Lenovo Thinkcentre m700 SFF pinout

dar124

[H]ard|Gawd
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Hello, I'm looking for some assistance with getting a Lenovo Thinkcentre m700 motherboard wired up in a Cooler Master case. Hopefully I can get some info as I start this swap!!!

I currently have a HP dc7600 motherboard as my server running WHS 2011 in a generic case. But I want to upgrade before this old hardware starts to fail and give me problems. I have the Lenovo m700 and the Cooler Master case sitting around. So I figured, why not combine them and upgrade!!! The Lenovo board will be newer / better / faster and the Cooler Master case will allow me to fit more HD's inside.

I'm good with the majority of the connections, but I'm not sure which pins to connect the HD activity light, + - led's, power button and reset button wires to?? I previously had a HP xw6200 board in the case and used it as my desktop PC. When the HP board was in the case I had those wires connected to the pins listed below.

hdd led (orange/white) to pins 1 and 3
+ - led's (green/white) to pins 2 and 4
power sw (blue/white) to pins 6 and 8
reset sw (grey wires) to pins 5 and 7


I didn't want to just assume it'd connect to the same pins. Since the info I had was for a HP board and now I'm going to use a Lenovo board. I did google a bit, but didn't have much luck getting any info.


Here's the wires connected to the old HP xw6200 board

30699662850_083327ac96_c.jpg




Here's the new pins on the Lenovo board.

30966040456_95ed55755c_c.jpg




And finally the wires that I need to connect.

30699662220_99c274f029_c.jpg




Thanks in advance for any assistance with this!!!
 
First off, im not responsible if you blow anything but from my experience the power switch / reset switch can be installed in either orientation.

i would take a small flat head, and carefully plug up the sob and then start shorting the leads in pairs to find your power switch, (which might be the first pair)

then install it, for the leds, just slot them into the remaining pins until they work

hopefully that halps!
 
I'm a little leary of just "shorting the leads in pairs" until I find the one that turns the PC on.

I was hoping to find more of a diagram of the pinout on the Lenovo board??
 
I'm a little leary of just "shorting the leads in pairs" until I find the one that turns the PC on.

I was hoping to find more of a diagram of the pinout on the Lenovo board??

Which form factor does the motherboard come from? what chipset is the motherboard?

Have you checked lenovo's website?

I think front panel connector usually use a 9 pin like below image
1450944298569.jpg
 
Which form factor does the motherboard come from? what chipset is the motherboard?

Have you checked lenovo's website?


I'm not sure what chipset the board is. I'm pretty sure it's a "mini-ATX" board. It's aprox 9.5 inches by 9.5 inches.

Yep, I've searched a bunch online, but keep coming up with install manuals or manuals on how to swap out the PSU or CPU. Nothing ever shows the front panel pins. I even searched for google images, but I just get stock pics of the motherboard, nothing ever with more detail about the connections.
 
Don't kill me if this sounds very simple but: did you look over the entire motherboard to see if they by any chance printed the pinout on the board anywhere? I have seen info on the other side of the board from the connectors themselves, it was the only place there was room to do so.
 
Don't kill me if this sounds very simple but: did you look over the entire motherboard to see if they by any chance printed the pinout on the board anywhere? I have seen info on the other side of the board from the connectors themselves, it was the only place there was room to do so.


I did check on the front of the board for any pinout info next to the pins and there's nothing listed. I already mounted the board in the Cooler Master case and I didn't check the back side of the board before getting it into the new case.

If it comes down to it, I can take it out to look at the underside.
 
I did check on the front of the board for any pinout info next to the pins and there's nothing listed. I already mounted the board in the Cooler Master case and I didn't check the back side of the board before getting it into the new case.

If it comes down to it, I can take it out to look at the underside.
Oh I don't think they put anything worth a darn on the underside. I have just seen stuff printed way on the other side of the board around the processor socket and such. I don't really think there is any harm in plugging the power switch in by itself and testing until you find what works. That's the most important one anyways. The rest are pretty much just plug in one way or the other, probably no biggie finding which two pins to jump 'em over.
 
Ahhh, ok. You said you saw "info on the other side of the board" and I thought you meant on the underside, not the other end of the motherboard.

I just looked over the motherboard again and don't see anything that looks like it would be pinout info.
 
Gonna have a hard time finding correct pinout diagrams for OEM boards. Trial and error is best practice, worst that can happen is you blow a silly $0.01 LED?
 
So I was googling a bit yesterday looking for additional info on this pinout and someone on the Lenovo Forums had a similar question about their Thinkcentre A60 front panel and front USB pinouts.

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkC...-panels-power-audio-and-USB-pinout/m-p/190651



This is copied from the post:


Power front panel (black connector)


+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| Bk | . | . | . | . | . | . |
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| Yl | . | Bk | Gn | Yl | Bk |xxxx|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+

+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 |
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 12 |xxxx|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+

Description

1 Black Disk activiry led ground
2 Yellow Disk activiry led ground
3 Not connected
4 Not connected
5 Not connected
6 Black Power led ground
7 Not connected
8 Yellow Power led signal
9 Not connected
10 Yellow Power switch signal
11 Not connected
12 Black Power switch ground
13 Not connected
14 Locked (no pin)



USB front panel (yellow connector)

It's a standard internal USB connector, but with two additional ground wires


+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| Bk | Re | Wh | Gn | Bk | |
+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| Bk | Bw | Bl | Yl | Bk |XXXX|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+

+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |XXXX|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+

1 Black Ground
2 Black Ground
3 Red USB1 Power
4 Brown USB2 Power
5 White USB1 Data -
6 Blue USB2 Data -
7 Green USB1 Data +
8 Yellow USB2 Data +
9 Black Ground
10 Black Ground
11 Not connected
12 Locked (no pin)


You may connect the lenovo front panel into a generic motherboard using only the pins 3 to 12. Just leave the pins 1 and 2 disconected. The pins 1, 2, 9 and 10 are connected to the cable shield. It will work fine.

Standard internal USB connector for front panels:


+---+---+---+---+---+
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 |
+---+---+---+---+---+
| 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 |XXX|
+---+---+---+---+---+

1 USB1 Power
2 USB2 Power
3 USB1 Data -
4 USB2 Data -
5 USB1 Data +
6 USB2 Data +
7 Ground
8 Ground
9 Not connected
10 Locked (no pin)





So my thought for the front panel pins is to connect the orange and white wires to pins 1 / 2, the green and white wires to pins 6 / 8 and the blue and white wires to pins 10 / 12.

And for the front USB connection I'll skip pins 1 & 2 and connect the USB connector starting with pins 3 & 4.

It seems kind of strange to skip pins like that, but from the 2nd pic from my original post, that is similar to how the wires are in the front panel connector. So it makes sense that that is how they should be connected for this Cooler Master case as well. I'll give this a try and report back.
 
I was able to power on the new PC. So the "orange and white wires to pins 1 / 2, the green and white wires to pins 6 / 8 and the blue and white wires to pins 10 / 12" was correct!!

I haven't checked the font USB ports, but I'd assume that the info saying to use "pins 3 to 12 and leave pins 1 and 2 disconnected" would also be correct.

The only issue that I had was the CPU fan constantly running at full speed. But I figured out that the CPU's thermal sense cable wasn't connected. It was actually still in the old Lenovo case. So I'll work on getting that wired up this evening. And I'm moving closer and closer to getting my server swapped out!!!
 
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