HP T620 thin client

[UPDATE – 2014/11/26: Made a few updates on the hardware.] [UPDATE – 2015/12/23: I ended up taking the Wireless N / Bluetooth combo card from the T610 and putting it in the T620]

I’ve been fascinated with repurposing PC thin clients.  I like them because they are  virtually silent and very energy efficient¹.  I’ve used one for pfSense, and another as an XBMC box (now called a Kodi Media Centre). They can be acquired pretty affordably as organizations that have invested in these boxes usually swap them out at a steady pace (2-3 year leases).

Earlier thin clients were based on more exotic hardware (embedded CPUs from VIA, Cyrix, AMD), but modern clients use embedded SOC versions of mobile x86 CPUs.  We’re talking full-on, dual- and quad-core AMD-based APUs or even full-out Intel Celeron/i3/i5 chips with Intel HD graphics. All this buttoned-up into a custom mini-ITX or mATX form factor with a included DC-to-DC power supply.

I managed to pick up an HP T620 Plus on eBay for less than $200 CAD. This model was released last year and features an embedded AMD “Kabini” processor (GX-420CA), with 4GB Ram, AMD HD8400 graphics + a fireGL 2270 video card.  It’s powered by a 90W pico psu with a heat-pipe CPU cooler and a low-RPM fan. The FireGL card can easily be repurposed for better graphics or networking.  It is virtually identical to the AMD A6-5200 and AMD Athlon 5350 in terms of performance and features and about twice as fast as the AMD e350-based HP T610 thin client that I am using for XBMC.  This should be able to transcode a single 1080p stream in realtime.

A few things to note:

• Storage is mSATA only. I’ve paired it with 128 GB crucial m500 SSD.

• UPDATE: There is also a M2 NGFF port available.

• UPDATE: In addition to the 2 x USB3 and 4 x USB2 ports on the back and the front, there are also 2 x USB headers inside for flash storage, Bluetooth, WiFi, etc.

• The onboard graphics uses 2, full-sized display ports. This particular model came with a working FireGL 2270 card.  Not very useful and I’ve already removed it.

• If I use the box for pfSense, I’ll add an Intel GigE dual-NIC

• I might add a Gigabyte GB WB300D WiFi and BT 4.0 card.  See my note above.

• The onboard GigE port is no longer Broadcom-based. It’s a cheap Realtek controller (RTL8111/8168/8411 rev C)

• The PCIe expansion bay only accepts low-profile cards. This is a pretty significant difference from the previous version.

• 2 serial ports + a Parallel port.

• The second serial port can be rewired to a VGA connector using a 15-pin VGA header cable.  I am fortunate to have a spare that I tried to add to my Watchguard Firebox x550e box.

• UPDATE: The VGA connector uses a small 16-pin port that I have never seen before.  I haven’t located a cable yet (best I can fine is a small 12-pin port VGA header cable)

Add some storage (this one had a bad mSATA drive) and a display port to HDMI adapter and you have a complete system that is basically the same as AMD AM1 Athlon 5350 build. For less than $200 CAD, I certainly couldn’t build an off-the-shelf unit for that price.

The bios on these thin clients are very bare-bones.  Don’t expect to over clock the systems as there doesn’t appear to be any means of OC’ing the chips.

This will most likely replace my newish T610-based XBMC computer.  The great thing is that some parts are interchangeable,  I have a spare Bluetooth and WiFi Mini-PCIe adapter from my T610 that I can reuse for instance.  Not too a shabby of system and I’m excited to put it through it’s paces as an XBMC client or as a pfSense router with AES-NI support.

Here is a readout of “lspci”:

It runs pretty cool at full load, a Prime95 Torture test of all four cores maxed only pushed it to 65˚C (23˚C ambient).

[UPDATE – 2015/12/23]: Right now, I am using the box as a Zwiftbox.  I upgraded the ram to 12GB and added a R250 video card.  Runs Zwift at an acceptable 15 FPS at 1080p.