$70 Dual LAN Mini PC w/ i3-1115G4, 8GB, internal PSU

[Rannoch]

The CPU fan is almost silent in mine.
The case fan is the killer so you might double check which blower the noise is coming from.

I tried a few 5v blower fans with dropping diodes but ultimately I 3d printed a new bottom plate with space for an 80x15 fan.

 

[OstJoker]

Hmm, nice job! I can hear my working PC from another room, really loud for a tiny PC!
I bought three Intel Core i3 units, planning to use them as office PCs for light Internet browsing and MS Office. I really don't want to DIY anything.
If the source of the noise is not the CPU fan, then I could probably open the case and just disconnect the optional case fan.
Thank you!

 

[vertycall]

@OstJoker
A solution was proposed earlier in this thread - to use a low noise adapter like Noctua NA-RC10 50Ω but there are other alternatives. I personally decided to simply disconnect the noisy system fan above the memory and put heatsink on the NVME drive. With the box vertically standing and only CPU fan running (which i cant hear even near the pc), the temperatures in idle proxmox are:

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0: +42.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0: +41.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1: +40.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

acpitz-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
temp1: +27.8°C

nvme-pci-0100
Adapter: PCI adapter
Composite: +47.9°C (low = -273.1°C, high = +69.8°C)
(crit = +79.8°C)

These values are measured in room temp ~25' C.

 

[rkrenicki]

Any solution for the LOUD CPU FAN noise?
Did anyone found BIOS newer than F2?

I bought three of these. Two are pretty much dead silent, and one has a bit of noise, but not too bad. They have manufacture dates ranging from 2022 to 2024. They all have BIOS version F2, but I did save it using the flash utility for another Gigabyte MTG series board. Here is a zip of the BIOS and the EFI flash utility for posterity: MTGU3CS-SD.F2.2021.07.29.bin.zip

 

[OstJoker]

I opened case and after disconnecting optional fan connected to SATAPWR port it become silent too and I am pretty happy now.
Big chance that F2 BIOS is the only version exist for this PCs.
I was surprised by the presence of a SIM card slot on the motherboard.

 

[rkrenicki]

I opened case and after disconnecting optional fan connected to SATAPWR port it become silent too and I am pretty happy now.
Big chance that F2 BIOS is the only version exist for this PCs.
I was surprised by the presence of a SIM card slot on the motherboard.

I am not sure if disconnecting the fan is the best idea. The system is somewhat warm for me as it is with a working fan.
That is very likely that there was never a newer BIOS than that. Figured it was still a good idea to have it available for either corrupted units or for those interested in hacking away at it.
The SIM slot is not super unexpected since there is a miniPCIe slot. I have a different Seneca signage product where its primary intended access method was via 4G modem that was installed. I am sure that it was also an option on these.

 

[OstJoker]

Most PC components are pretty OK under 60-70°C, so being "warm" is not a problem at all. SATA SSDs usually are not hot either, so there is nothing to worry about on that side of the motherboard, especially in a full metal case with some ventilation holes. Everything depends on the use case — I will definitely keep a fan running in 24/7 Proxmox / home server setup, but for an office desktop with light use, just a CPU fan should be an OK option.

 

[Wellington]

A former co-worker of mine shared this thread with me today, and let me just say that reading through this brought a huge smile to my face. I'm the former design engineer for Seneca's digital signage products, and the Element was one of my last major designs from my 12ish years there. I'm just so happy to see folks giving it a new lease on life, and finding creative and fun ways to make this product work for them.

I know a lot of the questions/comments/efforts here are a bit aged, but if anyone currently has any questions or are stuck on anything - feel free to reach out! I would be happy to help if I can.

Something that stuck out to me from reading through this.. it seems the fan is a bit problematic for home use, and truthfully, that was put there so we could hit a higher ambient temperature metric for certain customers installing these in tricky environments. If your workloads exist in an air conditioned environment, and you're not punishing your SSD on a regular basis, you can remove that fan entirely. It was simply meant to keep the SSD and memory cooler in installations over ~35C ambient.

