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popular Posted by justye • Last Thursday
popular Posted by justye • Last Thursday

KAMRUI Mini PC Intel N100 16GB DDR4 512GB SSD WINDOWS 11 PRO $109.65 - REFURBISHED

$110

$179

38% off
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Update: listing is now changed to certified refurbished.

$109.65 after 15% coupon is applied to order. Free shipping.

The N100 is almost equivalent to the N150, despite being an "older" processor. This is ~$30 cheaper than similar N150 Mini PC deals that don't have much of a performance improvement.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/355144475924
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Update: listing is now changed to certified refurbished.

$109.65 after 15% coupon is applied to order. Free shipping.

The N100 is almost equivalent to the N150, despite being an "older" processor. This is ~$30 cheaper than similar N150 Mini PC deals that don't have much of a performance improvement.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/355144475924

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28 Comments

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Last Thursday
732 Posts
Joined Aug 2013
Last Thursday
PaulL3556
Last Thursday
732 Posts
looks like the ram is soldered/built in "KAMRUI N100 Mini PC comes with built-in single-channel 16GB DDR4 RAM"
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4
Original Poster
Last Thursday
2,395 Posts
Joined May 2015
Last Thursday
justye
Original Poster
Last Thursday
2,395 Posts
Quote from PaulL3556 :
looks like the ram is soldered/built in "KAMRUI N100 Mini PC comes with built-in single-channel 16GB DDR4 RAM"
Good catch. However, this "design" is very common and other "brands" like Firebat have the same exact one and it looks like RAM is upgradeable. Obviously, I'm not saying this Kamrui branded one is going to be exactly like those boxes, but I'm skeptical there's any difference. See this video for a teardown [youtube.com].

Having said that, if that video is the same box, then this thing is using super low components like some no name Aliexpress type SSD. I'm concerned it won't last long and you'd have to factor that into the cost. I'm curious if the more expensive models use better branded SSDs and RAM (like the cooler looking KAMRUI black box that goes for ~$140 on Amazon). If not, then I wouldn't want to spend that much on one of these. I'd rather get fully barebones models and source my own RAM and SSDs.

See this Reddit post [reddit.com] where people complain about the Wicgtyp brand SSD found in that teardown video.
2
Last Thursday
2,238 Posts
Joined Feb 2014
Last Thursday
elefante72
Last Thursday
2,238 Posts
Good deal for server, I assume the SSD is SATA (slow) not NVMe?
Last Thursday
207 Posts
Joined Aug 2008
Last Thursday
culbeda
Last Thursday
207 Posts
Quote from elefante72 :
Good deal for server, I assume the SSD is SATA (slow) not NVMe?

NVMe is as cheap or cheaper than SATA in most cases. It's probably QLC and uncached, though.
Pro
Last Thursday
2,324 Posts
Joined Oct 2010
Last Thursday
mavalpha
Pro
Last Thursday
2,324 Posts
Quote from elefante72 :
Good deal for server, I assume the SSD is SATA (slow) not NVMe?

On an N100, you won't notice the difference regardless.
Last Thursday
294 Posts
Joined Apr 2006
Last Thursday
bigbirdoncrack
Last Thursday
294 Posts
Curious if anyone has ever gotten them to bite on "make an offer"
Last Thursday
222 Posts
Joined Jul 2011
Last Thursday
josim
Last Thursday
222 Posts

Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank josim

OP - The link takes you to certified - refurbished unit. Would you note that please.
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Last Thursday
1,813 Posts
Joined Aug 2015
Last Thursday
Redflyer
Last Thursday
1,813 Posts
Same company that makes acemagic. Found to have unremovable malware embedded that not even an OS wipe or firmware update can clean. Avoid
1
6
Last Thursday
2,628 Posts
Joined Apr 2007
Last Thursday
myadidas1981
Last Thursday
2,628 Posts
Quote from bigbirdoncrack :
Curious if anyone has ever gotten them to bite on "make an offer"
Might be tough with coupon code. Someone should test this. That someone is me - will report back (going to offer $100).

