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cgigate 66.4K Views
Jul 12, 2022 7:18 PM

Acer Aspire XC Desktop (Refurb): Celeron J4125, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD

$88

$330

73% off
+ Free Shippingat eBay
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Deal Details
Acer via eBay has Acer Aspire XC Desktop (Refurbished, DT.BHFAA.001) for $87.99 (price reflected in cart). Shipping is free.

Thanks to community member cgigate for finding this deal.

Note, must add to cart for the sale price.

Specs
  • Intel Celeron J4125 2.00 GHz Processor
  • 4GB RAM
  • 256GB Solid State Drive
  • Intel UHD Graphics 600
  • Includes Keyboard & Mouse
  • Windows 10 Home

Editor's Notes

Written by johnny_miller | Staff
  • About this item:
    • This item is Certified Refurbished. It has been professionally restored by an Acer approved vendor. Units are usually cosmetically indistinguishable from New products, but some may show signs of light use. Functionally, these units are equivalent to New. Certified Refurbished units will be shipped in a New Brown Box.
  • Returns:
    • Free 30 day returns. Seller pays for return shipping.

Original Post

Written by cgigate
Community Notes
About the Poster
Deal Details
Community Notes
About the Poster
Acer via eBay has Acer Aspire XC Desktop (Refurbished, DT.BHFAA.001) for $87.99 (price reflected in cart). Shipping is free.

Thanks to community member cgigate for finding this deal.

Note, must add to cart for the sale price.

Specs
  • Intel Celeron J4125 2.00 GHz Processor
  • 4GB RAM
  • 256GB Solid State Drive
  • Intel UHD Graphics 600
  • Includes Keyboard & Mouse
  • Windows 10 Home

Editor's Notes

Written by johnny_miller | Staff
  • About this item:
    • This item is Certified Refurbished. It has been professionally restored by an Acer approved vendor. Units are usually cosmetically indistinguishable from New products, but some may show signs of light use. Functionally, these units are equivalent to New. Certified Refurbished units will be shipped in a New Brown Box.
  • Returns:
    • Free 30 day returns. Seller pays for return shipping.

Original Post

Written by cgigate

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207 Comments

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Jul 29, 2022 7:30 PM
72 Comments
Joined Nov 2010
abhishekjayswalJul 29, 2022 7:30 PM
72 Comments
Quote from Pinako View quoted comment :
It seems that you could use PCIe to add as many as 10(!!) SATA ports [amazon.com], but 2 is not unreasonable.

If you're willing to sacrifice the NVMe M.2 slot, you could add up to 5 SATA ports [amazon.com] there.

Each SATA port could take 2 SATA disks [amazon.com] or more [amazon.com]; apparently most SATA controllers do not support port multipliers, but some of these devices could present all connected disks as a single disk using RAID.

So, if you could figure out how to contain and power all these disks... you've got a multi-disk monster. The only downside is the lack of support for ECC memory, which you might want for all that storage.
Can you suggest something that I can attach to PCIE slot to add more SATA drives? And also any way of supplying extra power if it is needed?
Jul 29, 2022 8:01 PM
858 Comments
Joined Nov 2013
PinakoJul 29, 2022 8:01 PM
858 Comments
Quote from abhishekjayswal View quoted comment :
Can you suggest something that I can attach to PCIE slot to add more SATA drives? And also any way of supplying extra power if it is needed?
There are many cards that work... just search for PCIe SATA controllers and read the reviews. Let me temper your expectations, though: Each PCIe 2.0 lane carries 500 MB/s of bandwidth and SATA III maxes out at 600 MB/s (so 1 lane per 1 SATA III disk, roughly). My guess is that the x16 slot is connected via the chipset, which has only 4 lanes (2 GB/s) of bandwidth. You'd likely get nowhere close to saturating that bandwidth if you're using HDDs, but it's a different story with fast SSDs. You could probably only get optimal use of 4 SSDs simultaneously. Your disks are probably not going to be all busy simultaneously, so you could install more disks if you accept the limitation. You could also be creative and pair SSDs with HDDs to optimize bandwidth use.

The m.2 slots could also be used as PCIe if you want. This one [amazon.com] might work if you want to sacrifice the NVMe functionality. This other one [amazon.com] might work if you want to sacrifice the WiFi/BT functionality.

