold down the heatsink without screws or a fan. It can speed up the process considerably.

Lenovo still publishes assembly / disassembly, and parts manuals in PDF. For Free too. Great video!

I have a tiny one from HP that works great. I had a broken ram stick from a laptop that wouldn't work no matter what. When I got the hp I was like what the hell, lets try it in. It worked and been working for almost 2 years now. Don't throw the bad stick it might work in another system

I saw these on ebay very interesting. So the bios was corrupted and all 3 cpu's were good ? What can cause a bios to get corrupted like that. Secure boot if enabled locks the cpu to lenovo systems only. Did you test the cpu's to see if they work a regular non lenovo motherboard?

I am certified reseller . One big issue they had with those models. Is the hybrid drives in it would fail due to heat. Replace with ssd and they are fine. Also, Lenovo uses pcie white list. So to replace wireless card it has to be on the list. You can tell if it is stock tam from Lenovo look for FID#.

My dell alienware has this bios, it's a relatively popular one, honestly I prefer it over some "gaming" motherboard bios

I have a small cluster of the m900's. I love those things. going to aim for 12-16 total. I have most of my homelab services running off of them.

Did you try using an HDMI cable? If you fix them, what do you plan on doing with them? Also, is there a one-key factory reset button? Thank you 🤓 & I subbed

I would recommend pulling the battery before the cpu the bios may have settings that is wrong and could cause hanging.

AMI BIOS is what Lenovo uses, I love modding nvme boot on the m93p SFF. Enter key is for the menu with all the options.. at least it should be (it is on all the SFFs I’ve had)

Part of my diagnostics before I go check the CPU is to clean seemingly bad DIMMs and clean seemingly bad RAM sockets. For DIMMs, simply rub on the contacts using a rubber pencil eraser. Some really thin grime can form on top of the contacts that will cause a bad connection. The eraser will fix that. For sockets, you can repeatedly connect and disconnect a DIMM and periodically clean the DIMM contacts. If is still doesnt work, a electronics contact cleaner spray would help. While wet with the cleaner, do the same connect-disconnect trick and try again. If it still doesnt work, plug the DIMM in and attempt to wiggle a bit in different ways, all while trying to boot in between. Worse comes to worse you have a bad CPU pin. I one caught this off an Intel LGA CPU where one if the pada was ever so slightly dirty (fingerprint? Thermal paste?). Checking the LGA pinout it was related to the bad slot. Cleaning that part fixed the RAM problem. I also had a problem also ince of the Intel CPU being too overtightened/depressed causing the ram slot to not work too. Another one that happened to me for intermittent boot failures is replacing the CMOS battery.

So,… I think you now know what your next video should be? An in-depth tutorial on how to refresh a BIOS! 😍

Good video i'm glad you where able to get all three of the mini pcs up and working :) Thanks for sharing with us!💖👍😎JP

I really enjoyed the video! It was interesting to see the whole process

Hi, I really liked your video. How much did you charge for that repair?

You could have just removed the small antenna plug on the wifi module. That is way easier than unscrewing the connector on the back.

Ryzen has a security feature to lock a CPU to a particular motherboard. Lenovo are guilty of using this feature. So that is possibly why CPU swapping didn't work. But it's worth trying those CPUs in a standard mobo to be sure.

I didn't know that these thin thinkcenters would have full am4 cpus. I thought it was only a crazy alienware thing with desktop amd and intel cpus > > I also find it interesting how ill have almost decade old pcs boot up just fine, then you have 4 year old business pcs like this which have corrupted bios chips. They just don't make them like they used to

Typically, when resetting the CMOS, you short the pins for like 10 seconds to clear it, then put the jumper back to normal BEFORE powering on. I'm not sure it's a great idea to short those pins while being powered on.

I love those mini PCs, I hope they bring those to me for repair or maintenance.

Maybe repurpose these 3 as low power, small form factor Proxmox cluster nodes. That's basically what I've done with 3*HP EliteDesk 800 G2 Mini's I have

Great video as always! My boyfriend has one of these little NUCs for work and I've always been curious about what's inside of it. I don't know if this video has sated my curiosity or increased it.

Just got a start with saying that this was a great video, I love seing people taking care of "broken" hardware and fix it. But I have a tip for you, when just testing CPUs dont even bother with thermal paste. Aslong as you dont run any heavy stuff and just try to boot the pressure of the cooler is more then enough to keep the temps under control. At work the first thing we do at the test stations is to wipe off any preapplied thermal paste on coolers since it just takes a lot of time to clean and makes a mess when swaping stuff often

These video blogs are a good contribution to your channel. I have one of these with a 2200GE. So far using it for BOINC but I'd like to find more projects for it.

Probably already got this comment somewhere, but we used these and similar models of Lenovo, HP, and the like for the insides of Kiosks that are used in correctional facilities. So, thousands of these things. All of us in the field had a steady 'refurb' workbench going, and about 90% of the no-boot issues (that weren't immediately just a bad stick of ram as you found) were indeed just corrupt CMOS or BIOS that had to be reflashed. Most of the time this is caused by being used in enclosed environments like kiosks, drawers, cabinetry, etc. and getting power cycled without propr shutdown. One of the consequences of remote support figuring out they can 'reset everything' by just hard power cycling (remotely via something called a netbooter) the PC and everything in the cabinet, rather than doing the troubleshooting they are supposed to. They're built like little tanks, but all that thermal wear and power shock really kills those BIOS chips. Plus they kind of set them up to get extra baked by where they placed them on many of those little boards. You did the perfect path honestly: Clear the CMOS for a quick and easy check, flash the BIOS if that doesn't work. 9 times out of 10, you get a PC back :)

Love this kind of content, keep it up!

