Mini-PC ultra small PCs....
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
I use one as a local Team Foundation Server. In the last two years, it's been rock-solid. That means no reboots (other than required by Windows updates), and no data loss.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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I built a Shuttle system some years ago and was more than happy with it. However, for not much more than that price you could probably get a Dell laptop (She and I each have one) that comes complete. And runs Windows 10 with no problems.
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
I have two Intel NUCs, i5-based, 5th gen and 6th gen (both older than the ones you're looking at). With RAM maxed out and a cheap SSD, they're plenty fast. I use the newer (32GB RAM/2TB SSD) to host a crapload of Linux VMs under Hyper-V, and the older one (16GB RAM/512MB SSD) is used to RDP into other machines elsewhere. That one is sitting on my desk, and is running 3 monitors, including a 4K 40" TV. The video chipset is fast enough to play a 1080p video full-screen side-by-side on each monitor independently, although it struggles with an actual 4K video (which is not an impediment for me). Apart from the aforementioned 4K video playback, it's managed to keep up with every task I've ever tried to throw at it--although I'm no gamer either. To be fair, all "big" games nowadays require a dedicated video card, and Intel's video hardware has always been at the bottom of the list. But that doesn't matter to a non-gamer. Bonus: I literally cannot hear it, unless the fan is spinning pretty fast - which it started doing a lot earlier this year until I blew the dust out - and I haven't heard it since. It's not the workload that got it to run hot, it was the dust accumulation. Bottom line - I like 'em *a lot*. [Edit] Yes, both are running Win10. Intel has good drivers for them.
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
For her existing Asus, if there are issues, update the bios. Format the drive fresh install windows, then update the chipset drivers, then do all the other updates, and software installs. That used to be a ritual for any new laptop that came from Dell / Asus / Acer or whoever, just to clear out the sh!te and start fresh and get them running smoothly.
Dave Find Me On:Web|Youtube|Facebook|Twitter|LinkedIn Folding Stats: Team CodeProject
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
From my recent experience with my wife's 6 y/o all-in-one: It came with Win7 home, and had upgraded to Win10. It's always been dog slow and I've hated working with it. Several months ago it started failing to boot/restart with a bsod hardware issue. :sigh: After fighting with it for a few days, I decided it was time for either a new machine, or a clean install of Win10. Of course, she wanted the easiest (more expensive) option of a new all-in-one. I decided to first try a new SSD, another stick of RAM, and clean windows install. If it didn't work, I could use those parts later on anyway. It was an amazing success! Even with just an i3, it is blazingly fast. :) It was also half the price of a new machine. If I'm lucky, it should last another 6 years.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
My wife is happy with her Acer Chromebook, she does not need Windows for surfing and email. Besides she finds Windows too complicated and confusing. https://www.slant.co/topics/9346/viewpoints/4/~chromebooks-for-general-use-around-300~acer-chromebook-11-cb311[^]
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
You have nothing to loose, so try putting Linux on it. Also, max out the ram and put a ssd in it. You can do all the normal stuff (web, mail, etc), and it won't bog you down with corrupted updates.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013 -
For her existing Asus, if there are issues, update the bios. Format the drive fresh install windows, then update the chipset drivers, then do all the other updates, and software installs. That used to be a ritual for any new laptop that came from Dell / Asus / Acer or whoever, just to clear out the sh!te and start fresh and get them running smoothly.
Dave Find Me On:Web|Youtube|Facebook|Twitter|LinkedIn Folding Stats: Team CodeProject
roger that
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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You have nothing to loose, so try putting Linux on it. Also, max out the ram and put a ssd in it. You can do all the normal stuff (web, mail, etc), and it won't bog you down with corrupted updates.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013yeah, not sure I'm going to get her to Linux. There are a couple of applications she uses for her business that are Windows only, although the idea is a good one.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Thanks for the feedback. I think we're due for a full wipe. I refuse to use Windows 10 Home because of it's stupid restrictions and that's what is on it. Add in the bloatware, etc. It actually is relatively well configured with a nice screen, good i% processor and decent memory. But as the updates rolled out of Redmond, it just got worse and worse. So, I bought her an SSD and attempted multiple times to clone the existing drive. The SSD just won't boot. No matter how much support I got from the s/w company providing the clone code (and I tried multiple), there is something Asus has done to the boot process. I've not updated the BIOS, etc, I'll take another crack at it maybe over the Thanksgiving break.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
I've been using a Gigabye Brix (i7, 2.8GHz, 16GB RAM, 500 GB fast-write Samsung SSD) for 3-4 years now. Best decision I ever made. The thing screams. Today, you could get the latest version of the Brix with a 1TB+ SSD, better video (if you need it) and 32GB for about what I paid. Forget Shuttle - they're one of the early ones but I'm so glad I went with a Brix. Large VS solutions open in a blink of an eye. And compiles are fast. I mean really fast! And my box is old. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Be aware that the ones you linked are barebones systems - you will need to add memory and a hard drive (probably SSD) and source your own OS. We use a few of these and while there can be specific issues these should be fine for most things. The codinghorror.com blog entry from 17 Feb 2019 talks about using these type machines for colocating, so I guess they can be made fairly reliable :)
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Thanks for the feedback. I think we're due for a full wipe. I refuse to use Windows 10 Home because of it's stupid restrictions and that's what is on it. Add in the bloatware, etc. It actually is relatively well configured with a nice screen, good i% processor and decent memory. But as the updates rolled out of Redmond, it just got worse and worse. So, I bought her an SSD and attempted multiple times to clone the existing drive. The SSD just won't boot. No matter how much support I got from the s/w company providing the clone code (and I tried multiple), there is something Asus has done to the boot process. I've not updated the BIOS, etc, I'll take another crack at it maybe over the Thanksgiving break.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
My wife has an Asus laptop that got very slow after the latest Windows 10 updates. I decided to clone the HDD to SSD but I had not much time to spend on it, so I tried a free utility (Easeus Todo Backup Free), plugged the SSD to a USB port with a SATA adapter and let it go with the default settings. I saw that the HDD had special Asus partitions so I was expecting trouble, but to my surprise, after swapping the internal HDD with the SSD it booted perfectly. Not sure that an emergency recovery could still work with the cloned partitions, but Windows 10 is working perfectly and much faster. You should give it a try (unless this utility is one of those that you already tried!)
