Beelink Mini S12 Pro Mini PC: Intel 12th Gen N100, 16GB DDR4, 500GB SSD

geniv

Aug 23, 2023 4:55 PM

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Joined Mar 2006

genivAug 23, 2023 4:55 PM

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Anyone tried putting VMware esxi on this?

1

JTzz

Aug 23, 2023 5:02 PM

4 Comments

Joined Jan 2011

JTzzAug 23, 2023 5:02 PM

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Quote from hoover6

:

Crap. Would buy it if I could install Home Assistant OS on it.

I'm running HA and a few other things on one of these. Loaded Proxmox virtualuzaion server and then am running HAOS as a vm and Frigate nvr as it's own container. More involved than just loading HAOS bare metal to be sure.

Wifi wasn't a deal breaker for me as I have it wired in..Bluetooth was a nuisance, but I solved that by buying a couple of cheap esp boards and letting them feed all the Bluetooth data into HA

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1

SeriesXM

Aug 23, 2023 5:08 PM

720 Comments

Joined Jan 2005

SeriesXMAug 23, 2023 5:08 PM

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Quote from FreakinDealWithIt

:

Got one of these some months back as a Plex server and it's been great. Highly recommend it. Great little machine that is quick and will stream 4K HDR content without issue. Threw a 2nd SSD in it and it's been a solid little machine (I run it headless and Remote Desktop in via my Mac laptop or iPhone).

Thank you for this comment. I've been looking for something to run my own Plex server, but wasn't sure if these little PCs would be sufficient.

1

android

Aug 23, 2023 5:09 PM

620 Comments

Joined Dec 2007

androidAug 23, 2023 5:09 PM

620 Comments

This might be a weird question, but I am curious for those of you that have one of these, could this be a good travel computer? I'm thinking of using one of these mini pcs and a 15.6 led portable monitor to travel with. How much does the Beelink weigh, and what about it's wallwart?

FreakinDealWithIt

Aug 23, 2023 5:10 PM

702 Comments

Joined Aug 2014

FreakinDealWithItAug 23, 2023 5:10 PM

702 Comments

Quote from SeriesXM

:

Thank you for this comment. I've been looking for something to run my own Plex server, but wasn't sure if these little PCs would be sufficient.

Yeah, it works great. I'd asked on the Reddit Plex sub and this was one of them a number of folks recommended. I've been really happy with it. Just connected a big external drive and it works perfectly. Was expecting to have to spend a lot more on a Dell or something but they'd pointed me this direction and it's much better. Smaller and doesn't take up room my old mini tower did, lower power draw, quiet, and still powerful enough to push out the content without issue.

3

geekwithoutacause

Aug 23, 2023 5:15 PM

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Joined Jul 2005

geekwithoutacauseAug 23, 2023 5:15 PM

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Quote from juan003

:

Nope, no product keys needed for all recent OEM manufactured PCs as it is embedded in the BIOS internally. Windows will self activate upon next installation.

You can reinstall Windows as many times as you like. Reset it via Start / Settings / Reset this PC or boot to USB bootable media if you have already made a Windows USB installation tool.

Be sure to back up your data folder first before resetting the PC or reinstalling Windows again.

nope it will NOT re activate if you use a windows install usb. Been there done that. You will need to contact beelink.

3

geekwithoutacause

Aug 23, 2023 5:17 PM

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geekwithoutacauseAug 23, 2023 5:17 PM

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Quote from FreakinDealWithIt

:

Yeah, it works great. I'd asked on the Reddit Plex sub and this was one of them a number of folks recommended. I've been really happy with it. Just connected a big external drive and it works perfectly. Was expecting to have to spend a lot more on a Dell or something but they'd pointed me this direction and it's much better. Smaller and doesn't take up room my old mini tower did, lower power draw, quiet, and still powerful enough to push out the content without issue.

Same here. Had it setup for plex server and worked great. Even had it transcode a 4k stream and it worked well.

