Zotac Mini-PC Refurb $25

okay for 25$ that's dirt cheap, but they are not fast machines....

Edit: Also no HDD or RAM included, so factor that into the price tag.
 
Guarana [BAWLS] said:
okay for 25$ that's dirt cheap, but they are not fast machines....

Edit: Also no HDD or RAM included, so factor that into the price tag.
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Haha man I love your name! I get bawls drunk whenever I go to Quakecon... its the best ever!
 
Hehe I used to have a zotac e350 box, was a pretty nifty little box. Only major grip at the time was Netflix and silverlight but I think that was fixed. Would probably blow a raspberry pie away for that price point. Even with some ram and a HDD.
 
I think the e350 is more in the d270 atom class, so depending on your stick the cherry trail or m3 would probably give you a significant CPU boost, maybe equal GPU power although the 2 devices are still IMHO the same class of device...
 
Do these accept laptop sized 2.5" harddrives? If so, I'm game. I have a 500GB sitting around collecting dust and I can easily transplant my DDR2 SO-DIMMs from my ancient laptop.
 
Crosshairs said:
if you read the description, it says it does not come with it.
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They have since updated it, but originally it implied that it came with the 4GB or RAM and 160GB drive. It now explicitly indicates it does not come with those parts.
I bought 1 when it originally said that so customer service will be hearing from me if it arrives otherwise. Who know's if it was limited stock with those parts or was just a misleading post.
 
Yipes, they need to seriously update their site, one page says an item comes with RAM/HD, another page says it doesn't. Not cool.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Yipes, they need to seriously update their site, one page says an item comes with RAM/HD, another page says it doesn't. Not cool.
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Different pages may be different products/models ?
I think the zotac models can be really confusing... either way it looked like a good deal
 
SPARTAN VI said:
Do these accept laptop sized 2.5" harddrives? If so, I'm game. I have a 500GB sitting around collecting dust and I can easily transplant my DDR2 SO-DIMMs from my ancient laptop.
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yes it does use 2.5" SATA drives.

FYI: If it's not an SSD, you're going to lose out on a ton of speed in one of these.
 
It's cheap, but... what do you people actually have planned for something like this? The wifi is slow, the processor is trash, and there isn't any ram or SSD...
 
Kainzo said:
Different pages may be different products/models ?
I think the zotac models can be really confusing... either way it looked like a good deal
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I see this and when I click on the link to the actual product page it mentions no RAM/HDD is actually included. They need to fix this.

snip1.png
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
It's cheap, but... what do you people actually have planned for something like this? The wifi is slow, the processor is trash, and there isn't any ram or SSD...
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I dont get what this is for? Can it do playback with H.264, H.265, MP4? Something like MediaPlayerClassic-HC? That CPU though will bottleneck HD content.
 
chaikovski2002 said:
I dont get what this is for? Can it do playback with H.264, H.265, MP4? Something like MediaPlayerClassic-HC? That CPU though will bottleneck HD content.
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the E-350 has hardware-accelerated H264 decode.
the only advantages it has over an ARM-based solution are the ports; you get a reasonably-performing implementation of SATA III and USB 3.0, whereas most Android TV boxes have neither.
 
Mine did arrive with the 160GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM as described. So either they sold a few with RAM/HDD and then stopped or someone fucked up. I am going to be using several of mine to host drives for Burstcoin and Storj mining (no plotting).

apYUXtMb.jpg
 
I wonder, does this take DDR3 or does it require DDR3L. I have some of the older DDR3 sodimms laying around that I can't use because everything I own requires the low voltage stuff.

westrock2000 said:
It can run Windows too, so I would put that as a plus over a Pi.
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Strictly speaking, this is not accurate. There is an IoT release of Windows 10 for the raspberry pi. However, since the Pi is ARM based there are not many apps that will run on it. If someone wanted to replace their desktop with a Pi they would be better off running a linux variant than Windows.
 
6foot4geek said:
Mine did arrive with the 160GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM as described. So either they sold a few with RAM/HDD and then stopped or someone fucked up. I am going to be using several of mine to host drives for Burstcoin and Storj mining (no plotting).

apYUXtMb.jpg
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WHOA, score! (y)
 
I would assume that these e350 boxes are old enough to use regular ddr3, I did notice on the old zotac driver download site under the bios' that they added voltage control in the change logs.

