expired Posted by cgigate • Jul 15, 2022
Jul 15, 2022 5:34 PM
Item 1 of 1
expired Posted by cgigate • Jul 15, 2022
Jul 15, 2022 5:34 PM
Acer Aspire XC Desktop (Refurb): Celeron J4125, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD
+ Free Shipping$88
$330
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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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I threw in some old Quadro cards (I think one's an NVS 295 and maybe the other is a Quadro 600..? OLD) and while the system would POST, after booting Proxmox the Realtek NIC would drop out. You could restart the networking service with systemctl and it would come back for a bit, but the problem was persistent. Obviously that wasn't going to work.
I also tried all manner of incantations to pass through the UHD600 iGPU to a guest VM, but again, no dice. Probably expecting a bit much from an 88 buckaroo machine.
So I threw PopOS on there and just did KVM to get my Windows 10 VM up. It actually worked far better than I had thought after I upgraded to 16GB of Teamgroup 3200MT/s RAM (it's running at 2400 I think..). The machine is also running docker and Portainer to manage said docker containers.
So maybe this is not a great machine for Nvidia GPU passthrough, but it might work for NICs or other PCI hardware..?
You may try to boot up a "Windows 10 to Go" from USB to see if it can drive it up...
....
So maybe this is not a great machine for Nvidia GPU passthrough, but it might work for NICs or other PCI hardware...?
You may try to boot up a "Windows 10 to Go" from USB to see if it can drive it up...
I bought a $1.99 BT dongle that should be here later today. I only use a Harmony Hub Companion remote for Bluetooth, so it should be fine, although I'm running out of USB ports on my USB hub.
I bought a $1.99 BT dongle that should be here later today. I only use a Harmony Hub Companion remote for Bluetooth, so it should be fine, although I'm running out of USB ports on my USB hub.
Do not plug to hub when you try to boot from USB, plug a bootable USB device to any port on the PC, not on a USB hub
I have been building PCs for 25+ years but thanks for the "insight".
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What you learn from 25+ experience in is that PCs are sometimes flaky. If you don't understand this basic fact, you are new to the game or just lucky.
So you never got 60hz @4k going on the $130 43 inch TV deal? Try Kodi on the 88 PC, and see if that works.
What you learn from 25+ experience in is that PCs are sometimes flaky. If you don't understand this basic fact, you are new to the game or just lucky.
So you never got 60hz @4k going on the $130 43 inch TV deal? Try Kodi on the 88 PC, and see if that works.
However my 88 Acer J4125 can play 4k/60hz on 3 months old TCL Google TV version 43" 4K TV.
my Acer J4125 PC boots from USB just fine, I installed VMware ESXi on it from USB, and anything can boots from bootable USB...
However my 88 Acer J4125 can play 4k/60hz on 3 months old TCL Google TV version 43" 4K TV.
my Acer J4125 PC boots from USB just fine, I installed VMware ESXi on it from USB, and anything can boots from bootable USB...
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