One thing to call out: This is refurbished - I didn't see that in the post.
1
Last Thursday
294 Posts
Joined Apr 2006
Last Thursday
bigbirdoncrack
Last Thursday
294 Posts
Quote from Redflyer :
Same company that makes acemagic. Found to have unremovable malware embedded that not even an OS wipe or firmware update can clean. Avoid

Hold on...This has become an over hyped internet boogie man at this point. All that hoopla was around the early pre-2024 batches and was cleared up.

Honestly anyone who is using ANY BRAND of these CN mini PCs should not use them for banking or other mission critical needs.
Now as a media server with all of your "legal obtained backups" of music, movies, etc. I'm sure these are more than ok for that use case with a fresh wipe & install (which one should do for ANY PC you buy period).
1
3
Last Thursday
13,464 Posts
Joined Dec 2011
Last Thursday
Peerless_Warrior
Last Thursday
13,464 Posts
Quote from mavalpha :
On an N100, you won't notice the difference regardless.
What in the world are y'all doing with this CPU to even need nvme?? 😭
3
Pro
Last Thursday
1,386 Posts
Joined Apr 2006
Last Thursday
INeverPayRetail
Pro
Last Thursday
1,386 Posts

Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank INeverPayRetail

Quote from Redflyer :
Same company that makes acemagic. Found to have unremovable malware embedded that not even an OS wipe or firmware update can clean. Avoid

I've read of such in these cheap mini-PC's, but BIOS malware is difficult to create & implement. But, if it allows the Trojan Horse to enter, then a state or criminal enterprise sponsored actor may have the resources to do it. Nevertheless, I haven't read any actual security oriented research to verify the rumors of unremovable malware. Got any links?
1
Last Thursday
2,238 Posts
Joined Feb 2014
Last Thursday
elefante72
Last Thursday
2,238 Posts
Quote from mavalpha :
On an N100, you won't notice the difference regardless.
That is not accurate. I purchased 3 N100 cubes which had SATA SSD in there for a kube cluster and it was painfully slow for longhorn (clustered storage). I upgraded to NVMe and I was able to more than double.

The SATA SSD were getting around 300-400 MB/sec, and the NVMe was a tad over 900MB/sec (Gen 3 x1 pcie). Furthermore the IOPS were more than double.

Of course for normal usage it doesn't matter but if you are using these for servers and you need performance out of your storage it can make a big difference.

Even in Windows 11 it was 2x faster (I tried for giggles before I put linux on them.

The great thing about these is 6W idle.
Last Thursday
2,238 Posts
Joined Feb 2014
Last Thursday
elefante72
Last Thursday
2,238 Posts
Quote from culbeda :
NVMe is as cheap or cheaper than SATA in most cases. It's probably QLC and uncached, though.
Not sure about that, if it were cheaper they would put NVMe drives in there and not SATA. The cost is a few bucks of difference, but as an ODM that adds up. Yes they are prob QLC and dramless but w/ HMB that isn't normally an issue in these small boxes.

I agree 100% tho they USED to put NVMe in there a few years ago (and crucial) but I believe there was some embargo then they started using MIC devices.

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Last Thursday
845 Posts
Joined Oct 2017
Last Thursday
kpb321
Last Thursday
845 Posts
Assuming it is actually DDR4 memory like the specs say I do expect it to actually be a SODIMM. If it is LPDDR it would be on board. The SODIMM does allow changing memory but 16gb is the max supported memory for these chips. I think 32gb does typically work but can't confirm that personally.

I picked up a similar one at a similar price and it did seem to be an NVMe drive but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it varied based on what ever was the cheapest option at the time. I wouldn't put it past these cheap systems to swap out parts from run to run if they don't specify exactly what it is in the specs. BT/Wifi is another case where I could easily see them going Intel or MediaTek or who ever they get cheapest at the time.

For setting up mine I went ahead and backed up the drivers and extracted the Windows Key to be safe. I tried to reset the machine but it Windows complained it couldn't do it so I made a boot USB key and did a clean reinstall. It also came partitioned to 2 250gb drives instead of a single 500gb partition so I deleted all the partitions and recreated a single partition when reinstalling.
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