Additionally, it seems most folks here have a fanned version of the chassis - if any of you would like to take advantage of that HDMI input knock-out on the front, you can very easily install the Magewell EcoCapture HDMI 4K M.2 card with it's panel-mount HDMI port - that's what this was designed around:

Eco Capture HDMI 4K M.2 - Magewell

Eco Capture HDMI 4K M.2

www.magewell.com

... you'll just need to run your storage on the mSATA

Finally, I just want to say thank you to this community for making someone smile today. It's been wonderful seeing the internet make these devices their own

- Frank

 

[Beaflag VonRathburg]

- Frank

Welcome Frank,

It's nice to see the way these threads get out and about to the real world. At a previous employer we exclusively used Seneca players for digital signage. We had thousands of FLX and N3350D models across the country, many in creative installation spots like you mention. It was always fun trying to explain to an on-site technician you wanted them to find the machine, you didn't know where it was, and that following cables was probably the best bet. I still happen to have one old FLX here hanging around the house that ran KODI for years. Once they started getting old, failing or being unable to keep up with the playback requirements we started replacing the FLX with XK-1.3 models around 2017-2018. Thank you for making those XK-1.3 models easier and require less steps to open. Them being socketable was a consideration for longevity purposes as well.

 

[marcoi]

A former co-worker of mine shared this thread with me today, and let me just say that reading through this brought a huge smile to my face. I'm the former design engineer for Seneca's digital signage products, and the Element was one of my last major designs from my 12ish years there. I'm just so happy to see folks giving it a new lease on life, and finding creative and fun ways to make this product work for them.

I know a lot of the questions/comments/efforts here are a bit aged, but if anyone currently has any questions or are stuck on anything - feel free to reach out! I would be happy to help if I can.

Something that stuck out to me from reading through this.. it seems the fan is a bit problematic for home use, and truthfully, that was put there so we could hit a higher ambient temperature metric for certain customers installing these in tricky environments. If your workloads exist in an air conditioned environment, and you're not punishing your SSD on a regular basis, you can remove that fan entirely. It was simply meant to keep the SSD and memory cooler in installations over ~35C ambient.

Additionally, it seems most folks here have a fanned version of the chassis - if any of you would like to take advantage of that HDMI input knock-out on the front, you can very easily install the Magewell EcoCapture HDMI 4K M.2 card with it's panel-mount HDMI port - that's what this was designed around:

Eco Capture HDMI 4K M.2 - Magewell

Eco Capture HDMI 4K M.2

www.magewell.com

... you'll just need to run your storage on the mSATA

Finally, I just want to say thank you to this community for making someone smile today. It's been wonderful seeing the internet make these devices their own

- Frank

Any idea on finding bios updates? Just curious if any exist out there.

 

[rkrenicki]

Hello Frank, it is great to see you here!

if any of you would like to take advantage of that HDMI input knock-out on the front, you can very easily install the Magewell EcoCapture HDMI 4K M.2 card with it's panel-mount HDMI port - that's what this was designed around:

Out of curiosity, what was the intended use case for the HDMI Capture? Was it to do some sort of live overlay?

 

[epicurean]

I am unable to power up one of the 2 units I have. I can see the the LAN port lights blinking when an ethernet cable is plugged in, and there is a led light internally lit but it just cannot power up with the power button. The wire connection form power button to the motherboard seem fine.
How should I trouble shoot this?

The other unit powers up as it should with the power button

 

[Wellington]

Welcome Frank,

It's nice to see the way these threads get out and about to the real world. At a previous employer we exclusively used Seneca players for digital signage. We had thousands of FLX and N3350D models across the country, many in creative installation spots like you mention. It was always fun trying to explain to an on-site technician you wanted them to find the machine, you didn't know where it was, and that following cables was probably the best bet. I still happen to have one old FLX here hanging around the house that ran KODI for years. Once they started getting old, failing or being unable to keep up with the playback requirements we started replacing the FLX with XK-1.3 models around 2017-2018. Thank you for making those XK-1.3 models easier and require less steps to open. Them being socketable was a consideration for longevity purposes as well.

Wow - that is really wonderful to hear! I'm glad you got so much use out of those devices. I wish I got to see more of the end-locations these things got jammed into - it's always fun to randomly find one in the wild hanging on for it's life from the back a screen!

That XK-FLX was such an interesting product! We learned so much from the development of our early fanless NUC-based media player, and brought a lot of that goodness to the FLX - but with more approachable price-point. That became more popular than we really thought it would.

The 1.3 was really a one-of-a-kind device - that copper heatsink my predecessor developed really allowed us to keep true to the "thin" aspect of a thin mini-ITX. That sliding lid was nice touch too. Interestingly enough, that whole thing started based on an Intel-manufactured DH61AG motherboard. When Intel stopped manufacturing desktop boards to focus on the NUC, ASUS thankfully kept providing a similar model so we could keep updating it over the years.

