The R90L is larger than a lot of thin clients, standing some 25cm (10") high. In comparison with most thin clients covered on this website it is quite modern, my version being manufactured in February 2010. I believe the range was launched towards the end of 2008 and most were retired by the end of 2012. (See bottom of the page for details).
From Wyse's publicity data:
The new Wyse R90L thin client features high performance central and graphics processors coupled with full support for multiple screens, and the best PC experience available on a thin computing platform with Wyse TCX software.
The Wyse documentation suggest that the R class L family share a common hardware base. The variants are all to do with the amount of flash/RAM fitted and the embedded operating system.
If you compare the specifications for the 'L' and 'LE' you will find two significant differences. The 'LE' includes two additions:
...from which we can deduce the 'E' bit of 'LE' probably stands for 'expansion' capability.
I also note that the 'L' version stands some 250mm high whilst the 'LE' version is 307mm high. I've added some photos to the R90LE tab.
I bought my Wyse R90L back in November 2012. In June 2015 I got an email from Rick who, on the basis of what was documented here, bought an R90L on eBay. When he opened it up he was disappointed to find that there were no PCI or SATA connectors fitted - in fact the board doesn't look as if it is tracked for the SATA connectors. A bit of a bummer as he'd bought it for that expansion capability. It transpired that we'd bought slightly different models - my label is on the left, his is on the right:
At the time Google failed to find me an answer to this anomaly.
I recently (February 2017) spent a while seeing what I could track down. Eventually I found an old Wyse publicity leaflet dated 2008 where the R class 'L' family are shown as being fitted with a 1GHz AMD Sempron processor. In the (undated) Dell Wyse R class publicity leaflet that's the more usual one you come across it's shown as being fitted with a 1.5GHz AMD Sempron processor.
From this it's clear that at some point Wyse updated the hardware without changing the model number. At the time, based on the two labels, I assumed that you need to look at the part number to see what you're getting. (Model numbers and part numbers are at the bottom of the page). I assumed, where there are two part numbers, the lower numbered one is for the earlier model. What's documented here is the later version.
In May 2017 I heard from Timo who sent me photos of his R90LEW (909542-02L, manufactured March 2011) showing it was fitted with a SATA socket. Previously (October 2015) I'd heard from Onno that his R90LEW (Same part# 909542-02L) had no SATA socket. From this I can only deduce that at some point Wyse updated the motherboard to include SATA support without any change in the part number. From the limited information in my possession this would appear to be between July 2009 and February 2010.
The basic specs are:
Processor Type
SpeedAMD Sempron
1GHZ or 1.5GHzMemory
R00L
R10L
R50L
R90L
R90LW
R90L7Flash/RAM
0/1GB or 0/2GB
128MB/512MB
1GB/1GB
1GB/1GB
2GB/1GB
4GB/2GBVideo Chip
Max resolutionAMD ATI 690E
2560 x 1600 32-bit colourPorts Video
Network
USB
Serial
Parallel
PS/21 x DVI-I, 1 x DVI-D
10/100/1000
6 x USB2.0
2
1
Kybd & mousePower Plug
Off
Idle
RunningCoax 5.5mm/2.5mm
1 W
14W
22WDimensions H x W x D (mm) 307 x 82 x 225
Operating systems:
R00L Cloud PC of Wyse WSM. R10L Wyse Thin OS. R50L Suse Linux Enterprise. R90L Microsoft Windows XP Embedded. R90LW Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 2009. R90L7 Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 7.
The power supply is a 19V 3.4A Liteon PSU that requires a clover-leaf style mains lead. Note: The 19V rating. If, like me, you have a number of PSUs and thin clients floating around you need to mark this PSU clearly in some way. I'm sure that those which run from 12V - which is most of them - would not take too kindly to 19V. The coax plug is 5.5mm/2.5mm.
This is fairly straightforward. You need to remove the foot and the two screws towards the rear of the unit - one on the top and one on the bottom. After that the side cover can be slid back and removed. The plastic top and bottom covers are also loose at this time. When re-assembling the unit the one thing you need to remember is that these need to be in place before you slide the cover back on.
The motherboard is marked Rx0Ly and Rx0LEy next to a matrix which I guess must indicate which options are fitted. From this I would assume that the motherboard is common across the R series L/LE versions. The matrix is labelled at the bottom 'mercury' and 'pluto' which I guess must be internal code names for the two product ranges. Some of the internal cabling in the R90L does carry paper labels with 'mercury' printed on them.
