EXPIRED Acer J4125 Desktop - $88

[autoturk]

Not sure if this is STH worthy, but there's a cheap J4125 based Acer refurbished desktop which has a PCIE 16x (physical) slot, but it is likely PCIe 2.0 and speed is unclear. Might make a good pfsense box for parents, and/or a wyse 5070 alternative (though bigger in size, obviously, but easier to upgrade). Relevant specs are:

• XC-830-UW91
• Intel J4125
• 4 GB of SODIMM Ram
• 256 GB M.2 NVME drive
• 65 watt PSU

Pardon Our Interruption...

 

[WANg]

Aspire XC-830? eBay refurb?
Kinda big for a Wyse 5070 alternative (8L instead of 1.5L).

 

[Sogndal94]

I guess an link would be usefull

 

[autoturk]

I guess an link would be usefull

Apologies. am an idiot.

 

[autoturk]

Aspire XC-830? eBay refurb?
Kinda big for a Wyse 5070 alternative (8L instead of 1.5L).

agreed - you get easier upgrades for that (can add 3.5" or 2.5" disk), but yes, lots of wasted space inside the enclosure (not my photo). I should've probably said something like a SFF optiplex, but those don't come w/ a J-series chip:

 

[Samir]

agreed - you get easier upgrades for that (can add 3.5" or 2.5" disk), but yes, lots of wasted space inside the enclosure (not my photo). I should've probably said something like a SFF optiplex, but those don't come w/ a J-series chip:

Yep, these were an attempt to use laptop-type tech in a desktop system for the purpose of selling cheap, capable, but limited systems. This didn't really go over well (surprise surprise), so it's interesting that these can be used as a nice low-powered box for something like pfsense while still having enough expandability unlike the thin clients. Nice find imo. The optical drive is worth at least $20 on its own.

But the price up from $88 to $99, probably some of The STH Effect™ at work...

 

[autoturk]

Yep, these were an attempt to use laptop-type tech in a desktop system for the purpose of selling cheap, capable, but limited systems. This didn't really go over well (surprise surprise), so it's interesting that these can be used as a nice low-powered box for something like pfsense while still having enough expandability unlike the thin clients. Nice find imo. The optical drive is worth at least $20 on its own.

But the price up from $88 to $99, probably some of The STH Effect™ at work...

What would you do with the optical drive in this day and age?

Also it's $88 during checkout. There's a 12% "coupon" that activates when you are checking out.

 

[autoturk]

It's interesting that these can be used as a nice low-powered box for something like pfsense while still having enough expandability unlike the thin clients. Nice find imo.

Wondering if it's worth experimenting with 10GB-ish routing on this. There seems to be a ton of different takes on what is required for 10gb, and maybe it's worth tinkering with it. It's not too far off from a xeon d-1250 in passmark (used here). I"m assuming the PCIe lanes would be the main constraint. I have some X520-DA2 on the way - might just play with it for kicks.

J4125 seems to run a basic firewall okay at 2.5 Gb: https://www.servethehome.com/inexpe...rewall-box-review-intel-j4125-i225-pfsense/2/

 

[Samir]

What would you do with the optical drive in this day and age?

Also it's $88 during checkout. There's a 12% "coupon" that activates when you are checking out.

I still use them for my CD/DVDs. I also find it easier to just have one of these for booting live cds as it's so much easier to write the iso to media and then just have it work.

Ah, I missed that. Unfortunately, you can't add it to the cart any more as The STH Effect™ has taken full effect--all sold out!

 

[Samir]

Wondering if it's worth experimenting with 10GB-ish routing on this. There seems to be a ton of different takes on what is required for 10gb, and maybe it's worth tinkering with it. It's not too far off from a xeon d-1250 in passmark (used here). I"m assuming the PCIe lanes would be the main constraint. I have some X520-DA2 on the way - might just play with it for kicks.

J4125 seems to run a basic firewall okay at 2.5 Gb: https://www.servethehome.com/inexpe...rewall-box-review-intel-j4125-i225-pfsense/2/

This would be interesting if it did run ful 10Gb or how close it could get to that. But I think anything north of 5Gb might be a bit of a stretch since it is literally over 30% slower in single thread operations:

Intel Xeon D-1521 vs Celeron J4125 [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

The flip side is that the cpu uses only 10w vs 45w for the d-1521.

 

[Cruzader]

Not sure if this is STH worthy, but there's a cheap J4125 based Acer refurbished desktop which has a PCIE 16x (physical) slot, but it is likely PCIe 2.0 and speed is unclear.

Tends to be gen2 x1 as that cpu only has 6 lanes and most gone to add other stuff.

There are some j5005/j5040 boards at 20-30$ also.
but you want to get onto 6000 series to get gen3 and more lanes.

 

[autoturk]

Tends to be gen2 x1 as that cpu only has 6 lanes and most gone to add other stuff.

There are some j5005/j5040 boards at 20-30$ also.
but you want to get onto 6000 series to get gen3 and more lanes.

yeah you're likely right. Mind pointing to the $20-30 boards for the 5000 series?

 

[Cruzader]

yeah you're likely right. Mind pointing to the $20-30 boards for the 5000 series?

For J5005 i got a few lots like these, running 4 boards per 75/90w laptop charger.
30-40$ area for single boards and usualy always lots listed at 20-30$ per.
(got 1 of that exact lot accepted at 125 when they had them at 150)

inspiron 3252 (n3000 stuff with ddr3) ive gotten at 8-9$ per board in lots of 5.

 

[Sacrilego]

Oh snap, we got a bunch of these at work.
We bought these because my boss saw "Quad core" and they were ridiculously cheap compared to a standard desktop.
They're ok for the most basic desktop work. Way too slow for my taste. We're practically throwing (recycling) them away right now.
I kept a few.

 

[EasyRhino]

s, lots of wasted space inside the enclosure (not my photo).

wow that's a gargantuan amount of wasted space

 

[Gio]

is the PCI 3.0 x8 at least?

 

[Sogndal94]

is the PCI 3.0 x8 at least?

Nope. Intel® Celeron® Processor J4125 (4M Cache, up to 2.70 GHz) - Product Specifications | Intel

 

[Gio]

Nope. Intel® Celeron® Processor J4125 (4M Cache, up to 2.70 GHz) - Product Specifications | Intel

thanks - these became available on eBay again but I think I am going to sit this one out and spend another $100 for a Jasper Lake aliexpress instead.