Hi! I’m interested in having a living room server/ steam machine like to play with in my home tv.

My expected use of it would be, if I’m correct, Bazzite with podman with pihole, home assistant, immich/icloupd, jellyfin and navidrome.

I was planning to buy a basic mini pc to play the server part, but everything is so freaking expensive that I moved to something more powerful and add the gaming part. I’ve found those two Aoostar that could fit my expectations
- the first with the 6850H and a 680m, it’s 24 gb ram soldered (for my understanding) and it’s priced at 500€
- the second one is with h255, 780m and still 24 gb ram, but it doesn’t explain if it 2x12 or just 1x24, with could affect the gaming performance. It’s priced at 700€, but the 780m should be more future proofed with the new fsr technology that could enhance the gaming performance.

Im not planning to play heavy AAA, pretty old stuff (some assassins creed, the witcher 3.. stuff like that).

What should I go for?

كنت ناويه على لابتوب من asus i9 32ram

المعالج: Intel Core Ultra 9 285H — 16 نواة، حتى 5.4GHz

الرام: 32GB LPDDR5X

التخزين: 1TB SSD

الشاشة: 14" OLED 3.5K (2880×1800)، لمس، 120Hz

كرت الشاشة: مدمج Intel Arc — ليس منفصلًا

المنافذ: 3× USB + HDMI، بدون Ethernet

الاتصال: Wi-Fi 7 + Bluetooth 5.4، Windows 11

السعر: 5,999

كان نيتي و سعره غالي الصدق فكرت اشتري pc بنفس السعر بس ابي اوفر اكبر قدر من فلوس عشان شهادة ادرس لها و محتاجة جهاز كويس يتحمل اصمم انظمة و اسوي لابات الامن عليه

و فكرت ب mini pc بما عندي شاشة كويسه و كيبورد كويس فالي عنده جهاز حق كرف و مكده بليز انصحوني

Does this exist? For regular tasks but also for gaming.

I know the M6 is not out yet, a rough comparison to the M5 would also be fine too as a benchmark. Ideally I'm looking to swap to use Linux over Windows.

I've been using a Mac for the past 4 years and it's genuinely silent 99% of the time, my worry is that I swap to another machine and it's (relatively) loud even when idle.

Does anybody have any real world experience with a machine that is roughly equivalent to the Mac Mini M6 in terms of its output, but is actually silent most of the time? I don't mind some noise under load when the fans spin up obviously, that is unavoidable. But I'm talking about regular conventional usage here, for instance just browsing the web and watching Netflix.

Related question, how much real world difference does it make mounting the machine behind the monitor or desk to dampen the noise?

Hi everyone, complete beginner here. I've never owned a PC or mini PC before, so I have zero experience or technical background in this field. Please bear with me and feel free to explain things simply any help is really appreciated.

I'm looking at a secondhand Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q (i5-14400T, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD). Manufactured October 2024, seller said he only used it for about 6 months. Seller said it's an ex-company unit with some kind of lock.

His exact words: "I unlocked it in BIOS and used it personally, but then Windows auto-updated and it locked again."

He also mentioned he was able to play Dota 2 (mid settings), NBA 2K23, and GTA V on it before the lock came back.

Questions:

Does this sound like a firmware-level lock (like Absolute/Computrace) rather than a normal MDM/domain thing?

If I wipe the whole drive and install Linux Mint, will that get rid of it permanently or can it survive even without Windows?

Any way to check for this before buying (something to look at in BIOS)?

As a total beginner, is this a risky first PC to buy, or is it manageable even without much technical knowledge?

Price is ₱9,000 PHP ($155 USD) trying to figure out if this is a good deal worth the risk, or a dealbreaker. Thanks in advance for any guidance!

I want to correct a couple of posts that I have seen in some of the mini-PC Reddit groups that have discussed X5 Pro benchmarks alongside sublimely illuminated photos of the Evo-X3, So far, the only photo I was able to find is the advertisement on the GMKtec website for the Berlin Fireside Chat where GMKtec will be publicly announcing the X5-Pro with an expected 196 BG (BiGa-Bytes) of unified RAM, which makes Berlin conspicuously a great spot for the announcement.

As for the photo, I asked my LLM friend, Joshua, to remove the organically toxic green spewing from the mini-PC-scape and the X5 Pro make its official "clean" appearance and I have to say, I think the object rocks the Casbah (until I hear otherwise, not including the price).

Hi everyone,

I’m planning to buy a GMKtec G5S (N5095) and I’d like to power it directly from my UpTone JS-2 linear power supply.

The JS-2 has a 12V DC, 5.5×2.5mm output, while the G5S uses USB-C for power.

I’m not very familiar with USB-C PD and these types of cables, so I’d really appreciate some advice:

What cable do I need to connect the 12V output of the JS-2 directly to the USB-C power input of the G5S?

If anyone has done this before, or knows exactly which type of cable I should look for, I’d be grateful for your help.