1

MadPup

Aug 23, 2023 5:17 PM

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Joined Jan 2007

MadPupAug 23, 2023 5:17 PM

13.1K Comments

Quote from android

:

This might be a weird question, but I am curious for those of you that have one of these, could this be a good travel computer? I'm thinking of using one of these mini pcs and a 15.6 led portable monitor to travel with. How much does the Beelink weigh, and what about it's wallwart?

The power supply is similar to a laptop's. To me it makes zero sense to do what you are suggesting. This machine is basically the innards of a cheap laptop squeezed into a 4x4" box. Add a screen and a keyboard and you essentially have a laptop. So why not buy a laptop?

I firmly believe that most people who buy a mini pc would be better served by something else. It's a rare situation that you have very limited space to place a processing unit. People go to strange lengths to make mini pcs work for them, but the problems they are solving have already been solved elsewhere. For instance, I see people who add external GPUs so they can play AAA games. Had they opted for a bigger form factor they could have just installed a graphics card directly on the motherboard. Instead they end up with a heap of electronic spaghetti and meatballs on their desk. It's like they can only think one move at a time.

Last edited by MadPup August 23, 2023 at 10:26 AM.

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12

itomeshi

Aug 23, 2023 5:19 PM

88 Comments

Joined Mar 2011

itomeshiAug 23, 2023 5:19 PM

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Quote from shigshag

:

Beware there are no Linux kernel drivers for the hardware in this machine, so you're stuck with windows for now. You won't have Wi-Fi, and can't have Wi-Fi, until that gets updated.

Here [cnx-software.com] is a page describing an Ubuntu PPA to set it up. Each distro will probably have something within a few weeks.

Quote from darkbsx

:

Can this be used to setup home assistant? Might be a better option than going with a pi 4

Quote from hoover6

:

Crap. Would buy it if I could install Home Assistant OS on it.

This should work fine. In the short term, use a hard-wired ethernet connection (which is better for a home hub to access your LAN). In the long term, buy a cheap Linux-compatible wifi/bluetooth adapter OR wait until they add support for the included one (for HA OS, I would guess a month or so). The CPU and GPU are powerful enough that you can run most workloads, including GPU-based camera detection.

Quote from J03

:

How good are integrated graphics these days? I'd like to get something cheap I can hook up to my TV and play games like cities skylines on. I bought a Surfacebook 2 over 6 years ago because I wanted a 'best of both worlds' laptop solution with a dedicated GPU (GTX 1050.) Are 2023 integrated graphics catching up to old GPU's or should I keep looking for a laptop/mini PC with a dedicated GPU to replace this aging one.

So, good benchmarks are hard to come by - partially because of driver releases, various Xe GPU configurations, etc. This [notebookcheck.net] is somewhat useful. The TLDR is that the fastest integrated Intel graphics (Xe 96 EU, latest generation, high TDP) are getting there, but just aren't there yet.

However, some Radeon mobile graphics are there. Look at this [notebookcheck.net]! The Radeon 680M - iGPU on a Ryzen 6950HX, for example - is a little bit better than the mobile 1050!

There are also solid dGPU laptop options on a budget. I'm not going to argue Gateway is top-tier build quality... but this Gateway with an i5-11400H and an RTX 3050 for $400 is tempting.

Quote from rodalpho

:

You reversed it. The N95 GPU runs a whopping 60% faster at 1.2Ghz versus 750Mhz on the N100. The N100 does have more EUs though, so the N95 should in all truth only be 6.7% faster in actual use, making them pretty close. See the link:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www...803,231800

Most synthetic benchmarks I've seen (Passmark N95 [cpubenchmark.net] vs N100 [cpubenchmark.net], for example) show them trading blows. The better GPU and lower TDP make me much more interested in the N100, personally.

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2

deathscythe257

Aug 23, 2023 5:20 PM

567 Comments

Joined Oct 2007

deathscythe257Aug 23, 2023 5:20 PM

567 Comments

FYI, these typically have realtek NICs in them. This is generally not a problem if running windows, but if you plan on running OPNsense or linux, this can be give a driver issue.