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My wife has an Asus laptop that got very slow after the latest Windows 10 updates. I decided to clone the HDD to SSD but I had not much time to spend on it, so I tried a free utility (Easeus Todo Backup Free), plugged the SSD to a USB port with a SATA adapter and let it go with the default settings. I saw that the HDD had special Asus partitions so I was expecting trouble, but to my surprise, after swapping the internal HDD with the SSD it booted perfectly. Not sure that an emergency recovery could still work with the cloned partitions, but Windows 10 is working perfectly and much faster. You should give it a try (unless this utility is one of those that you already tried!)
Easus and I went round and round. Something about "no, it doesn't work" they could never understand. It has something to do with new device boot conventions. I got tired of the fight. I mean, I would spend 5 hours cloning the disk only to not have the SSD boot. I got exasperated, and she wanted the laptop back.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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Be aware that the ones you linked are barebones systems - you will need to add memory and a hard drive (probably SSD) and source your own OS. We use a few of these and while there can be specific issues these should be fine for most things. The codinghorror.com blog entry from 17 Feb 2019 talks about using these type machines for colocating, so I guess they can be made fairly reliable :)
Good point, I had picked up on a couple of them.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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I'm shopping for a new PC for the wife. She has a fairly new Asus laptop, but the thing is garbage under Windows 10 (lots of startup issues, etc). Sure looked good in the store. So I could build her a custom system, but I came across Intel NUCs and the like - essentially bookside machines. She doesn't game, so this is just a desk workhorse. Examples: Shuttle XPC Slim DH310 Barebone Systems - Mini / Booksize - Newegg.com[^] and Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) BOXNUC8i3BEK1 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com[^] Anyone have any experience with these things?
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
TL;DR - Make sure you get one with an SSD! I've played around with a Byte 3 and another product, don't remember the name and not home to look it up. The Byte 3 came with 32GB storage (I guess one of those microSDHC things) and can be expanded with an actual SSD. The other device has a spinny disk. The difference is night and day -- the processor and RAM are both the same, but the Byte 3 feels like usable computer -- it boots fast and is acceptably responsive to opening applications. Of course, with 32GB of storage, I didn't put much on it, it's real purpose is to be a USB controller for a bunch of devices (turnstyle gate controller, 2 fingerprint readers, and a barcode scanner) and it all works great. The Byte 3 that Amazon sells comes with Windows 10 Pro and is around $250 IIRC. I attached one of those small 640x480 screens to it as well, again, it's not intended as a "work" machine, but definitely useful when not remoting into it, which is my normal operating mode for the Byte3.
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TL;DR - Make sure you get one with an SSD! I've played around with a Byte 3 and another product, don't remember the name and not home to look it up. The Byte 3 came with 32GB storage (I guess one of those microSDHC things) and can be expanded with an actual SSD. The other device has a spinny disk. The difference is night and day -- the processor and RAM are both the same, but the Byte 3 feels like usable computer -- it boots fast and is acceptably responsive to opening applications. Of course, with 32GB of storage, I didn't put much on it, it's real purpose is to be a USB controller for a bunch of devices (turnstyle gate controller, 2 fingerprint readers, and a barcode scanner) and it all works great. The Byte 3 that Amazon sells comes with Windows 10 Pro and is around $250 IIRC. I attached one of those small 640x480 screens to it as well, again, it's not intended as a "work" machine, but definitely useful when not remoting into it, which is my normal operating mode for the Byte3.
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Client-Side TypeScript without ASP.NET, Angular, etc.Thanks Marc, I absolutely concur with the SSD. I have no idea why they even ship spinners by default - probably a price point thing. I have a laptop that is probably 10 years old now - Dell XPS1530. After 3-4 years, I added an SSD, and zoom! Got another couple of years out of it. Dang thing is still running fine (gave it to a family member). Waiting for a machine to boot that has a spinner? I need therapy...
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
