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 👍

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!

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.

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.

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!

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

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?

I'm a Systems Administrator at my current job. Google and luck are a huge part of the job. Good work finding the RAM issue with little to no previous troubleshooting experience!

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!

Finding an entry-level diagnostic technician who can guide me through logical diagnostic steps is beneficial. Thanks!

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.

From now on I'm using coffee filters for paste stuff... As soon as you mentioned them, the light bulb went off and I knew immediately your reasoning. Brilliant

I really enjoy doing this too. You are very calm and thorough in your troubleshooting. Gave me some ideas to try in my non-booting Lenovo mini PC, thanks!

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.

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.

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 KZfaqr. 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!!!

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

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.

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.

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

@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.

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

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.

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

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

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...

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#.

Great job! I learned lots watching. Thanks for sharing

This was a fun video!! And I see you've got that great IFixit toolkit!! Hoping to get my server rebuild video up next week!!

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.

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

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. 🤘😁👍

Fascinating video. VERY informational and educational. Thanks for making it. 👍👍

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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

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.

Absolutely beautiful. Love these Lenovo Mini PCs. And what I do love even more is when people give things a second life, instead of tossing them into the trash bin! 💪🙏

Hey great video I just got a Lenovo from PC's for People for $50, refurbished , haven't worked on computers for years , found your video ! Way to go with the bios cloning ! I need a dedicated video editing Station so giving the Lenovo a shot once I order parts to Upgrade it!

What a great video! I have a Lenovo tiny p320 that I'm going to have to swap the ram and ssd into from an older one. Excellent "how-to"

Wait what??? I was looking for one of this and throw my ventoy with pfsense and use it as a router!!! Just in time man, keep up the good content!

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.

Wow. Very satisfying seeing this workout. Can explain more this BIOS tool?

@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

Excellent job on Failure Analysis. 👍👍👍👍

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

I have 8-10 Lenovo m93p tiny PC's, and I've noticed that depending on the BIOS version that is installed some won't work with a Display Port 1.4 cable, but will with a Display Port 1.2 cable. Something you could try (in future) to see if it's just you need a Display Port 1.2 cable. The Bios upgrade you did likely has a high enough version to support the Display Port 1.4 cable which is more than likely what you have.

Really enjoy your videos man! An observation from me, you felt the need to qualify that you weren’t an expert on repair or content making a few times. Maybe i’m thinking about it too much and I know it’s probably just filler or to throw a quick acknowledgment of things people would nitpick in the comments, but don’t put yourself down so much! if you feel the need to acknowledge or point those things out I recommend doing it all no more than once at the end of the video, or in a pinned comment. That way the flow of the video isn’t interrupted and you aren’t putting yourself down. a lot of people do it subconsciously but they say if you say something yourself about yourself enough, you start to think it’s true. Which isnt the case at all, your content and knowledge are impressive and appreciated

Great job. Like this repair video :)

Love this kind of content, keep it up!

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

These lenovo mini pcs look so cute! Congrats for 70k subs too

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.

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?

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

Great video as always dude just wondering what monitor arm do you use?

As an IT guy, you did pretty darn well for someone claiming to not be an IT guy….kudos! I wonder if the bios chips suffered from bit rot from sitting somewhere in storage too long without power.🤔

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.

"I'm an amateur" - Has better quality and camera angles than a lot of "professional" You Tubers 🤣 Nice video man!

Great video. thanks for the extra part

Lenovo ThinkCentre, and most other business grade PCs have a BIOS recovery procedure. Lenovo’s method is: Leave the clear CMOS jumper on the clear setting. Place the binary BIOS ROM file on the root of a CD. (Not a zip or exe, has to be only the ROM). Boot the machine with the CD inserted. Wait for the BIOS flash to complete. Power off and return jumper to normal mode. Blank screen doesn’t mean it’s flashing. You see the normal flash screen just as if doing it from Windows and it reboots into the flash utility. Should take less than 10s to kick off. You may need to reboot if you don’t get the CD in fast enough. Don’t wait 5 mins on the black screen thinking it’s doing something. Something isn’t right, double check your steps and try again. You’ll know when it’s flashing and working right. I’ve done a Lenovo Tiny by attaching a desktop CD drive to it. There might be a new way to do with USB. But I already had a CD made. So it was convenient at the time to use the CD.

Great result. Job well done. 🙂

Loved this video!

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

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....

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

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.

You obviously know more about computers than you thought you did. Excellent job!

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

Hi! Good work! Amazing video! But, have you tried to clean the stick of ram that is not working?

I work IT and our business has hundreds of these PCs deployed across the building. In my time working there, I've actually never dealt with one of these broken PCs. They're a breeze, and they ship WITH a Lenovo mouse and keyboard (they're alright) in simple packaging. It's often one of our company laptops, which, to Lenovo's credit, are SO easy to repair.

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

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?

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.

Nice outcome man.

well done ( 1 mans trash is another mans treasure with profite ) persistence paid off and patience. and you have a new subscriber ;)

Great video. I just bought one of these off of eBay for $100 with a Ryzen 5 2400GE. Listing said it's working, but I can't get it to POST. No video output, and two short beeps that repeat ad infinitum. I tried swapping ram sticks around, using good ram sticks, making a bootable USB with the bios files from Lenovo (which a few posts on Lenovo forums indicate can sometimes work). I'm assuming it's a bios issue, so I just bought the kit in your video. Fingers crossed it'll work; otherwise it's back to the eBay seller. I'd also love to know if there's a way to get later gen Ryzens on work in these, like a 4600GE.

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.

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

Awesome job 👍

Nice job. Good idea to buy three almost identical system. Flashing working BIOS could be tedious task. Taking one from another similar board is very good idea especially if you do not need windows key which is often embedded into BIOS.

Great Job 👍🏾

PRO TIP Lenovo actually has great guides for replacing parts in their manual.

great work !

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

Great job 👍👍

Great job!

🤓 "Technically these aren't SFF. they're Lenovo "tiny" machines. great video!! excited to watch!

Sometimes its simply the contacts. CRC electrical contact cleaner is your friend. I've saved so many computers and other electronic devices that were thought to be dead with that alone.

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.

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.

I had an HP SFF core2 machine get picky about ram once. It would only boot on one stick and either stick worked fine as did both slots. Yet it would randomly stop working with either one RAM stick or another, same with RAM slots. Sometimes it would not detect RAM at all. The problem had no consistency and kept driving me nuts so i put it away. Then after some time i tried booting it up again with all ram installed and it worked fine ever since. I have it now in my garage as a media PC for music and datasheets and it has no problem starting up and works just fine.

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)

What a crazy coincidence, I use the same model of USB drive for my Ventoy boot disk. I went for it because it was super cheap for large capacities. What made you choose yours? And I love how you now have 3 computers with the same serial number. Are you going to try to fix that or leave it as is?

I'd suggest using a version of Puppy linux to initially run the system. It runs straight from a USB (no install required) and you can check the hard drive to se if there's an OS on it.