IBM/Lenovo ThinkCentre Ryzen 7 Sleeper Build

[oeuvre]

Lenovo/IBM ThinkCentre A60 8991-DGU case
Corsair CX750M 750W semi-modular power supply
ASRock B450M PRO4 mATX AM4 motherboard
AMD Ryzen 7 2700 3.2GHz 8 core processor
MSI AMD Radeon RX580 8GB Armor PCIe video card
Scythe Kabuto 3 cooler
2x Arctic F9 PWM 92mm fans
Samsung 970 EVO 500GB NVMe SSD
TSST DVD+-RW TS-H653A SATA DVD burner
Seagate ST2000DM001 7200RPM 2TB SATA hard drive
Front/rear USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports
Serial port
Windows 10



Chose this case cause I’ve always loved IBM’s and Lenovo’s business class computers like their ThinkPad, ThinkCentre, and NetVista lines. This one also was in remarkably good shape.



Tossed in a USB 3.0 front panel module in there. The USB 2.0 ports also work.



Closeup of the original sticker... It housed an AMD Athlon X2 4400+ with 1GB RAM.



The rear, ports galore! Serial port works thanks to COM1 header on motherboard.



Side of the case



Authentic Windows Vista product key + label.



Side panel is secured with 2 thumbscrews and easily slides out by pressing the tab on the middle right then gently sliding out the panel.



All the parts! A tad messy in there. Got a nice black theme going on as well. No lights or RGB or any of that sort here.



Closer view of the top half of the case



Lower section... you can spot the 970 EVO right below the cooler.



MSI Armor RX580 8GB



Seagate 2TB hard drive



First run of CrystalDiskMark on the 970 EVO



The front panel headers for the USB and audio needed some work. The USB one was easy, Lenovo just had 2 extra ground wires. Removed them and it works fine.



The audio one required some work. Got a 40 pack of Arduino male to female pins like this for less than $3 shipped on eBay.



First thing was to extend the pins individually, all color-coordinated. Taped it together to be a bit more secure.



Here it is plugged in correctly thanks to...



This diagram found on a Lenovo forum



ASRock UEFI



System info



A slew of wallpapers



IBM world



Tiled blue IBM



Tiled RGB IBM



A ThinkCentre icon



Here it is running.

[axur-delmeria]

Nice build. It may be harder to pull off in an older casing (P4 era Thinkcentre/Netvista) due to them not having good air intake vents at the front.

[oeuvre]

Thanks! Yeah, the IBM NetVista towers had that weird power supply next to the I/O shield so that would be a major limitation.

[axur-delmeria]

Thanks! Yeah, the IBM NetVista towers had that weird power supply next to the I/O shield so that would be a major limitation.

True. But there's also Netvista mini-tower casings with the PSU on top like your Thinkcentre. I bought a few when building PCs for my clients, as I preferred the thick steel compared to the el cheapo tin can casings that were locally available. Their biggest drawbacks were the lack of front panel audio ports, and the USB ports being too close together, making it difficult to plug in oversized USB devices like wifi adapters and some flash drives.

[oeuvre]

Theres also the NetVista and ThinkCentre desktops which are mATX but they're pretty small so cooling would be an issue on high TDP processors.

[axur-delmeria]

Theres also the NetVista and ThinkCentre desktops which are mATX but they're pretty small so cooling would be an issue on high TDP processors.

I have a slim mATX Thinkcentre casing, a Type 8994 like this one:



It's hard to make a powerhouse machine from it due to the 220 watt PSU that's neither ATX nor SFX. Also, the expansion card slots are low-profile, so high-end GPUs are out of the question unless I modify the casing, which I'm not interested in doing.

It currently houses an ITX board with an AMD E-350 APU, and only used when diagnosing HDDs and other stuff.

[oeuvre]

Slew of wallpapers I've made/resized/edited.









Original + ThinkPad variants

[angel47michael]

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