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The MiniPC Revolution

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Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#81

Post by jauntywundrkind »

ortusdux wrote: post #14
kccqzy wrote: post #4

> You can get MiniPCs with 4-6 internal M.2 slots that are great for building a NAS with. Where can I find that? My current Intel NUC has two M.2 slots and a SATA connection. If I were to relax the definition of a MiniPC to include mini ITX then yes I can find these, but given how the author talks about being all-in-one, I doubt the author is talking about mini ITX builds.

https://www.bee-link.com/products/beelink-me-mini-n150 Currently in Pre-order, but $210 for 6 slots and an N150

There's been a lot of recent offerings like this. Beelink is a pretty great company so this one is particularly tempting, and the form factor is cute as hell.

One thing to note in this recent trend is that these designs mostly use the Alder Lake-N / "Twin Lake" cores, which are quad low-power E-cores (still adequate). But more critically, there's only 9 lanes PCIe 3.0! And some of those lanes need to go to networking, be it ethernet and/or wifi! Often there'll be 1x PCIe lane per SSD. Given that it's a NAS running maybe dual 2.5Gbit, this isn't catastrophically bad (1x can do 8Gb/s), but conceptually I find it a bit dismaying anyhow. https://www.techpowerup.com/cpu-specs/processor-n150.c4109

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#82

Post by [deleted] »

kylemaxwell wrote: post #30

These look like fun technology, but I don’t even know what the use cases would be anymore. I don’t need something to control my lights: I have an actual light switch for that. I don’t have endless terabytes of media that I need to serve within my household, so I just don’t know anymore what I would use this stuff for. Twenty or thirty years ago, I loved having a home lab, but these days I’m just not sure what I would…

[deleted]

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#83

Post by jauntywundrkind »

shadowpho wrote: post #42
kccqzy wrote: post #4

> You can get MiniPCs with 4-6 internal M.2 slots that are great for building a NAS with. Where can I find that? My current Intel NUC has two M.2 slots and a SATA connection. If I were to relax the definition of a MiniPC to include mini ITX then yes I can find these, but given how the author talks about being all-in-one, I doubt the author is talking about mini ITX builds.

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/almost-perfect-mini-n...

I do think the Beelink Jeff mentions in this other post shows a lot more promise, with a much more serious cooling solution. It also holds 6x SSD! https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/mini-nases-marry-nvme...

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#84

Post by dgfitz »

ibaikov wrote: post #13

I agree and already got two minipcs I selfhost a lot of stuff now. I just now realized it is basically the future Gabe Newell predicted and wanted to make with Steam Machines [1], but he was wrong by targeting gamers and a little too early (perhaps?). Maybe they will succeed precisely because of this revolution. I got soooo tired setting up a gaming system for parties on my projector. There are so many various proble…

> I want plug and play, but consoles have their own problems and limitations.

How so? A console is literally a gaming PC.

I can see the point of “need multiple consoles because game X isn’t on console Y” or “I’d like to play an RTS/MMO that isn’t on a console” but since you mentioned gamepads that point mostly dies.

I also haven’t ever had a PS5 or Switch controller lose link from a console because someone walks or stands between myself and the console.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#85

Post by giardini »

tenacious_tuna wrote: post #77
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does a "dead light" mean in this context? Your landlord isn't changing your bulbs? I've mostly lived in 100+ year old homes with old janky wiring and have never had a light fixture die, just bulbs.

Not OP, but I'm in a similar situation: I have a two-way switched pair of lights on my stairwell, one light at the base, one at the top. The one at the top does not work. We've tried replacing the bulb, we've tried fiddling with the cable for it (it's a suspended lamp). It hasn't worked since we moved in. We've told the landlord twice, he said he'd call his guy, his guy hasn't shown up. I would like to have a light i…

Been there, seen that. Some notes:

- the two-way switched lights may have never worked as intended. So no matter what you do with the endpoints it may never work.

- doing it yourself is a waste of time and money. You'll learn nothing of value and will toss it all in the end.

-Proper solution is to hire a certified electrician who is familiar with two-way lights to fix/replace the current wiring.

If you rent, pay the electrician and send the bill to the landlord. Keep a copy. If landlord hasn't paid by the time you move out, bill him for the price. If he stiffs you, sue him in small claims court - he'll pay or you'll win.