Any idea on finding bios updates? Just curious if any exist out there.

I think F2 was the latest BIOS base.. there may have been an F2a, and potentially an F3 (trying to rack my brain), but they would be pretty old at this point, and I don't imagine they would provide any incredibly useful features or compatibility changes. I'll see if I have one of my MTGU3CS dev boards laying around and see what's on that.

FWIW, the board inside was a custom spin-off from a similar model from GigaIPC's QBiP Tiger Lake 3.5" SBCs, so there wouldn't have been any "public" BIOS dev for this specific board, and their other devices may be just different enough that trying their BIOS may have adverse affects.

Hello Frank, it is great to see you here!



Out of curiosity, what was the intended use case for the HDMI Capture? Was it to do some sort of live overlay?

Exactly! Quite a few of our signage customers wanted to bring an HDMI source into the device so they could incorporate it into their content. Outside of Brightsign, that was a relatively rare feature in a small form-factor device - and if you needed Windows, you were likely looking at a system that can house a PCIe card.

We also played in the lecture capture space, and those customers were looking for a smaller device to mount inside the lectern so the speaker could plug in their laptop in and have their presentation captured and displayed.

 

[Wellington]

I am unable to power up one of the 2 units I have. I can see the the LAN port lights blinking when an ethernet cable is plugged in, and there is a led light internally lit but it just cannot power up with the power button. The wire connection form power button to the motherboard seem fine.
How should I trouble shoot this?

The other unit powers up as it should with the power button

Interesting.. it would be incredibly rare for the power button to fail, but not impossible. It's worth pulling the cable from the board's front panel header (multi-color 2x5 block header) and jumping pins 6 & 8 to see if it spins up:


It seems to at least be getting standby power. Are you using the same power adapter for both systems? Or is this the internal power supply version?

 

[epicurean]

Interesting.. it would be incredibly rare for the power button to fail, but not impossible. It's worth pulling the cable from the board's front panel header (multi-color 2x5 block header) and jumping pins 6 & 8 to see if it spins up:
View attachment 45687

It seems to at least be getting standby power. Are you using the same power adapter for both systems? Or is this the internal power supply version?

Thank you Frank. This is the internal power supply version that I have
I will see if i can jump the pins as you suggested

 

[Wellington]

Thank you Frank. This is the internal power supply version that I have
I will see if i can jump the pins as you suggested

Please be careful working inside the internal power version while it has active power. That little guy can provide you with a nice shock, as it's effectively a DC power adapter without it's protective shell.

While you're in there, double-check the integrity of the cable going from the power supply to the DC input header. There were variants that had an extension solution instead of a longer cable, and at times those pins at the mating connection could come unseated.

 

[Auggie]

I'm just so happy to see folks giving it a new lease on life, and finding creative and fun ways to make this product work for them.

Welcome Frank!

I am using two of these. One is running my Home Assistant install and the other is being used for multimedia projection for a local non-profit. I love the design, especially the internal power supply.

 

[epicurean]

Interesting.. it would be incredibly rare for the power button to fail, but not impossible. It's worth pulling the cable from the board's front panel header (multi-color 2x5 block header) and jumping pins 6 & 8 to see if it spins up:
View attachment 45687

It seems to at least be getting standby power. Are you using the same power adapter for both systems? Or is this the internal power supply version?

Bad news. Jumping pins 6 & 8 didnt work/power up

 

[Dhiru]

Can anyone confirm if the internal PSU supports 240V? I am pretty sure an SMPS should do 120/240V, but just want to confirm beforehand.

EDIT: Nevermind, looking at the new eBay listing images up close, it seems to be 100-240V labelled at the power socket.

 

[Wellington]

Bad news. Jumping pins 6 & 8 didnt work/power up

How does the integrity of the yellow/black cable running from the PSU to the DC-input on the board look?

You mentioned LEDs when you plug it in - the PSUs green LED should come on when power is applied. Does it go out when pushing the power button?

Can anyone confirm if the internal PSU supports 240V? I am pretty sure an SMPS should do 120/240V, but just want to confirm beforehand.

EDIT: Nevermind, looking at the new eBay listing images up close, it seems to be 100-240V labelled at the power socket.

I can confirm the internal PSU is designed to function at a minimum of 90VAC and a maximum of 264VAC - all good with 240V.