Where to get power? Well, you could use Y-splitters, but there's got to be a limit and I don't know what's the limit (ceiling being 65 W for the entire system). If you want to use a separate PSU to power your disks... have a gander at this [superuser.com]. But I wouldn't recommend using such a system to drive that many disks. Main reason is the lack of support for ECC memory. If you had a lot of disks, you could probably spare some power/money for a better system...
Aug 1, 2022 6:34 PM
316 Comments
Joined Oct 2011
minuteman1970Aug 1, 2022 6:34 PM
316 Comments
I'm having trouble getting a Western Digital 1TB Purple (WDC WD10PURX-64D) hard drive working on one of the two Acers I bought. My goal is to use the 1TB HD for file storage, while the OS and applications will remain on the stock SSD. The HD was functional as of the last time I used the older camera DVR it had been installed in. I bought a 3-pack of SATA cables on Amazon, and plugged the drive into one and the other end of the cable into the open SATA0 socket on the motherboard. My Windows 11 device manager recognizes the drive, however Windows is not assigning a drive letter to it when I check Windows Explorer. I did try experimenting with shunting a couple of jumper pins which did not make a difference, but in searching a bit on Google it seems that should not be needed with SATA drives like it was years ago with IDE. I checked in the BIOS screen, but did not see any setting that seemed related to enabling a secondary hard drive.

Any feedback will be appreciated.
Sep 12, 2022 4:26 AM
23 Comments
Joined Mar 2020
CoralSoda5544Sep 12, 2022 4:26 AM
23 Comments
Quote from drjs View quoted comment :
I have been using this thing for a week or so now. This is my wall of text from the other post when this was $105. An absolute bargain at $88. Picked up another one. Thanks! I modded mine with the following

*Added another 8Gig of memory [amazon.com]to make it 12Gig total
*spliced power so I can get 2 SATA power header [ebay.com]
*spliced fan header [ebay.com]and added an 140mm fan [amazon.com]
*added a WD 80TB Red plus
*added a DVD caddy 3.5 9.7mm bay [amazon.com].

Runs absolutely like a dream at 25Ws.

Copied suggestions below for various uses.
=====================================================================
I have been working with this little SFF for a day now and I really enjoy using this thing and I am replying to this message on the system right now. The fan is virtually silent and power draw is max 15W on my killawatt (I removed DVD drive).

I have seen a lot of questions on this forum about what this thing is good for. I thought to provide my perspective on the subject and elaborate on various use cases for this little thing. Again, this is one person's opinion.


Desktop replacement, Rating: Medicore
This is a mediocre use case as a desktop replacement because the limited CPU capability and memory. The system comes with 4Gig standard which will mean a lot of swapping on Windows 10 in default configuration. If you can up the memory to 8Gig, I think the use case becomes fair. It is a reasonable system for lite web page browsing, spreadsheets, email, YouTube and Netflix at 1080P. ie, this is a good system for your grandparents if usage case isn't aggressive.


Gaming setup, Rating: Poor
Expansion slot is half height, power supply is 65W, there is only a CPU fan. ie, if you want to game other than minesweeper, you should look for a beefier system, such as the one with I3 and 250W power?. Again, if you go that route, maybe Acer small form factor shouldn't be what you should consider. For reference, my current game setup has a 850w ps and about 7 fans.


NAS, Rating: Good
This thing draws less power and is quieter than my Synology 2 bay. CPU will be more powerful than my Synology with more possibility of expanding via standard PC peripherals. A two bay Synology is about $200 right now which means you can use this thing at about half the cost. With this said, there are only 2 SATA ports and no additional cooling fans and will only accommodate 1 3.5" and 1 2.5" drive without additional engineering. If you are okay dropping in a 10TB 3.5 WD Red Plus and call it good, you have an excellent use case here. If you are desperate, I suppose you can always use external USB 3.0 enclosures for additional drives. Hardware transcoding via Plex for a single 4K stream shouldn't be a huge issue since this Celeron has a UHD600 onboard.


pFsense, Gateway replacement, VPN server, PiHole etc, Rating: Excellent
What this system really excels is as an always on, minimal power, minimal noise internet relay device. I listed a couple use cases above. I am thinking moving my VPN server (both up and down streams), PiHole, and Firewall server into this thing. As given the system has more than enough resource to run Debian or BSD, never sipes more than 15Ws, generates no heat, and is virtually silent, I can see this thing sitting next to my cable modem and be the consolidating gateway machine that is currently being taken up by a Synology, a number of Rasperberri Pis. For $100, this is just a bargain you can't find equivalent elsewhere. Now the only decision is to buy another one as a backup in case this breaks. :-)

Anyways, enjoy my wall of text.