There are also a series of small white connectors on the motherboard that probably support various factory-fit options. We have BT CONN, Wi-FI CONN, DEBUG BOARD CONN, and three other anonymous ones. Two of these (CN13 & CN15) are adjacent to the SATA connectors and I assume are there to provide power to any internal SATA devices (SSDs?). (They provide 5V). From a photo of the LE the other one would appear to be the connection point for the parallel port.
The base of the large heatsink is close to the surface of the board so I would assume the chips underneath are mounted directly on the board and are not socketed. I haven't removed the heatsink to check.
For those to whom it matters here is some detail from Linux's /proc/cpuinfo
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 15 model : 111 model name : AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 210U stepping : 2 flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow extd_apicid pni cx16 lahf_lm extapic cr8_legacy 3dnowprefetch
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RS690 Host Bridge 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (Internal gfx) 00:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Device 7914 00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB600 USB (OHCI0) 00:13.1 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB600 USB (OHCI1) 00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB600 USB (OHCI2) 00:13.3 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB600 USB (OHCI3) 00:13.4 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB600 USB (OHCI4) 00:13.5 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB600 USB Controller (EHCI) 00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 14) 00:14.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB600 IDE 00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) 00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge 00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control 01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RS690M [Radeon Xpress 1200/1250/1270] 08:07.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8110SC/8169SC Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)
Click on the photo for a larger version.
Both the Flash memory and the RAM in the R90L are easily replaceable.
Flash: The flash is a "DiskOnModule" that interfaces via a 44-pin IDE connector. In the photo it is the small blue board with the white label.
RAM: The RAM is a 240-pin DDR2 DIMM. The 1GB part fitted to my R90L is a PC2-5300U-555-12-ZZ part (MT8HTF12864AY-667E1). It just so happens that I'd just upgraded the memory in my main Shuttle Computer and so had a 2GB DIMM to hand - PNY 64B0QJTHE8G17. That worked fine. In June 2020 Jamel reported successfully fitting a 4GB PC2-6400U part.
USB: There is a spare header on the circuit board close to the IDE connector. (Yellow blob in the photograph). I plugged a standard 10-pin motherboard-to-two-USB-sockets cable into it and found I'd gained an extra two USB ports. Interestingly these are not mentioned in the R90L technical specification, but that for the LE does say 'four internal USB2.0 ports'.
PCI-E: There is a PCI Express x4 socket.
SATA: There are two SATA sockets on the motherboard each with an adjacent white socket
that could provide power for the SATA device. My brief experience here with the SATA sockets is
that anything plugged into the socket by the IDE connector is ignored - both the BIOS and by
Tiny Core Linux once it has booted. If a drive is plugged into the socket (CN18) near the back
panel, the drive appears in the BIOS against the IDE4 designation.
(See the Firmware tab).
The two white sockets (CN13 & CN15) can used to power the SATA device. On eBay these are described as "4-pin Micro JST 1.25mm" connectors (or similar). Some years ago I picked up a pack of 10 plugs with flying leads for a couple of dollars from a supplier in China. (See here). The +5V supply is on the two pins marked by the ^ symbol on the board.
Well from Wyse's site here is a list of models and when they were retired. I've added a couple of extra columns as to whether or not they have the PCIE socket fitted and SATA support. This is based on information from others. I would expect all LE models to have the PCIE socket fitted.
[May 2017]. I've recently had conflicting reports about the presence/absence of the SATA port on a R90LEW (Part # 909542-02L). This implies you can't rely on just the model number and may have to go by the manufacturing date.
Model Part # EOL PCIE SATA R10L 909531-xxL 8/5/13 Fitted Yes R00L 909529-xxL ?? Not Fitted No R00L 909549-xxL
909559-xxL08/09/12 R00LE 909530-xxL 07/26/12 R00LX 909532-xxL ??/??/?? Yes Yes R50L 909526-xxL 01/24/10 R50L 909546-xxL 11/15/12 Fitted Yes R50LE 909524-xxL 7/26/12 R90L 909527-xxL
909547-xxL04/18/12 Not Fitted
FittedNo
YesR90LE 909525-xxL
909535-xxL04/18/12 R90LE 909560-xxL 04/18/12 R90LEW 909542-xxL 7/26/12 Fitted Yes/No R90LW 909533-xxL
909543-xxL11/15/12 R90L7 909544-xxL 11/15/12 Fitted Yes R90LE7 909545-xxL 7/26/12 Fitted Yes
If you can fill in the blanks above please email me using the link below. (Thank you Hanno-Ivar for being the first to do this).