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

[Bert]

This looks like a great deal at $60 but is there any advantage of me having this over a laptop with similar 10th gen i3 CPU? I assume this is quieter and 11th gen i3s are 10% more powerful but that shouldn't matter so much . Will it much better at power consumption due to simplified electronics?

I assume this will be a great HTPC which can drive any codec including HVEC .H265 at 4K but then many other hardware can do that and not sure if i3 can handle youtube.

It is very cheap but just don't want to buy one more PC because it is cheap.

 

[epicurean]

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?

The yellow/black cable i believe is the earth cable? It connects the power plug to the chassis.
The PSU LED is also lit, so there is standby power. Pushing the power button does nothing

What can I do to salvage this?

 

[SnJ9MX]

It is very cheap but just don't want to buy one more PC because it is cheap.

Sure you do! It could be a great router box. That said, also looking at Dell Wyse 5070 extended with a new NIC

 

[plony]

any clues of how to reset the bios password?
doesn't seem like there's any "clear cmos" jumper and the old-timer of removing the battery didn't yield any success.

 

[epicurean]

Anyone got any suggestions to salvage my set which is not powering up?

 

[lightsword]

Anyone got any suggestions to salvage my set which is not powering up?

If you're both comfortable taking your life in your hands, and comfortable probing voltage points, you could probe the DC voltage connections going to the motherboard and see what voltage you get. This is inherently dangerous so don't try this unless you know what you're doing and how to do this safely!

If that fails, you could always reach out to the seller and ask them if they could replace it. I had 1 out of 4 DOA for me, but mine had no lights at all, and no response. I contacted the seller, and they offered to refund me the money, and when asked, they were willing to send a replacement system instead. The replacement came alive fine and all 4 are working currently.

I'm trying to set up a HA OPNSense cluster, and that's kicking my ass in more ways than one, but I'm getting better little by little! I've added a I226-V 2.5gbit NIC to the units, and am ordering additional SSDs to use for bootdisks. I'm currently planning to run a 3 way Proxmox/CEPH cluster, with one dedicated WAN NIC, the second original NIC for management and HA/CEPH and the third 2.5G NIC as the LAN interfaces to my swiam.

I'm aware CEPH wants 10G for the links, but it's apparently feasible to do on 1gig just maybe not as fast as most people would prefer. If needed, I can Laays switch the 2.5g to CEPH and use the secondary gig to connect to the LAN.

Hopefully this will all work out, and will make sense in how I've described it. I'll plan to post pics once I get the new SSDs installed, and the systems back in my homelab rack.

Frank, thank you for all your hard work to help design and upkeep these units, and I'll post pics once they're a little farther along in the process!

 

[TS440]

Removed

 

[rkrenicki]

I've added a I226-V 2.5gbit NIC to the units, and am ordering additional SSDs to use for bootdisks.

Which I226-V card did you end up going with? I need a 2.5g NIC for the E-key slot, but the I226 card I bought was flat out unrecognized, and the RTL8125B card stopped working after a few days. I would love to get a reliable option to go into that slot.

mPCIe and the M-key slots are used by SSDs for me, so the E-key is the only one I have to work with.

 

[nandEater]

the seller still has them available $65 just bought one
ebay

 

[nandEater]

Which I226-V card did you end up going with? I need a 2.5g NIC for the E-key slot, but the I226 card I bought was flat out unrecognized, and the RTL8125B card stopped working after a few days. I would love to get a reliable option to go into that slot.

mPCIe and the M-key slots are used by SSDs for me, so the E-key is the only one I have to work with.

would this one work?
link

 

[nandEater]

I think it doesn't make much sense to spend a lot of money putting 2.5G nics in one of these. By the time you've bought 2 2.5G nics and adapters you could have just bought a 2 port 2.5 mini pc like this.

 

[sfpspf]

I just bought one... they look great. Now to wait for the international shipping...

 

[Arvind]

> Nvme drive works when replacing the original drive, make sure to set jumper from sata to pcie.
@marcoi could you clarify where this jumper is? Thanks in advance.

