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C**N
Good little computers, except for wifi
I purchased two of these units about 2 weeks apart. The first unit I purchased was the 4gb/128gb model and the second was the 8gb/128gb model. Both these models were among the few configurations that were available via Amazon Prime so that I didn't have to wait a month and pay almost $30 extra for shipping.The first unit I received was the 4gb/128gb model which will be used in an offsite location as a repository for surveillance video from cameras and as an offsite backup for files from my primary home. The second one I will be using as a small utility PC for when I need to do things like diagnose, test and clone hard drives (I'm an I/T consultant), and perhaps as a backup Plex client. I'll be adding a couple of 256gb usb 3 tiny thumbnail drives for the storage for the first unit.I installed Ubuntu Server 64 18.04.2 LTS on both units and it works fine. It found drivers for the wifi card, so that part worked fine too. As I had read things about the units getting hot I tested both units and couldn't get the internal temperature as reported by the sensors to go higher than 49C. The outer case felt warm to the touch, but not hot. when I had the little thumb drives in the USB 3 slots during the test they got warmer than the case, but not so hot that I couldn't touch them. I also tested the Wake on Lan capability and the bios setting which causes the unit to power back on automatically after a power failure. Both functions operated correctly.The processors seem OK for what these units cost, and they do have the AES instruction set in them to speed up encryption and decryption. I use veracrypt to encrypt my offsite backups, and in my tests that worked fine and didn't tax the CPUs to the point that they couldn't keep up with about 100mbps of incoming data to be encrypted, which is the internet download speed at the backup site.When I tested using a browser via a local i3 window manager session Firefox was miserably slow, so slow that it would have to be considered unusable. However, when I tested chrome it wasn't snappy by any means but it was usable. That said, I was doing this through a windows manager via an ethernet connection, not via the keyboard and monitor, so even though it was a local connection that may have slowed things down a little. However, from my tests my sense is that these units would not make good desktop replacement machines, but seem more than adequate for non-demanding applications. Performance was acceptable when I brought up other light graphics based applications, such as xfe or gparted, under the i3 window manager.Now on to the one thing that I consider substandard for these units, even at their price point, and that's the wifi. I had different experiences with the two units. The wifi in first unit, the 4gb / 128gb unit seemed to work ok, but I could never get it to connect at 802.11n speeds. It appeared to connect at maximum speed of about 50mbps, which would indicate that it was connecting with the 802.11g protocol. I was able to transfer files at near 50mbps to through a Ubiquity access point about 20 feet away. I tested transferring a 30gb file and verified that the checksum on the receiving end matched that on the sending end. The only odd thing was that the wavemon app on Ubuntu kept reporting lots of retries, even though it didn't appear to affect the throughput. Also note that both units came with only a single antenna.The second unit had more issues with the wifi. It too wouldn't connect at more that about 50mbps, but this unit would lose the wifi connection several times an hour. It would automatically connect back, but at 20 feet from the access point without any obstructions in between, it shouldn't be disconnecting. Also the Ubiquity access points are very stable and good APs and I've never had issues with them being finicky about dropping connections. After reading another review where the reviewer talked about the wifi card having two antenna connections but only one being connected, I decided to take apart the second unit (the suffering the disconnects) to see what was inside. The two photos I've attached show what the case looks like opened (note that the heatsink is glued to the outside of the case and only held onto the processor by screws), and then a closeup of the motherboard. When I looked at the wifi board, sure enough it had a second antenna connector with nothing connected to it. The board is a Ralink model RT3090BC4. I didn't take apart the first unit, but it's interesting to note that the cases are slightly different. One came with a metal vesa mount and rubber feet attached to it and the other came with a plastic vesa mount and no feet (the plastic mount was a pain to get off without breaking it)What I ended up doing was ordering an additional antenna set for the second unit. This set looks like the exact same antenna that comes with it, and includes the cables. I couldn't find a single antenna with the cable, so I had to order this set. It was about $10 so it's not that big a deal. I also ordered more thermal paste as what was there didn't look all that great.I have to say that I am disappointed that the manufacture decided to cheap out and not include the second antenna. At this point I'm assuming that the lack of the second antenna is what's causing the disconnects, and may be causing the retries on the first unit. I was going to give these units at least a 4 star rating until I opened the case and found that they simply didn't bother to put in the second antenna, so that drops the rating to 3 stars.Bottom line is that I like these units and I think they are a good buy for certain specific uses. I like the fact that they have no fan to go bad, which is important if they are going to be unattended in offsite locations. The processor is sufficient for light to medium duty work, but probably wouldn't be sufficient as a regular desktop replacement where users are regularly opening and closing lots of applications. The big downfall however is the wifi performance and I wouldn't recommend buying one of these if