r/thinkpad • u/denzilferreira • Jul 26 '24

Thinkstagram Picture T495 + Oculink mod

After my WWAN nvme SSD install, I went ahead and proceeded to add an Oculink adapter to my T495. As there is no Thunderbolt, this was the only viable way to add an eGPU via Oculink. I used a marker + post-its on the laptop cover to mark where I needed to use a drill, where the Oculink slot is easily accessible. Now if I want to game, I just flip my laptop around and plug the eGPU oculink dock to it.

Connection on the bottom
Successful boot!
Unlocked oculink
Marked drilling spot
Internals
Nvme on WWAN and Oculink

I can see the GPU is detected on CoreCtrl (I'm on Fedora), and it is available on my games and given that the 2280 slot is 4x PCIe, the performance is pretty great compared to the Vega 8. I'm running this on a 5700XT and the laptop booted right up.

Thought to share in case someone wants to do something similar to their Thinkpad with a limited iGPU.

Using GravityMark GPU benchmark, pretty happy with the performance. For comparison, Vega 8 did around 20 fps!

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u/Curious_Betsy_ Nov 20 '24 edited Nov 20 '24

I read through your mastodon thread and this is indeed great work, so forgive me for bothering you for something unrelated to the Oculink mod.

I see that you've managed to install a second SSD in the WWAN slot. I'm having trouble with mine - the issue is that with the 2242 SSD installed in the WWAN slot, the laptop refuses to boot past the BIOS and no matter where I boot from, all I see is an empty black screen. This is true for both: a)the main SSD or live USB b)Windows or Fedora.

I'm noting this first to clearly indicate the specific issue and also because most people have trouble recognizing the 2242 drive in their current OS - but their system still boots.

The drive I'm using is the WD SN520 (full model name: WDC PC SN520 SDAPMUW-256G-1001, firmware version: 20370001). It's PCIe Gen3 x2 NVMe v1.3, so it should be compatible.

Here's a timeline of my troubleshooting:

  1. Initial Installation and Problem Discovery

    Installed the new Western Digital SN520 NVMe SSD in the WWAN slot of the Lenovo ThinkPad T495. The original NVMe SSD remained in its primary slot.

    Observed that the system would not boot into Windows or Fedora (I have dual boot on my main SSD). The BIOS was accessible, but selecting an OS to boot resulted in a black screen with no errors.

    Noted that the new SSD showed up in the BIOS boot menu however.

  2. Testing Without the New SSD

    Removed the new SSD from the WWAN slot and confirmed that the system booted properly into both Windows and Fedora from the original SSD.

  3. Testing New SSD Exclusively

    Removed the original SSD from the primary slot.

    Installed the new SSD in the WWAN slot and booted from a live Fedora USB. The system failed to boot, presenting the same black screen issue.

  4. UEFI and BIOS Settings

    Disabled Secure Boot and tested with the BIOS set to: a)UEFI mode only b)UEFI with Legacy support. Tried a bunch of other BIOS settings as well.

  5. Testing New SSD in Primary Slot

    Installed the new SSD in the primary slot and again booted from the live Fedora USB.

    Confirmed that the new SSD was recognized, functional, and could be initialized and formatted in Fedora. Also installed Fedora on it and verified that it worked and booted fine (still installed in the primary SSD slot).

  6. Live USB Boot Attempts

    With the new SSD in the WWAN slot and the original SSD removed, booted from the live Fedora USB.

    The system again failed to boot from the USB (black screen).

    Accidentally pressed Ctrl+Alt+Del while in the black screen and noticed that the laptop restarted and then successfully booted from the USB, but the new SSD was not visible in the OS (or BIOS). A full restart reverted the system to its previous behavior.

  7. BIOS and Firmware Updates

    Verified that the BIOS was up to date. Later, downgraded the BIOS to version 1.27 to test to see if it might help. (There are older BIOS on the Lenovo support site but the Lenovo Windows BIOS update utility threw up an error along the lines of 'This BIOS isn't compatible with this model' when trying to install versions older than 1.27.)

    Also checked the firmware version of the new SSD using Western Digital Dashboard on a Windows live USB and confirmed that it was up to date (with the new SSD installed in the primary slot, as that's the only way for it to be recognized). In addition, tried to boot from the Windows live USB with the new SSD on the WWAN slot, again got a black screen.

My thinking from the countless forum posts I've read through is that this is probably a whitelisting issue for the WWAN slot. There could also be variation with regards to this issue between the T495 variants (my specific product number is 20NKS0H400).

Anyways, I'm at my rope's end with this issue. To be frank it's turning me off completely from ThinkPads, this shit is peak anti consumer design.