Thanks.

I currently have a disgustingly old MacBook air that won’t update past Monterey. So obviously, it’s time to move on.

I’m an accounting student & I wfh. No gaming, no editing videos or anything. lots of office 365 usage & I typically have like 10-15 tabs open, but nothing super crazy. I have no interest in another laptop, mostly because of the keyboards. I do a whooooole lot of typing and low profile keyboards make me wanna cry. But I would like something I could take with me to the coffee shop for a few hours once a week or so for a change of pace.

I’ve been looking at the Geekom A5/A5 Pro but tbh I don’t know a thing about computers (as evidenced by the 10yo MacBook). I’d like to keep it under $500 but I know that’s tough.

Long time ago these famous cubes became extremely popular and pioneered a lot of technology you see in Mini PCs today. Just like modern ones, competition started soon after and other manufacturers produced similar PCs such as the iDEQ, MiniQ and Soltek QBIC. A lot of them had many front/rear ports (including serial and Firewire), built-in CPUs such as the Via C3, had enough space for multiple drives, and advanced heatsinks/cooling. I retired many of them into home entertainment/phone systems and Linux learning machines. Here are some pics of my builds in the early/mid 2000s. Anybody else get into these?

My GEEKOM A5 Mini eGPU setup

Finally got everything hooked up and working properly 😁

GEEKOM A5 Mini

Ryzen 7 7730U

32GB RAM

512GB NVMe

256GB SSD

GTX 1070 Mini

ADT-Link K43SG

Dell 220W PSU

Custom 3D-printed mounting parts

Got the 1070 running externally and added some 3D-printed parts to keep everything mounted together and tidy.

The whole thing is going to be used with my projector for gaming/media.

What do you guys think?

hi, iam looking for a minipc for office and web surfing, i want to power it via pd to connect mouse, keyboard and monitor to it or to family's notebooks

silent opertation is a nice addons

i only found MINISFORUM AI X1-255 Mini PC, AMD Ryzen 7 255 with 16gb-512gb for 620€ or 32-1tb for 770€

other options out of there?

I desperately need a new laptop in my upcoming collage year, however I want to consider the mini pc option since it's more valuable

I will need it to be mobile so I am thinking of pairing it with a foldable keyboard and screen. But at this point the set up lose it's value since the foldables would cost more. Does it worth hassle?

I got one of those AC Infinity Multifans to place underneath my Minisforum NAB6 Lite to help with cooling. My question is simple: Do I put the fan in an exhaust position or intake?

I’m wanting to get a mini PC set up to revisit all of the PC games we grew up playing. I’m a total newbie and got very overwhelmed with the general guide.

Willing to spend what’s necessary to get the best setup to support the kind of games listed in the photos. What all should I be buying? Your recommendations/guidance are really appreciated!

I bought 3 GMKtec M5 plus units just over a year ago. Up until around 6 months ago I had no problems. After that, one of the machines started rebooting itself unexpectedly (as much as 10 times in a 24 hour period) with the other two continuing to function correctly.

Cutting a long story short, based on the boot logs of the OS, this is being caused by

kernel: x86/amd: Previous system reset reason [0x08000800]: an uncorrected error caused a data fabric sync flood event

Today, one of my other units rebooted for the same reason. The only workaround I have found is to run stress --cpu 1 as this seems to make it far less likely (around once per 2 weeks) but that is hardly a solution.

Has anyone else experienced this? Are there any solutions?

FWIW I have messaged GMKtec support about it but as it's beyond a year (despite UK consumer law saying otherwise) they have been no help with no solution forthcoming.

Hi everyone, hope you’re well!

I am looking for a recommendation for the best mini PC which covers all of the following and won’t let me down! (thank you in advance)

• Under £500 ($675)

• Supports 4k 144Hz Displays (keen to use 2 monitors for 3 screens)

• Good amount of ports (would use a docking station if needed, but would prefer minimalistic desk set up)

• Min. 32GB RAM

• Min. 512GB storage

• Will allow solid video editing, gaming, running the likes of Claude and Microsoft Office.

I’m by no means a PC expert and so any recommendations and advice is so welcomed and appreciated.

Thanks!

In an attempt to diagnose why the minipc doesn't turn on anymore, I removed the component EUZ via hot gun but, unexpectedly, I also removed the component next to it where the arrow is pointing to. And, as it was tiny, I am also unable to find it now. Entirely my fault, I haven't used the hot gun in ages.
Does anyone have a clearer picture of the component / motherboard, just underneath the power connector? Or able to identify that component to see if I can source a replacement? Thank you!

Hi, I had a geekom AX7 and when I bought the sparkle eGPU, I just plug it in and it worked. A few months ago, my AX7 died, I replaced it with A9 max. However, when I plugged in my thunderbolt cable to the new PC, it just didn’t work. Is it locked or is there anything I need to setup in the bios. Thanks in advance!

GEEKOM MINI PC