ApplauseApplauseApplauseApplause
========================================================
9.5mm or 12.7?
Sep 12, 2022 8:08 PM
160 Comments
Joined May 2015
drjsSep 12, 2022 8:08 PM
160 Comments
Quote from CoralSoda5544 View quoted comment :
9.5mm or 12.7?
9.5mm
Oct 1, 2022 4:02 AM
457 Comments
Joined Feb 2021
LeasedJetOct 1, 2022 4:02 AM
457 Comments
Quote from minuteman1970 View quoted comment :
I'm having trouble getting a Western Digital 1TB Purple (WDC WD10PURX-64D) hard drive working on one of the two Acers I bought. My goal is to use the 1TB HD for file storage, while the OS and applications will remain on the stock SSD. The HD was functional as of the last time I used the older camera DVR it had been installed in. I bought a 3-pack of SATA cables on Amazon, and plugged the drive into one and the other end of the cable into the open SATA0 socket on the motherboard. My Windows 11 device manager recognizes the drive, however Windows is not assigning a drive letter to it when I check Windows Explorer. I did try experimenting with shunting a couple of jumper pins which did not make a difference, but in searching a bit on Google it seems that should not be needed with SATA drives like it was years ago with IDE. I checked in the BIOS screen, but did not see any setting that seemed related to enabling a secondary hard drive.

Any feedback will be appreciated.
You probably need to import the foreign drive in Disk Management. In Windows 11 right click on the Windows button, select Disk Management and then see if it's available there. You can right-click on it and import it and/or initialize/format it there.
Original Poster
Oct 5, 2022 8:37 PM
28.3K Comments
Joined Jan 2007
cgigate
Original Poster
Oct 5, 2022 8:37 PM
28.3K Comments
Got one pair 16gbx2 2400Mhz RAM and installed.
This time no beeping, the first boot took around 4 munities, finally it booted up, yes 32GB works!

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Oct 13, 2022 2:35 AM
457 Comments
Joined Feb 2021
LeasedJetOct 13, 2022 2:35 AM
457 Comments
Quote from cgigate View quoted comment :
Got one pair 16gbx2 2400Mhz RAM and installed.
This time no beeping, the first boot took around 4 munities, finally it booted up, yes 32GB works!
Which modules ended up working? Were subsequent boots faster?
Original Poster
Oct 13, 2022 3:01 AM
28.3K Comments
Joined Jan 2007
cgigate
Original Poster
Oct 13, 2022 3:01 AM
28.3K Comments
Quote from LeasedJet View quoted comment :
Which modules ended up working? Were subsequent boots faster?

The SK Hynix 2400T ram 32gb (2x16) works. The subsequent boots work great , boot as normal..
I guess the 1200Mhz RAM (DDR4-2400/PC-19200) is the key for success, I tested 1600Mhz RAM (DDR4-3200) , system rejects to boot and non-stop beeping.
Attached the screen capture for my RAM module's detail
Last edited by cgigate October 13, 2022 at 11:31 AM.
Oct 15, 2022 2:45 PM
3.6K Comments
Joined Jan 2015
kenpetOct 15, 2022 2:45 PM
3.6K Comments
Quote from cgigate View quoted comment :
The SK Hynix 2400T ram 32gb (2x16) works. The subsequent boots work great , boot as normal..
I guess the 1200Mhz RAM (DDR4-2400/PC-19200) is the key for success, I tested 1600Mhz RAM (DDR4-3200) , system rejects to boot and non-stop beeping.
Attached the screen capture for my RAM module's detail
It seems this model of RAM also works based on posts from various threads on this item. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QMMZ79V
Original Poster
Oct 15, 2022 2:53 PM
28.3K Comments
Joined Jan 2007
cgigate
Original Poster
Oct 15, 2022 2:53 PM
28.3K Comments
Quote from kenpet View quoted comment :
It seems this model of RAM also works based on posts from various threads on this item. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QMMZ79V
We were talking for 32gb ram, there are plenty working 16gb (2x8gb) ram
Oct 15, 2022 3:02 PM
3.6K Comments
Joined Jan 2015
kenpetOct 15, 2022 3:02 PM
3.6K Comments
Quote from cgigate View quoted comment :
We were talking for 32gb ram, there are plenty working 16gb (2x8gb) ram
I understand you were referring to 32GB, but wanted to check if the version I was referring to worked as well (2.6Ghz speed compared to 2.4Ghz speed you had referenced). Thanks.

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