07-13-2022 at 06:29 AM#62
Modifications possible with this build
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* The motherboard size is likely mini ITX. Meaning if you are adventurous, you can relocate the motherboard to another case, and get more bays in the process.
* System has 2 SODIMM slots. One is empty, another is occupied with 4Gig. It is possible to install 2x8Gig for a total of 16 Gigs. Regardless what Intel and Acer says, 16 Gigs (2x8) appears to work fine. This is the 8 Gig I used in mine. 8 Gig Team Memory [amazon.com]
*The system has a single SATA full length power connector. If you wish to connect a second drive that needs a full SATA power port, you will need a splicer, something like this.
SATA Power Splitter [ebay.com]
* Depends on how drives you install and what type of drives you install, the temperature in the case could be higher than desired. I modded the case to take a 140mm and spliced the 3 pin CPU fan connector. It would be useful to disable fan control in BIOS so it runs at high speed at all times. *spliced fan header [ebay.com]140mm fan [amazon.com]
* The system as shipped accommodates 1x3.5 above and beyond the DVD drive installed. If you want to change the DVD bay to accept 2.5 inch HDD< you will need something like this *a DVD caddy 3.5 9.7mm bay [amazon.com].
With all above modification, my system draws about 25Ws at peak.
Copied suggestions below for various uses.
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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. :-)
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Installed this Crucial 32GB set [a.co] and did not notice any slowness. The only thing that happened was a delayed FIRST POST after installing the sticks, beyond that, so far so good. Screenshots below:
WIN10_SYSTEM [imgur.com]
USERBENCHMARK [imgur.com]
HWINFO1 [imgur.com] | HWINFO2 [imgur.com]
CPUZ_MB [imgur.com] | CPUZ_MEM [imgur.com] | CPUZ_SPD1 [imgur.com] | CPUZ_SPD2 [imgur.com]
10-min stress test with CPU Smart Fan feature turned off [imgur.com]
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Top Comments
This 88 dollar PC is not a powerful PC. That is correct. I'm not being duped into thinking this is a POWERFUL PC!
This is a laptop PC who's motherboard has been placed in a tiny tower case and can run windows 10/11, and you can add more ram, and comes with NVMe, with external power supply that laptop's use! So very, very low power 24/7 machine 6 watts idle.
It has bluetooth/wifi,ethernet port, 4 usb 2 ports, 2 usb 3 ports. 2 year warranty, intel 600 internal graphics, hdmi and vga port,
You know that Walmart currently is selling this at 299 dollars with good user review average.
I object to the word "duped" in your post. There are 2-3 threads on this device on slickdeals , with things people are doing with it.
Like the Raspberry Pi, it is hobby device, and cheaper than Pi,( if you were to buy Pi plus all the extra's you need to buy to complete Pi package).
Hopefully, people read YOUR post, and read posts from others that discuss the positive aspect of this device, so they know what they are buying and not buying. Alert heard, sir. . Your mission is accomplished. Torpedoes away. Next target!
Where to mount the disks? As previously mentioned, there's space for a 3.5" disk and a 2.5" disk if you removed the optical drive. Alternatively, you could remove the entire cage and replace it with something that'd accept two 3.5" disks [amazon.com] (I haven't actually tried it because I haven't received the computer yet, but it should work). Similarly, it should not be too difficult to put four 2.5" disks in the case. Use a cage if you want to be fancy. Velcro or duct tape if you just don't gaf. Or get a bigger case, but then you'd lose the cute little form factor.
Where to get the power? Y-splitters. Just don't overload the power supply.
Where to connect the data cables? Ah, now this is the fun part. See previous post regarding the limitations of the PCIe bus. If the goal is to install as many disks as possible, one way would be to put SATA controllers in the ×16, ×4, and ×2 slots. Yes, the M-keyed M.2 slot and even the E-keyed M.2 slot could probably be used for PCIe modules, including SATA controllers and Ethernet controllers.
Each lane of PCIe 2.0 provides 500 MB/s of bandwidth, just barely sufficient for SATA III's 600 MB/s. This is obviously not a problem for HDD, but could limit SSD performance. You might want to be... creative... with port selection, if you plan to use SSDs and HDDs together. For example, if you put a 2-port SATA controller in the ×2 slot, you might want to pair an SSD with a HDD on that same controller to optimize bandwidth usage.