One thing when you test systems is consistency and not assume stuff.. So for example, after finding out RAM on first, when doing the second, you skipped clean POST testing, so technically you could then have fried your "known good" RAM in the second machine.. Always test from minimal system and be aware anything you put into an unknown machine then becomes "tainted" until you have retested them. Newer system can even blows hardware fuses in cpus to machine lock them....

work well done, it came with great results, and the flashing tool save the day.😀

When testing CPU's you can just press a towercooler to them to see if they post. That saves a lot of time.

23:49 i seen am4 also do that the cpu stick to the back of the cooler even when the socket is perfectly locked. It is a design flaw prob we never have to deel with in the future thanks to am5 if finally lga and the locking mechanism is like intel.

@Hardware Haven Cmos battery sometimes can create no post issue, it depends from motherboard design... beafore bios flash, you should open dump in HxD and transfer DMI data from corrupted one. Now both system has the sane UUID and possibly the same activation key, so afrter Windows installation that product key will get blocked, because you can;t use the same OEM license on both pcs.

Hey great video. I have also a 710q model where I changed the Bios chip andrewrite a new Bios using the programmer. Now the PC it's starting but unfortunately I have no video output. Is there something that I missed? I was trying 2 or 3 different Bios also the one from Lenovo. Is there anything else that can be done?

Lenovo is known for their weird proprietary build setups and hardware locking their cpus as well. They really make it hard reuse the platforms.

One issue could be that recently lenovo started bounding Cpus to motherboard, expecially with ryzen pros. Maybe they swapped them before selling and so hard refreshing the bios maybe restored them

suprising to see how common curpted bios chips seam to be

Glad that you made it, interesting as always to see what you did. I just notice because of the Binary copy of worked well BIOS other system having same Serial Number, UUID, and OS License if I'm not wrong, is there a way to fixing those value?

16:13 Just a small helpful hint for the future of your diagnostic adventures: You should really keep the magnetic tip screwdriver well clear of RAM or any electronic components, around the motherboard or any electronics really because magnetism can be very damaging to electronics. fyi... (think EMP etc. even though a screwdriver tip obviously is much smaller than an emp it can still have devastating effects). Have a great one...

clearing the cmos can be very helpful with ryzen from my experience

1 tip, is try removing all ram first then unplug from power and then hold the power button in for 20 seconds to discharge the capacitors. Then add the ram and power back and try turning it on

Really internet video. Surprised you are successful in bios chip clip . For me clip doesn’t seem to stick keeps removing - so ch341 never reads my chip

I hate to let you know, but recently NewEgg was selling those refurbished (with 15-month Warranty) that include 128gb SSDs, Power Supplies, keyboards, Mice, and they work. I just did a couple of videos on one that I bought and it is a nice low-powered PC that I will be using as a Backup Domain Controller.

I have one I bought on eBay for $85.00 and I had to add an SSD I choose a Kingston 500GB Drive and the power adapter. It was over $100.00 to get it up and running. I'm using it now to watch your video. It's a Lenovo M92 ThinkCentre that was used in an office I installed Windows 10 Pro and it just works. I also messed with some Linux distros too because I like testing them out. I'm a Slot Tech who worked in a casino. I've messed with the computers since Windows for Workgroups and DOS 6.2 on my old Packard Bell Computer from 1998-99 somewhere around there. Liked your video and you did a good job troubleshooting and getting them to work. Kudos to you.

@12:22 not really... it's pretty default... the one BIOS gives more options then the other... or different options... but most of them are quite similar...they can also contain old and aged security measures... like the intrusion detection. there is just a switch on the front that detects that the case top has been removed. There is not much needed to go around that... just press the button :P and if you are unlucky the switch has been in the same position for soooo long that it keeps the button pressed or depressed.

Hardware Haven: "I'm not a computer repair guy" - Repairs computers. This was a great video for sure. An idea for the 3 PCs you now have could be a little cluster... dunno, just a thought

Theres generally a good reason these broken things break, somebody tried to fix themy at a shop or return dept. then thry got dumpstered, somebody salvaged them sold them on ebay, they will be fragile even if 'repaired', a liabilty for resale.

So with the magic of having three of them, you fixed them all!

@Hardware Haven Oh, I forgot to mention that you should also replace the SPI chip. Sometimes its not bios itself, it's SPI chip corruption and after some time it may fail again, so it's a good prictice to just in case "upload" bios into new SPI chip, because those like SSDs/pendrives has r/w cycles and they fail when they reach that r/w cycle count...

I never seen CPU's break, I'm surprised you jumped there so soon ... hdd/ssd, memory, psu, MB (or bios) also always test the beepcodes first if that isn't working its always bios/MB which unless you have a bios flasher unrepairable... but nice to see you struggle and find it in the end!

That's a nice score! NeoProgramer will help me a lot as well. Does it auto detect type and manufacturer of bios chip that you try to read / write?

It is a lenovo enterprice system so there is a high chance the cpu is mb locked so you cant swap the cpus and hope it works the cpu only work with the mb so if you put a known cpu into any of the lenovo boards and worked (it asks you to burn in that id into the cpu prob) that cpu will no longer going to post on any other motherboard. Also lenovo try to put this in some of their gaming systems and the a big backlash happend i doubt they reversed anything but iam not sure.

nice fix, probably just bit rot on the bios chip so re-flashing fixed it. Also, as you flashed all pcs with bios rom from that single pc check if they all have same serial/mac/id etc. from that first one as that may cause some problems.

can confirm that am4 cpu's do pop out stuck to the heatsink sometimes.