Using HP-T 5730 as Dual-Head ThinLinc Client

As I mentioned before I prefer a noiseless hardware thinclient like the Igel UD3 for my office desktop. My tests with old (and somehow slow) hardware were positive, so I searched the web for an cheap dualhead solution that can I use at home.

• A Linux driven HDMI stick computer seems to be a possibility, but these kinds of mini computers are normally support only one display up to FullHD resolution (1920*1080).
• Older thinclients seems also fast enough and you can get refurbished models for only a few bucks on Ebay. There is only one problem you have to consider. Not all older thin clients supports a dual head configuration and the maximum resolution is often limited to 1280*1024 or 1600*1200 per connector.

I choose a HP-T 5730. It's a somehow bigger thinclient based on standard X86/X64 hardware and was first announced 2009. My refurbished ones comes with an extension bay and costs about 25 Euros. The original hardware specs are :

• AMD Sempron 2100+ (1Ghz, 64 Bit, 8 Watt TDP)
• 1 GB RAM
• 1 GB FlashDisk
• Radeon X1250 GPU with two screen connectors (DVI + VGA)
• 8 * USB 2.0 (2 front, 4 rear, 2 internal)
• Extension bay for a full size PCI  card, however the PCI-E riser was missing :-(
• 50 Watt power adapter

I replace the preinstalled HP Linux (a  Debian Etch derivative) with TinyCore Linux. TinyCore linux is a very small and fast distribution. The core + xserver + radeon driver is only about 50 Mbytes large and starts within 10 seconds from power on to GUI ready. It's well documented and designed to be run from a “write not to often memory” mass storage device (like an USB stick). In fact everything is loaded and started from RAM and is written back when power down.

My first test with only one screen (1920*1200) was successful, the speed running the thinlinc client software was ok – subjectively the same like using my SunRay 3+ with identical display resolution. Using a dual head configuration is a bit tricky, you need to create your own X configuration overwriting a wrong default value for X1250 GPU in dual head configuration (see http://www.arm-blog.com/dual-screen-hp-t5730/).

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Radeon Xpress 1250"
Driver "radeon"
Option "ColorTiling" "off"
EndSection

However this test was disappointing. Yes, it works, but everything is extremely slow. It seems that there is no 2D Acceleration by the GPU when running in dual head configuration (with two 1920*1200 displays).

As mentioned before my HP-T 5730 comes with an ExtensionBay and offers one PCI or PCI-E x1 slot (but the PCIe riser card was missing). The idea was to use a full graphics card instead of the integrated GPU. I bought an Quadro NVS-290 PCI-E x1 for about 10 Euro and 10 PCI-e riser card for also 10 Euro on Ebay.  If somebody needs a PCI-E riser card for the HP-T 5730 – I have 9 left ;-) .

I replaced the PCI riser card with the PCIe one and install the NV Quadro graphics adapter. The original power adapter (50 Watt) should be ok for the ThinClient with deactivated integrated GPU (20 Watt) and Quadro NVS-290 graphics adapter (21 Watt).

After connecting two monitors -  I switch it on and ... nothing happens :-( The screens are blank – the graphics adapter seems to be broken. I tested the card in another PC – there it works. Searching the web for some helpful information that solves my problem returns nothing new, beside it should work ...

Having a fixed idea, I replaced the PCI-E riser card with the PCI one that comes with my extension bay and installed a Matrox G450 DH PCI graphics adapter I found in my “old-hardware” compilation. The thinclient starts with the internal GPU, but now I can switch to an additional installed graphics adapter deactivating the internal GPU in the BIOS. The menu entry did not appear before. However, the thinclient comes up, but was very slow using VESA driver. I did not try to use the native mga driver since it was not available from TinyCore repository and the Matrox card doesn't support two 1920*1200 displays.

I rebuild everything like before (NV Quadro instead of Matrox G450) and now it works ... maybe a BIOS bug or something else. My NV Quadro card is labeled as HP graphics and has an other part number than the card HP offered as optional extension for this type of thinclient ...

The thin client with the external graphics card has enough power to drive two 1920*1200 displays in dualhead configuration. Maybe it would be a bit smoother when replacing the Sempron CPU with a more powerful one (e.g. Athlon 64 TF20 – 1.6 Ghz, 15 Watt should be fit), I will try this in near future.