Regardless I broke down and snagged one to use some old parts I have lying around and should get it on Friday and will try to verify. I am hoping to setup a media box with it. I am thinking Kodi Ubuntu, and maybe some emulator love... But if I recall correctly N64 is about the max that they can handle.
 
doublejack said:
Strictly speaking, this is not accurate. There is an IoT release of Windows 10 for the raspberry pi. However, since the Pi is ARM based there are not many apps that will run on it. If someone wanted to replace their desktop with a Pi they would be better off running a linux variant than Windows.
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I did not know this, so I will give you your technical point. But my god, that version makes Windows RT look full featured, and RT was terrible (which I owned).

 
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In for one, $35 with shipping isn't bad. I can use it as an XP box to run some ancient games without being a giant box taking up space on my desk. As long as its about as fast as a Pentium III 800mhz and a GeForce GTS 32MB I should be golden :D

Already have a 2GB stick of DDR3 SODIMM and a pile of 2.5" SSD's and HDD's so I'll toss a set in.
 
westrock2000 said:
I did not know this, so I will give you your technical point. But my god, that version makes Windows RT look full featured, and RT was terrible (which I owned).

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That's a really basic, command line only installation. There are more advanced installations that include a GUI, touch screen support and a simple web browser among other apps. Check out this video:

 
How would this perform with LibreELEC / KODI 17 vs a MXQ S805(arm) / S905(arm) box? (priced and loaded similarly) Would it even run a limited OS such as LibreELEC for a simple front end for kodi?

Thanks.
 
I just got done setting mine up with Linux Mint 18 cinnamon, and Kodi and it runs pretty well. I added a 8gb ddr3 stick and 1tb drive I had lying around. I added 2gb to the GPU just for giggles. I was working on emulation station and retroarch as well to get some classic gaming going.

Note it looks like regular ddr3 works fine. It also has a secondary sata connector that would be nifty to get an adapter or pinout for.

I suppose vs an arm box it really depends on if stuff like a mechanical drive or a full OS or just general play stuff. Also it has a display port which makes a HP 1440p 27" way more useful as the beast can't do HDMI.

Just my 2c but hey 32$ shipped and a little more fun that my rpi2.

Note I would suggest scraping the 5 year old thermal paste off and doing some new stuff as for me it dropped the load temps 5c.
 
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rhansen5_99 said:
I just got done setting mine up with Linux Mint 18 cinnamon, and Kodi and it runs pretty well. I added a 8gb ddr3 stick and 1tb drive I had lying around. I added 2gb to the GPU just for giggles. I was working on emulation station and retroarch as well to get some classic gaming going.

Note it looks like regular ddr3 works fine. It also has a secondary sata connector that would be nifty to get an adapter or pinout for.

I suppose vs an arm box it really depends on if stuff like a mechanical drive or a full OS or just general play stuff. Also it has a display port which makes a HP 1440p 27" way more useful as the beast can't do HDMI.

Just my 2c but hey 32$ shipped and a little more fun that my rpi2.

Note I would suggest scraping the 5 year old thermal paste off and doing some new stuff as for me it dropped the load temps 5c.
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Cool so 8GB of memory works fine in there even though it said 4GB?
 
Yes 8gb is working fine, note I had the 2nd to the the latest bios' on there. I did grab the latest one and install.

Also want to add that I tried steam and steam streaming with big picture looks to be working pretty well over the included wifi. It does auto default to 1060x660, but probably a function of the 150 n 2.4 GHz card. I bet hard wired would be way better.

Taking the thing apart for the thermal paste job got be kind of interested in maybe 3d printing a new case as there is a lot of empty space in the chassis. Hehe maybe a mini PS1 or something cooler.

Also question for you guys, any one know a cheap remote to get that will work with the integrated ir port on this thing?
 
Got mine in, it powered on exactly one time and now nothing. I guess thats why it was a refurb.
 
That does suck, what happened to make it fail? I guess just curious what to look out for, do you mean it posted before?

Assuming you are not returning it, there are 6 screws to get it out of the case once the back is off. It might be worth seeing if there is any component damage, but might also void a warranty if there is one.
 
I did take it apart, the price isn't worth the hassle of returning it. I got it working by removing the CMOS battery for about 3 days and letting it sit. It seems to be very very picky about the memory you put in it.
 
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