 

[nandEater]

> Nvme drive works when replacing the original drive, make sure to set jumper from sata to pcie.
@marcoi could you clarify where this jumper is? Thanks in advance.

I circled it in the photo.

 

[rkrenicki]

I circled it in the photo.

Isnt that for the miniPCIe slot? I put a NVME drive in the M.2 M-key slot without having to change any jumpers.

 

[Valve1138]

These would make good little Ubiquiti Unifi controllers.

I should not buy one…..

 

[nandEater]

These would make good little Ubiquiti Unifi controllers.

I should not buy one…..

Guys he definitely bought one.

 

[nandEater]

Mine arrived today. It automatically signs it then after a few seconds the digital signage starts displaying. When I try and exit the sign program the screen goes black. Anyone know how to exit the signage program?

 

[nandEater]

I was hoping it was a PWM fan header and could be controlled through the bios but having (hopefully) both 12v and 5v available on that header makes future mods easier.

I might re-case the system for an HTPC if I could run a Blu-ray drive off that header.

there are gpio pins you could create a pwm signal on

 

[Wellington]

any clues of how to reset the bios password?
doesn't seem like there's any "clear cmos" jumper and the old-timer of removing the battery didn't yield any success.

How long are you leaving the battery out? A CMOS clear should reset the password

Anyone got any suggestions to salvage my set which is not powering up?

Everything looks good inside the system - I would suggest pulling cables like serial, audio, fan, and seeing if there's a short there. If that doesn't expose anything, you could pull the SSD and try to boot as well. Next would be memory, just to at least see if you can get it to power on. If these steps don't work, it's likely you unfortunately have a DOA

If you're both comfortable taking your life in your hands, and comfortable probing voltage points, you could probe the DC voltage connections going to the motherboard and see what voltage you get. This is inherently dangerous so don't try this unless you know what you're doing and how to do this safely!

If that fails, you could always reach out to the seller and ask them if they could replace it. I had 1 out of 4 DOA for me, but mine had no lights at all, and no response. I contacted the seller, and they offered to refund me the money, and when asked, they were willing to send a replacement system instead. The replacement came alive fine and all 4 are working currently.

I'm trying to set up a HA OPNSense cluster, and that's kicking my ass in more ways than one, but I'm getting better little by little! I've added a I226-V 2.5gbit NIC to the units, and am ordering additional SSDs to use for bootdisks. I'm currently planning to run a 3 way Proxmox/CEPH cluster, with one dedicated WAN NIC, the second original NIC for management and HA/CEPH and the third 2.5G NIC as the LAN interfaces to my swiam.

I'm aware CEPH wants 10G for the links, but it's apparently feasible to do on 1gig just maybe not as fast as most people would prefer. If needed, I can Laays switch the 2.5g to CEPH and use the secondary gig to connect to the LAN.

Hopefully this will all work out, and will make sense in how I've described it. I'll plan to post pics once I get the new SSDs installed, and the systems back in my homelab rack.

Frank, thank you for all your hard work to help design and upkeep these units, and I'll post pics once they're a little farther along in the process!

Sounds like an awesome project!

Isnt that for the miniPCIe slot? I put a NVME drive in the M.2 M-key slot without having to change any jumpers.

I can confirm the jumper is for the MiniPCIe/mSATA slot - there wasn't the ability to add a auto-detecting multiplexer to that slot, so a jumper is used to determine PCIe or SATA.

Mine arrived today. It automatically signs it then after a few seconds the digital signage starts displaying. When I try and exit the sign program the screen goes black. Anyone know how to exit the signage program?

Curiously.. can you tell what signage software it is? I'll be honest, those signage suites have all sorts of watchdogs and other monitoring apps that do everything they can to keep the signage up in case something closes/minimizes it, so you may be better off just blowing away the OS and starting fresh. The system should be licensed for Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021, so you should just be able to reload that and it will be activated.

there are gpio pins you could create a pwm signal on

Clever idea!