Also remember the limitations of the DMI link. If you're using this machine as a NAS, your disks might be sharing PCIe bandwidth with your NIC. You could potentially install many disks and a lot of other stuff, but they'd compete for bandwidth. Proceed with caution.
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655 Comments
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I tried using WIFI, but for both units the speedtest.net download speed is terribly slow at 1mbps while upload is a more reasonable 30mbps. This was done in the same room a few feet away from my modem/router. Both units test at about 35 down/45 up when hard-wired. For comparative purposes, my Android phone has a test download speed of 20 mbps via speedtest.net.
One of the two Acer units I purchased came with a Hynix 4gb 3200 RAM stick. I installed an 8gb Silicon Power 3200 RAM stick but have been running into consistent BSD on the average of about once per hour of use. After doing some research, I downloaded/installed Memtest86 onto a bootable USB drive. An overnight test revealed around 1,500 errors with both RAM sticks installed. I then ran Memtest86 individually for each stick installed without the other, and both passed. I assume they will each work fine alone, but not installed together. One thought I have is to go ahead and buy a duplicate 8gb Silicon Power 3200 RAM which in theory should work since it would match the other. I was hoping to limit cost as much as possible and would have been fine with 12gb RAM.
Any thoughts?
Another thought for you, you bought 2 units, so take the 4gb ram out of one of them and put it to other Acer, so you have total of 8gb ram in that machine. And use the 8gb silicon power in the other Acer. So both units have 8gb. Nothing wrong with 8 gb's in both units. You can always upgrade later.
Not sure what to make of the slow WiFi.
I will say this, there seems to be a good bit of misunderstanding floating around.. My understanding of the way PCIE works is that if there is an x16 slot, that is a dedicated x16 lanes, and the additional (6 in this case) are available for the m.2 and other devices. x16 MEANS x16 in other words. Perhaps I am incorrect..
Also in all my years working on systems, I have never heard of a motherboard with an x16 slot, and an area in the BIOS for "disable onboard video", that does not allow a graphics expansion card. Why would there be a graphics expansion slot (x16) without the ability for a card, and if for some absurd reason there wasn't, why would you have an option in BIOS appearing to present the option of disabling onboard..
Has anyone else tried a video card? I'm wondering if possibly there wasn't something wrong with the test setup.
IF there is an issue with a card not working in this system.. It should be a lack of power. This "routed differently" or "somehow an x16 slot is allocated less", doesn't hold up to historical patterns. Would this be the first instance of an x16 slot being present but not supporting a video card? Do you really think there is another detection method for how powerful your video card is, than power draw?
Someone had mentioned a standard motherboard power connector.. I've honestly been looking forward to an opportunity to put my OCZ PSU to good use ;-)
And I have a spare card that runs on external power, so I'll be dragging that out to test.. My understanding is that video cards with dedicated power plugs aren't drawing power from the motherboard, you can even power them with a separate power supply. System scheduled for tomorrow.. We'll see..
Oh and I have a set of 2x16GB ram that will fit, I will test at some point, though I don't intend on keeping it installed. 16gb is enough for me and I don't want to encourage any bugs.
Second tier is Acer i3-10th gen with pci-3rd gen slot, and 8 gb desktop ram ddr4, NVMe 250gb, intel 630 graphics, 300 watt power supply, windows 10/11 , and can handle more tasks and 2 year old chipset. There are SD threads for what this PC can do and not do. Look at that OPTION.
The top tier is the Acer i5-11th gen with pci-4th gen slot, for 299 dollars. intel 730 graphics, 500gb NVMe. Same as the i3-10th gen ACER but more powerful, and you could put in graphic cards that works using latest pci-gen4 option.
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Also in all my years working on systems, I have never heard of a motherboard with an x16 slot, and an area in the BIOS for "disable onboard video", that does not allow a graphics expansion card. Why would there be a graphics expansion slot (x16) without the ability for a card, and if for some absurd reason there wasn't, why would you have an option in BIOS appearing to present the option of disabling onboard..
My understanding is that PCIe lanes could belong to the CPU or to the chipset. The slots on the motherboard could be connected to the CPU or the chipset. The CPU specs sheet reports only the PCIe lanes on the CPU... why should it report the PCIe lanes available to any of the multitude of motherboard/chipset configurations? And why would Intel give you 16 extra lanes without advertising it? So the J4125 has 6 lanes [intel.com], the i3-10105 has 16 lanes [intel.com], and the i5-11400 has 20 lanes [intel.com].