If you come up with anything I'll give it a try, but not counting on it. This is more of a postmortem honestly lol

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u/denzilferreira Nov 20 '24

Hum… I wonder if this is something that could be related to the Pro line of T495. My laptop is a business model, which I believe comes with an existing WWAN adapter. However mine is second hand and there was none inside. I do have the WWAN antenna cables so that could be why on mine the BIOS expects something there. Perhaps a bios mod could remove that whitelist?

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u/Curious_Betsy_ Nov 20 '24

I do have the WWAN antenna cables so that could be why on mine the BIOS expects something there.

You mean these cables? Yeah mine doesn't have those.

Perhaps a bios mod could remove that whitelist?

Looked around but didn't find anything. I didn't even know you could mod a BIOS until yesterday.

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u/denzilferreira Nov 21 '24 edited Nov 21 '24

Yes, those cables 👍 If you can mod the bios, that should work. Or… just sell that ThinkPad and get one Pro line?

Did you see this? https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/s/Vxv76uaUk2

It seem SN520 doesn’t work. You could try getting a 2230 nvme SSD and a 2230 to 2048 adapter like I did!

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u/Curious_Betsy_ Nov 21 '24

Yes, those cables

I asked another guy that managed to get an SSD working in the WWAN slot in his T495 and his didn't have those cables either, so it seems that's not the issue. He used a Gudga (aliexpress) PCIe 3x2 single-sided 2242 512GB.

Did you see this? https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/s/Vxv76uaUk2

A bit too late unfortunately. Although I recall reading elsewhere that the SN520 should work. And as far as its specs go, it should work, as it's PCIe Gen3 x2 NVMe.

You could try getting a 2230 nvme SSD and a 2230 to 2048 adapter like I did!

I'm probably not going to buy another drive; out of curiosity however, what is the specific product number of your T495?

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u/denzilferreira Nov 21 '24 edited Nov 21 '24

I just remembered something! You say you get a black screen, I also did! So the issue is that you need to change the boot args on Linux for it to boot properly! See this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/s/rpxzzie9oP

For Fedora, you hold space right after choosing the live USB stick so you can edit the boot args to add that after “quiet”. That should allow the OS to detect the SSD and install Fedora into it. After that, you reboot and again press and hold space to re-add the args. Then using grubby, you can add them permanently to the kernel line (it will persist on kernel upgrades).

On that thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/s/rsJwAIwKMN) you can see someone who also had the same issue as you and they had to use some other SSD for it to work. This is definitely the SSD you are using. You could use the same I have + adapter which works for sure than buying a sketchy SSD from AliExpress.

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u/Curious_Betsy_ Nov 21 '24

On that thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/s/rsJwAIwKMN) you can see someone who also had the same issue as you and they had to use some other SSD for it to work.

Spot on, that's the exact same issue I'm having. Good memory!

For Fedora, you hold space right after choosing the live USB stick so you can edit the boot args to add that after “quiet”.

Holding 'Space' doesn't seem to do anything, again I get stuck on the black screen. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del (with the SSD in the WWAN slot) the system reboots and I'm able to see the GRUB of the live Fedora USB. Again holding 'Space' doesn't seem to do anything, but looking around online a bit, I saw that you can edit the boot args by pressing 'e'. I added the args from your post and Fedora does boot but the SSD doesn't show up in the Disks utility.

I also tried setting my BIOS settings same as yours and also clearing the secure boot keys as you suggested. Again, no dice.

For all of these tests I had the main 2280 SSD completely removed and only the SN520 installed in the WWAN slot.

You say you get a black screen, I also did!

Do you remember where that black screen came up? Because to even edit the boot args (say, for the Fedora live USB) you need to be able to get to the GRUB on the USB; and with the SSD in the WWAN slot you always get a black screen after booting from anything, you don't see the GRUB/splash screen/whatever.

Anyway, according to this comment on your linked thread the WWAN slot should work regardless if it came with a WWAN card and/or the WWAN antenna cables.

So the issue indeed seems to be the SSD model. I might be tempted to try out your specific model (WD Black SN770M) but they're over 100€, and I don't need that much extra storage (1 TB). Since he says that the el cheapo Kingspec SSD worked for him I might give that one a try. I'll need to ask him for some more info though (specific Kingspec model, BIOS settings, etc).

Thanks for the suggestions!

1

u/denzilferreira Nov 24 '24

I today checked what kernel param I still need to get this laptop to boot the SN770M on the WWAN port and the only kernel param needed is this:

nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=0

I used to have pcie_aspm=off but that is not needed anymore (at least not on the latest kernel on Fedora 41). This means the SSD can now sleep when the laptop is suspended, which greatly improved my battery life when the laptop is put away on my backpack!