Cheapest fix: run an extension cord with a bulb to the upstairs light, turn it on and leave it on all the time. Electricity is cheap, bulbs efficient. Having a light on inside keeps burglars away, esp. bathroom lights (according to Malcolm X).

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#86

Post by mcny »

fckgw wrote: post #25
mcny wrote: post #19

My minisforum mini PC died within two years seemingly our of the blue. Support won't return my emails.

Same issue here. Just no power at all.

Reddit threads suggest MOSFET problems are common among mini PCs. Any ideas?

This is especially frustrating because I have an ancient dell optiplex and dell precision with i3-2100 and i3-5xx that still work. I occasionally need to open the box to reseat the ram for whatever reason after a power failure but by an large these machines are over ten years old!

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#87

Post by micromacrofoot »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #73
micromacrofoot wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you've only ever worked with pleasant landlords who don't have dangerous electrical work in their apartments, but this is not my experience

Plugging a floor lamp into a bathroom electrical socket is going to reduce your danger?

code requires a GFCI socket in a bathroom, which if functioning would be safer than mucking around in an unknown wall receptacle, but YMMV

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#88

Post by jauntywundrkind »

> Put that in perspective with high-end machines with hardware concerned with performance and not power draw, that can easily idle at 100W.

I've been trying to optimize my desktop's power consumption. At the beginning of the year I put the kill-a-watt on it and was shocked to see it was using 115W idle! I got it to 90W pretty quickly with some minor Linux tuning but was still pretty unhappy to see so much idle load. Recently though, I've got it idling at 57W, which makes me feel much better about it (although more than I'd want for a 24/7 load). 5700X cpu and RDNA4 9070XT video card.

Dialing down unnecessary cooling helped more than I would have guessed. Under-volting the GPU -30mV may have helped but I'm not sure. Adjusting every governor I could find to powersave helps of course, and doesn't feel noticeably different. A lot I think is just that the new tuned daemon is way way way better at it's job than previous solutions like tlp was. I did have some problems with my Crucial P3+ NVMe drive not liking "powersupersave" PCIe Active State Power Management (aspm), but most improvements were a kernel setting away, and tuned really seemed to do .

One of the thing I really love about modern computing is that I can just dial in power consumption under load. With the new RDNA4 video card, I was seeing 450W power consumption when gaming. But I can open CoreCtrl and tell it, no, use 70W, and for surprisingly little FPS hit my system is now down to ~155W. (Still looking for more control in Linux for the CPU!)

It is lovely that there are all these mini-PC's, many of which will idle at ~10W! But definitely worth noting that power consumption on desktop is much more configurable than it used to be.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#89

Post by greysonp »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #35
giardini wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It likely means the OP has poor handyman skills and wisely has chosen not to learn by him/her self due to safety hazard. After all, these circuits are usually ~110 volts and there is almost always an unintended ground nearby (a water or gas pipe, a wet bathtub, etc.).

Learn how to change a lightbulb? Is that a handyman level skill?

I have no idea what the specific situation is, but in my old rental, the ceiling lights weren't traditional bulbs -- they were custom dome fixtures with non-replaceable lighting elements. When mine went out, I had to wait for my landlord to buy a replacement.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#90

Post by fransje26 »

JdeBP wrote: post #50
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does a "dead light" mean in this context? Your landlord isn't changing your bulbs? I've mostly lived in 100+ year old homes with old janky wiring and have never had a light fixture die, just bulbs.

In fairness, note that in some countries (like mine) there are tighter regulations for electrical circuitry in rooms with baths and showers, which require work in that sort of area (problems with the pull switch, a joint box, or the ceiling rose, for example) to be done or at least overseen by a qualified electrician. They're known as "Part P" in the United Kingdom. * https://gov.uk/government/publications/electrical…

> in the United Kingdom

Don't forget to earth all your water pipes to ground, and only use sockets that are water-rated to resist biblical floods.

I remember being intrigued by a big 40 x 40 cm plastic box on the outside wall of the cabin we were staying at in the UK. Opening the movable front-flap revealed 1 (one) 220V power socket, protected on all sides with enough rubber and plastic to seal a submarine hatch. I had absolutely no doubt it fully complied with all the norms of health and safety..

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