The chipset is usually reserved for slower devices that are not expected to saturate the PCIe bandwidth all the time. It makes sense for the NIC, SATA, and USB controllers to be connected via the chipset and share the DMI bandwidth.
Sometimes a PCIe x16 slot does not have all 16 lanes available. The lanes could be dynamically reallocated at runtime. A hypothetical system could have 16 lanes and two x16 slots. If you installed a video card in one x16 slot and left the other x16 slot empty, that video card would get all 16 lanes of bandwidth. If you wanted to install two video cards for some SLI action, the two slots could be dynamically reconfigured to x8 each. For example, the i3-10105's 16 lanes could be used as 1x16, 2x8, or 1x8+2x4.
To make things more complicated, a PCIe slot might be long enough to mechanically accommodate a x16 card, but electrically wired as a shorter slot, e.g. with 4 lanes (alternatively, this could be an open-ended slot). This is sometimes labeled on the motherboard or documented in the manual. The x16 card could still function, but with a reduced bandwidth. Or it could refuse to function at all, if it were designed that way.
Based on @JesusIsKing314's dmidecode output, I surmised that there is actually a PCIe x16 slot with 16 lanes... which, based on my understanding of Intel's documentation, forces it to be connected to the chipset.
I would expect (as you'd expected) your video card to function with only 4 lanes of PCIe 2.0, whether connected directly to the CPU or connected to the chipset, but with suboptimal performance. Perhaps it doesn't entirely explain the inoperability of your video card. It could still be insufficient power.
And I have a spare card that runs on external power, so I'll be dragging that out to test.. My understanding is that video cards with dedicated power plugs aren't drawing power from the motherboard, you can even power them with a separate power supply. System scheduled for tomorrow.. We'll see..
I'm glad you saw his post as "funny".
If he was joking, maybe he will come back and comment.
We have had some people in thread knock this forum room, so maybe he thought I was knocking our beloved Celeron 88 PC.
My understanding is that PCIe lanes could belong to the CPU or to the chipset. The slots on the motherboard could be connected to the CPU or the chipset. The CPU specs sheet reports only the PCIe lanes on the CPU... why should it report the PCIe lanes available to any of the multitude of motherboard/chipset configurations? And why would Intel give you 16 extra lanes without advertising it? So the J4125 has 6 lanes [intel.com], the i3-10105 has 16 lanes [intel.com], and the i5-11400 has 20 lanes [intel.com].
The chipset is usually reserved for slower devices that are not expected to saturate the PCIe bandwidth all the time. It makes sense for the NIC, SATA, and USB controllers to be connected via the chipset and share the DMI bandwidth.
Sometimes a PCIe x16 slot does not have all 16 lanes available. The lanes could be dynamically reallocated at runtime. A hypothetical system could have 16 lanes and two x16 slots. If you installed a video card in one x16 slot and left the other x16 slot empty, that video card would get all 16 lanes of bandwidth. If you wanted to install two video cards for some SLI action, the two slots could be dynamically reconfigured to x8 each. For example, the i3-10105's 16 lanes could be used as 1x16, 2x8, or 1x8+2x4.
To make things more complicated, a PCIe slot might be long enough to mechanically accommodate a x16 card, but electrically wired as a shorter slot, e.g. with 4 lanes (alternatively, this could be an open-ended slot). This is sometimes labeled on the motherboard or documented in the manual. The x16 card could still function, but with a reduced bandwidth. Or it could refuse to function at all, if it were designed that way.
I'm only suggesting that the x16 slot is connected to the chipset because I don't see any way to get 16 lanes from the J4125 itself. For all we know, it could be 4 lanes from the CPU or 4 lanes from the chipset.
I would expect (as you'd expected) your video card to function with only 4 lanes of PCIe 2.0, whether connected directly to the CPU or connected to the chipset, but with suboptimal performance. Perhaps it doesn't entirely explain the inoperability of your video card. It could still be insufficient power.
Yeah, I mentioned the possibility of soldering an ATX 20+4 socket to the board. But, uh, I don't know how it'd interact with the built-in picoPSU. It's risky. It might fry the board or set the house on fire. It might be safer to try with a separate power supply first.