Giraffasaurus

Aug 23, 2023 5:20 PM

721 Comments

Joined Apr 2011

GiraffasaurusAug 23, 2023 5:20 PM

721 Comments

Quote from rodalpho

:

You reversed it. The N95 GPU runs a whopping 60% faster at 1.2Ghz versus 750Mhz on the N100. The N100 does have more EUs though, so the N95 should in all truth only be 6.7% faster in actual use, making them pretty close. See the link:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www...803,231800

Clock speed doesn't = performance. 50% more EUs of the N100 beats the clock speed of the N95. Benchmarks are out there. The cpu is also faster and all at a tdp 40% of the N95. It's literally better in every way.

2

android

Aug 23, 2023 5:23 PM

620 Comments

Joined Dec 2007

androidAug 23, 2023 5:23 PM

620 Comments

Quote from MadPup

:

The power supply is similar to a laptop's. To me it makes zero sense to do what you are suggesting. This machine is basically the innards of a cheap laptop squeezed into a 4x4" box. Add a screen and a keyboard and you essentially have a laptop. So why not buy a laptop?

Because I prefer to use external keyboard and mouse even with a laptop, and since 15.6 led monitors only cost $80 and weigh less than 2 lbs, as long as the beelink weighs less than a pound, I get a powerful computer that weighs less than 3lbs, and costs less than $300. This doesn't exist in a laptop.

11

gluttonne

Aug 23, 2023 5:32 PM

1.1K Comments

Joined May 2005

gluttonneAug 23, 2023 5:32 PM

1.1K Comments

Quote from GoWhiteSox

:

I'm looking for something around $100 to run Batocera, is this good or is there a cheaper option?

It should be able to run most of the emulation Batocera currently supports, with the caveat that you may need to run the beta to get working wifi/bluetooth support in Linux (the N100 has fairly recently released modules for those so they need a couple of tweaks until smoothed out). You'd install the upgraded kernel and set a couple of things, per this post-
https://github.com/batocera-linux...ssues/9288

1

shonuff

Aug 23, 2023 5:39 PM

19 Comments

Joined May 2009

shonuffAug 23, 2023 5:39 PM

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I have this exact unit for week and a half. I have installed Ubuntu several times already as well as a clean Windows 11 install.

There's been reported case of this system overheating. So I took the heat sink off it apart (16 screws), cleaned the old thermal paste off and put in a good one. I've measured the system temps before and after. Idle temps are down to 32 degrees from 42 degrees. Also, I saw temps spike up to 80's for no reasons and it's steady.

Also, the BIOS setting appears to be very aggressive. Some thermal protections, including passive and Intel's thermal management, were disables and fan was set to only run at 70%. I've enabled many of them.

Linux Kernel: This comment is partially true.
If you want to use this unit without Bluetooth and WIFI, this works fine.
Bluetooth is reportedly working with Kernel 6.4. WIFI 5 is working with 6.4 or 6.5. WIFI6 may be working with 6.5. Bur these kernels are brand new and we won't see them in the mainline linux distros for probably 6 months. Latest (non-LTS) Ubuntu is at 6.2. And while you can load new kernel, it is not meant for an ordinary user.

I use this primary as a Plex server and a docker node where I push out containers to do bunch of experiments. And occasionally switch to my Windows partition. I don't know if I'd want to use this as Windows desktop out of box without replacing the thermal paste. (Which costs < $10)

3

1

Vanquished

Aug 23, 2023 5:48 PM

5.8K Comments

Joined Dec 2014

VanquishedAug 23, 2023 5:48 PM

5.8K Comments

Pretty good deal. I got the 8gb/256gb version for 129 on prime day. If you're using this as a pc replacement the better cpu, more ram and more storage is well worth the 40 bucks

I use mine as a media server and it works great

Beelink Mini S12 Pro Mini PC: Intel 12th Gen N100, 16GB DDR4, 500GB SSD

$169

$189

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