you are intending that its primary means of communication would be via wifi, unless you are intending to buy an additional USB wifi device to use in place of what comes with it. I also give a couple of demerits to the manufacturer for not spending the extra couple of bucks to put in the second antenna, which might have fixed the wifi issues.I'l add an update once I receive the second antenna and recheck the wifi performance with two antennas.Update 4/22/19: OK. I found out why they don't include two antennas, even though the wifi adapter has two antenna connections on it. It's because of a design flaw in the case! I added the second antenna to the wifi adapter and placed the second antenna connector through the second hole in the side of the case. All looked good until I had the unit put back together and tried to screw on the actual antennas. It turns out that they put the antenna port holes too close together and you cannot screw on both antennas. If you try, the second antenna you try to screw on gets caught on the grip threads of the first one at the base and they work like little gears where attempting to screw down the second one causes the first one to unscrew, if you try to force it on. Therefore unless you rig up some sort of extension on one of the antenna connectors, which I'm not certain hardware exists to accomplish, you can only use a single antenna. I've uploaded two more pictures to show the problem.I also found out that as another poster hinted at, it appears to matter which antenna connector on the wifi card you attach the single antenna you can use to. If I use only the second antenna, which physically looks identical to the one that came with the unit and is attached to the second port on the wifi adapter, I get a much better wifi signal according to wavemon and according to the controller software for the Unifi wifi access point. I'm currently rerunning the tests to see if the connection drops every hour or so like it did before.This is really disappointing. Rather than fixing the design flaw in the case, which would only require redesigning the single end piece where the holes for the antennas are and moving them at most 1/4 of an inch further apart, they just shipped the unit with a single antenna.Update 6/23/2019: The manufacturer sent me two new mini-pci wifi adapters ( RTL8821AE) to replace the ones I have on both the units I purchased. These work better with just the single antenna that can be attached, and they have 802.11ac capability. With these the wifi access is better, and doesn't drop, even though only one antenna can be used.I'm going to up my rating from three stars to four as a result. If you are interested in buying one of these and are intending to use the wifi, I strongly urge you to contact the manufacturer first and make sure that you get the version of the wifi adapter that they eventually sent me rather than the one that originally came with it. I'm uploading a picture of the new wifi adapter so that you can see which one it is.
L**E
OS: windows 10 pro is preinstalled " But not Activated with NO license "
Just got it today. Fired up to windows 10 desktop. Checked and found it not activated. Attempted to activate and was told no digital key or product number existed and to visit the Microsoft store to purchase a license. It is a well constructed heavy duty aluminum case with one memory spot and one 1/2 height mSATA drive spot ( two screw mounting at corners ) Adding $ 199 for a windows 10 license makes this a very expensive Win 10 unit.Upon further review, it is exactly as described. Every other system I have purchased with an pre-installed OS came with a license for that installed system so I upgraded my rating to 3 stars from the 1 originally given it. Up to 4 stars with Windows 7 Installed and working fine.
D**B
This is a thin client, not a full-featured PC. Remember that and it's fine.
If you look at the seller (sharevdi), this PC - along with most they sell - are really meant to be used as enterprise thin clients, or computers that just run a single application to remote back into a bigger computer. That's why it uses low RAM, small SSDs, and a very, very low power processor released seven years ago for a *tablet*.What it was meant to do:* Exist behind a screen in a big company environment to run business applications from a big computer somewhere* Act as an industrial PC appliance you don't have to think about that does like one thingWhat it will not do:* Replace a real PC or even a newer Chromebook for multimedia use (YouTube et al)* Play basically any modern gameWhat it will do:* Beat the pants off of a Raspberry Pi in support because it has an AMD processor* Run Linux or a stripped Windows 10* Drive a 4K display at 30 Hz (HDMI 1.4)* Run a web browser for browsing, or Microsoft Office 365The fact it can do any of the other things at all at its price point is really great. If you can get Linux / Xubuntu on it, even better - the video support for the Radeon is great and it is much faster feeling under Ubuntu than it is under Windows 10. The processor does not seem to throttle easily under load because the whole case is actually its heat sink, which is good because running Chrome on Windows will eat nearly all of its processor power doing normal tasks. If you just need something you can throw next to a router and run something, it'll do that too. Mine runs a few Linux services and replaced what I would use a Raspberry Pi for.If you want something to do YouTube and stuff on, this definitely is too underpowered - pick a faster, newer Intel chip, or a heavier (higher-power) AMD processor from this era. The build quality is solid, and for the price it's not bad, but the chipset definitely shows its age.
A**N
Installs Centos 7.5 from a thumb drive without issue
True enough this unit runs silently without a fan and does not get very hot. I am using this unit for a IP camera video monitoring system. Networking and text mode install of CentOS 7 works fine from the minimal iso image on a thumb drive. No RS232 serial port, it it matters.
Trustpilot
2 months ago
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