Point of note: I don't have the system yet, it was another user who transplanted the mobo into an ATX case and (it would stand to reason) installed full size cards which did not work. The card I've purchased is a PCIE 2.0 card which I think wants as many as 8 lanes. No way to know but to try it.
If you or others have the system and happen to have a set of calipers handy, would you mind doing me the favor of measuring the power plug? I'm wondering if it's possible the 90w (19v x 4.74A) acer aspire laptop power brick I have on hand will plug into this system.
Based on @JesusIsKing314's dmidecode output, I surmised that there is actually a PCIe x16 slot with 16 lanes... which, based on my understanding of Intel's documentation, forces it to be connected to the chipset.
Man, I'm taking this way too seriously, and I haven't even received the machine yet. ETA tomorrow.
Based on @JesusIsKing314's dmidecode output, I surmised that there is actually a PCIe x16 slot with 16 lanes... which, based on my understanding of Intel's documentation, forces it to be connected to the chipset.
Man, I'm taking this way too seriously, and I haven't even received the machine yet. ETA tomorrow.
Based on @JesusIsKing314's dmidecode output, I surmised that there is actually a PCIe x16 slot with 16 lanes... which, based on my understanding of Intel's documentation, forces it to be connected to the chipset.
Man, I'm taking this way too seriously, and I haven't even received the machine yet. ETA tomorrow.
For diagnostics, barebones boot would have the m.2 drive, optical drive unplugged and a single stick of ram. SATA ports are definitely routed through chipset (per that video), and so a theoretical fix would be running a SATA SSD with the video card, if needed.
Did you ever get an answer to this?
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My understanding is that PCIe lanes could belong to the CPU or to the chipset. The slots on the motherboard could be connected to the CPU or the chipset. The CPU specs sheet reports only the PCIe lanes on the CPU... why should it report the PCIe lanes available to any of the multitude of motherboard/chipset configurations? And why would Intel give you 16 extra lanes without advertising it? So the J4125 has 6 lanes [intel.com], the i3-10105 has 16 lanes [intel.com], and the i5-11400 has 20 lanes [intel.com].
The chipset is usually reserved for slower devices that are not expected to saturate the PCIe bandwidth all the time. It makes sense for the NIC, SATA, and USB controllers to be connected via the chipset and share the DMI bandwidth.
Sometimes a PCIe x16 slot does not have all 16 lanes available. The lanes could be dynamically reallocated at runtime. A hypothetical system could have 16 lanes and two x16 slots. If you installed a video card in one x16 slot and left the other x16 slot empty, that video card would get all 16 lanes of bandwidth. If you wanted to install two video cards for some SLI action, the two slots could be dynamically reconfigured to x8 each. For example, the i3-10105's 16 lanes could be used as 1x16, 2x8, or 1x8+2x4.
To make things more complicated, a PCIe slot might be long enough to mechanically accommodate a x16 card, but electrically wired as a shorter slot, e.g. with 4 lanes (alternatively, this could be an open-ended slot). This is sometimes labeled on the motherboard or documented in the manual. The x16 card could still function, but with a reduced bandwidth. Or it could refuse to function at all, if it were designed that way.
Based on @JesusIsKing314's dmidecode output, I surmised that there is actually a PCIe x16 slot with 16 lanes... which, based on my understanding of Intel's documentation, forces it to be connected to the chipset.
I'm only suggesting that the x16 slot is connected to the chipset because I don't see any way to get 16 lanes from the J4125 itself. For all we know, it could be 4 lanes from the CPU or 4 lanes from the chipset.
I would expect (as you'd expected) your video card to function with only 4 lanes of PCIe 2.0, whether connected directly to the CPU or connected to the chipset, but with suboptimal performance. Perhaps it doesn't entirely explain the inoperability of your video card. It could still be insufficient power.
Yeah, I mentioned the possibility of soldering an ATX 20+4 socket to the board. But, uh, I don't know how it'd interact with the built-in picoPSU. It's risky. It might fry the board or set the house on fire. It might be safer to try with a separate power supply first.
Is my understanding of electricity correct when I say that the power supply could be rated 10,000 watts, and the motherboard is only going to draw how much it uses? I only took an intro electronics course but that is how it works, right?
Thanks.
Ps: This appears to be the exact power supply I have on my laptop rn. Maybe I need a spare after all
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