poor mans miniforums 2U using Lenovo M920q SFP+SAS
wanted to get a cheap miniforums USFF with the sfp ports but its hard to come by them used at a decent price for my 10" rack. So made one out of a m920q.
Since i need to add two cards, a SFP card and a SAS card, i needed more space. so made a 2u side case for the bottom half of the 920Q to slide in. To go along with it, added some 2.5mm Light pipe flexible fiber to extend the status lights inside the case to the face.
Next, needed to actually make both cards electrically work. the 720/920q/x boards all have a proprietary riser port. This port has both a 8x pcie3.0 that connected directly to the CPU, and another set of 4x pcie3.0 connected to the PCH. so just a matter or laying down some traces on a PCB. (although in my rush i forgot to add a header for a fan, so had to solder a male connector).
Finally needed cooling, added a noctua 60x15mm fan. Bolts to the front bracket that would normally be the wifi antenna bracket on these things. Finally a shroud that pushes the air though the brackets. At the moment i have a 9400-8e card, so much less heat and power consumption. but had it tested with a 9300-8e and it was still cool to the touch.
A nice bonus is that on the 920q we only have one nvme port at the bottom, i added a boot drive using a A+E key to nvme adapter. Because both are in the same path as the flow of air. they both sit about 28C
In the future i might try and get a 920x or P330. get dual nvme at the bottom. And try and mess with pcie bifurcation. get a total of 3 cards at x4 lanes.
Here is the lspci:
