The Lenovo M93p tower computer is compatible with ArcaOS. Built-in video, sound, network, USB, serial port all function under ArcaOS 5.0. The computer features tool-free installation of SATA hard drives and an assortment of PCI and PCIe slots.
After you add the computer and optional CPU upgrade to the cart, proceed to the Accessories page to add PS/2 ports, parallel port, floppy drive, hard drive upgrade, IDE card or a USB 2.0 card.
AccessoriesThe central processing unit (CPU) can be upgraded to the Intel Core i7 for faster processing and graphics.
CPU upgrade: $200.00 USD
This computer has optional PS/2 ports.
PS/2 Ports: $75.00 USD
This computer has an optional parallel port.
Parallel Port: $50.00 USD
This PCIe-X1 bus card provides an internal IDE connection. You can use this card with DaniS506.ADD to provide support for Parallel ATA (PATA) hard drives.
PCIe IDE Card: $75.00 USD
This external USB Floppy drive can be used to read and write 720K and 1.44M 3 1/2 inch floppy disks.
USB Floppy Drive: $50.00 USD
Using a travel router with a desktop can free you from a wired Ethernet connection. I use the Mango Travel Router to access local WiFi or my phone's hot spot. Mango comes with everything you need to connect to an access point.
Mango Travel Router: $65.00 USD
In the past, I have also used a TP-Link AC750 Wireless Travel Router, an Asus RP-N12 Wireless N300 Range Extender, and a TP-Link Nano Router. I include a folder of URL links to the admin pages of each of these routers to make it easy to set up the first time.
Instructions and details about external WiFi: Travel Routers
The hard drive can be upgraded to a 2 TB drive. Either a hard disk or an SSD is available to upgrade.
If you want to buy a customized version of this computer, fill out an order form and submit it to Blonde Guy. Blonde Guy will review your order and send you an invoice, payable using PayPal or any major credit card. If you prefer to pay by check, note that in the notes field of the order form, and I will e-mail you an invoice payable by check.
Enter the customizations you want on the computer in the notes portion of the order form.
Manufacturer:
Model: ThinkCentre M93p Tower
Model number: 10A7000SUS (10A7003QUS)
Year introduced: 2013
CPU: Intel(R) core (TM) i7-4770 CPU 3.4 GHz (Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590 CPU @ 3.30GHz)
RAM: 8.0 GB
Hard drive: 500 GB 3.5 inch SATA
Optional hard/solid state drive: 2000 GB SATA
Optical drive: Lenovo DVD-Multi player drive
Network: Intel Gigabit Ethernet using MultiMac32-E1000E driver
Audio: Intel audio with line out and line in using UniAud driver
USB ports: 8 (2 front, 6 back)
USB controllers: 0 UHCI, 0 OHCI, 2 EHCI, 1 XHCI
Video ports: VGA, DisplayPort
Height: 14.4 inches
Width: 6.9 inches
Depth: 15.8 inches
Weight: 24.7 lbs
Power consumption is 30 Watts (25 Watts), measured with the computer is booted to the desktop. In use, the computer can consume about 70 watts. This computer consumes less than 1 Watt if it's plugged in, but switched off.
The disk is partitioned to provide a bootable operating system volume and a bootable installer. Space is left for addtional bootable volumes. User data is stored on a separate volume.
This is the layout for the 500 GB HD. The Air-Boot boot manager is installed to select the volume to be started.
| Volume Name | Disk Format | Drive Letter | Volume Size | Disk Name |
| Recovery | FAT16 | X: | 2,000 MB | 500 GB SATA |
| ArcaOS-F | JFS | F: | 10,001 MB | 500 GB SATA |
| ArcaOS-H | JFS | H: | 10,001 MB | 500 GB SATA |
| Data | JFS | D: | 444,444 MB | 500 GB SATA |
ArcaOS 5.0.7 (Dec 7, 2021) is the version used for this installation.
This table reports the SysBench 0.9.5 benchmarks for this computer. You can download SysBench 0.9.5 here: http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/
| Category | i7 with disk | i7 with SSD |
|---|---|---|
| PM-Graphics-marks | 378 | 307 |
| CPU integer-marks | 15129 | 15070 |
| CPU floating point-marks | 1445 | 1456 |
| DIVE-marks | 20976 | 16785 |
| File I/O-marks | 52358 | 174720 |
| Memory-marks | 24663 | 24831 |
| Simultaneous I/O-marks | 55 | |
| Disk I/O-marks | 528 |
A Crucial BX500 2 TB SSD is installed. SysBench cannot compute a Disk I/O mark for any SSD I have tried.
Each Blonde Guy ArcaOS preloaded computer comes with a standard load of software. This page lists what is in the current pre-load. This list is updated over time to incorporate new essential OS/2 software as well as to keep up to date versions of existing software. When you receive your ArcaOS preloaded computer, you will have Blonde Guy's best installation of the latest OS/2 software.
The recovery DVD supplied is a bootable ArcaOS DVD with a backup of the hard drive as delivered. You can boot the machine from DVD, and perform maintenance functions. The maintenance folder is available on the recovery DVD. The factory backup is stored in the \Factory directory. The backups are simple zip files. You can use 7z or unzip to extract some or all of the files in a backup.
This section documents what I did to get this computer to work under ArcaOS. It is intended to show what goes into this computer, and also as a guide to the user who wants to build it himself.
The BIOS is updated via a BIOS update CD-ROM.
With eBay systems, it's best to do a throrough wipe of the hard disk before beginning. OS/2 and therefore ArcaOS, is very picky about drive geometry. A disk laid out by any other operating system will likely not work under OS/2.
I prefer to let Disk Utility on the ArcaOS installation CD do all the work. I boot the DVD, get to the start screen. I pick System Management, and then Disk Utility. This will have several possible outcomes.
If it does not find the disk at all, then perhaps the disk is is partitioned using GPT instead of MBR. The remedy for this is described on the following web page.
Installing ArcaOS over Windows 10A second possibility is that Disk Utility finds the disk, but does not find valid formatting. In this case the following screen will appear. In this case I simply allow Disk Utility to fix the problem, and reboot.
Disk Utility
** Problems were detected in your disk layout. The problems are listed below.
We may be able to fix these problems for you; see below for details. Please note, however, that we cannot be held liable for any damage or lost data that may result from this action.
The following problems were found:
* There is no valid partition table on the disk. A new partition table must be written before this disk can be used.The disk appears to contain no data, so this operation should be harmless. However, if it does contain data which OS/2 has failed to detect, any such data will be lost if you proceed.
The above problem(s) must be fixed before you can use this disk with OS/2.
If I have fixed the disk using DiskUtility or other procedure, then I run Disk Utility again. If it says "No problems found.", then I proceed to lay out the disk paritioning that I want using "Manage Volumes (Graphical)."
Once volumes are laid out, I can proceed to install ArcaOS, or use the Blonde Guy Recovery DVD to restore a backed up ArcaOS installation.
With the new 12.07 USB drivers, USB 3.0 is working. I believe most issues are now worked out, but updates to the USB drivers are expected in the future.
The Disk driver is OS2AHCI with native command queueing enabled. UniAud works now works without command line modification.
BASEDEV=OS2AHCI.ADD /N /F /V:2
A fix included in ArcaOS 5.0.1 does allow DOS Full-Screen to work. Alt-Home from a DOS Full-Screen then allows a DOS Window to work.
