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
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
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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
Same concept as my My Mac Mini[^] that I use for compiling iOS apps from Visual Studio on my Windows laptop.
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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 had a Intel NUC with an i5 CPU, W10 pro, 16G Ram, 2T D drive, and a Plextor PX 128S3G C/Boot drive, since late march 2018. Other then thermal problems(throttle events - it is fanless), I've had few problems that aren't self-induced. I wish it had had a larger boot drive, but this is what I had the money to buy with. If you do go with a 'bare-bones' Intel NUC from Newegg, make sure you get the motherboard with an Iris plus 655 graphics chip. The I+ 640 is a weenie POS, and with the i5 tends to choke & over heat when I run some of my security scans, such as Adlice 'RogueKiller', or when I rip a dvd. So I always run CPUID HWmonitor and task manager/resource monitor, CPUID HW is so much more versatile free tool then any thing else I know of.The OTHER thermal mitigation I've done is jerry-rig/duct tape the upholstery tool from my vacuum cleaner and run my vac as a make-shift fan - a very large & noisy fan. So if I ever can save enough to get a NUC with an i7, 32g ram, 2T M2 ssd's, I'm looking for a 4in square - 2in high perforated or extruded...thing that a fan, or much smaller vac, can be attached to. Or Intel can put better thermal paste/larger heat sink on the CPU??? Ya think? My poor little NUC looks like a mutant rino tipped on it's side.
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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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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.
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DaveAuld wrote:
For her existing Asus, if there are issues, update the bios
I second this recommendation -- in the last year I've had several PC problems that were solved by updating the BIOS. Pre-installed PCs (laptop and desktop) come with a scary amount of garbage installed, doesn't matter who the vendor is. Re-installing Windows from scratch cures many evils.