MINISFORUMN40 Mini PC Fanless Silent Desktop Computer 4GB RAM, 64GB eMMC Micro PC, Celeron N4020 up to 2.8GHz, 1000M LAN, HDMI&VGA, Support Auto Power On Mini Computer

The media could not be loaded. Looking for a small form factor PC to replace my aging laptop which has been my home automation server/file server for 5 years. Given that laptop runs 24/7 I wanted something to replace it to save energy cost and space it takes. So got this PC. Have been playing with for about a week and gathered some data/tips for people who are buying this.Here is lowdown on this PC.Cons:1) Video playback in full screen will be bit choppy. Not as smooth as regular PC. You can see in attached video that GPU is pegged at 100% when playing high def youtube video which is not full screen.2) Wifi on ubuntu doesn't work by default. (fix below in tips)3) No LED to indicate power status so hard to tell if it is on or off when screen is off. There is a LED inside and if you try hard, you can peek through air vents to see it but it would have been nice to make it bit more visible.4) Goes without saying, but don't expect this pc to replace your gaming PC. It has it's purpose and that is to save space, energy and cost . That comes at the price of not being high performance.Pros:1) Includes mounting bracket so you can mount it back of your TV.2) Has VGA port for older monitors (for remaining 2 people on earth who are still using VGA instead of HDMI)3) Comes with 3 USB ports4) No FAN ! Can't stress on how important it is for a always-on PC. Fans have moving parts and they eventually fail causing lot of trouble for replacement.5) Since it is super small, you can easily put it in back of TV/Monitor and it will be invisible.6) Excellent piece of hardware to augment your TV's online capabilities. You are no longer limited to limited apps provided by TV manufacturer.Since this PC has bare minimum specs (4GB ram, 64GB HDD), I was not keeping my hopes high (and you shouldn't too). This PC is good for Browsing net, word processing and watching occasional videos. You can also leave it on 24/7 and make it your streaming/file/automation server. But if you are stickler for high quality video, then be warned that full screen video play back is not smooth.Here are some tips to save you time if you plan to install linux : -1) Since it comes with fully licensed windows 10 , before installing ubuntu, you should backup your windows activation key using these steps..Press Windows key + XClick Command Prompt (admin)Enter the following command (without qoutes):"wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey"Hit EnterThe product key will be revealed, copy the product key (or take a picture from your phone).2) To get into BIOS, hit delete repeatedly when booting up and you will get into BIOS.3) If you install ubuntu, everytime you reboot this pc, it will default to 'internal audio' and you will lose audio from HDMI. So you have to manually set audio output to HDMI. Alternatively, there is a solution posted on minisforum pc's forum to automate it with a boot script.4) When you install ubuntu, choose 'minimal' install, that will take only 6 GB of space and you will have more than 50GB free available (as compared to about 30 gb with windows). You can always install any additional program as and when you want.5) To fix it download a file by name brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt (search on github) and put it in /lib/firmware/brcm/ and reboot)6) Default resolution will be too high, making font way too small to comfortably see beyond couple of feet. At highest resolution everything will lag too. So reduce the resolution, until you get to a level where you can read the screen prompts. Reducing the resolution will also make PC bit snappier.

Just What Was Needed! Thanks!

I’ve owned several Minisforum products that performed decently, but this one has been a complete disaster. After just a single day, it started to lock up every 30–60 seconds—screen goes blank, it drops off the network, and it even freezes if I’m just sitting in the BIOS. There’s no question this unit is defective.What’s worse is the abysmal customer support: Minisforum responds via email about once a day with useless suggestions that fix nothing. It’s little more than a paperweight right now, and dealing with them has been nothing but frustration. If you’re considering anything from Minisforum, take my advice: steer clear. This experience has been outright terrible.

This item has been a mixed bag for me, but still rates 4 stars.First the thumbs-up stuff.The support is excellent. MinisForum has a presence on the Web and they monitor and respond to the postings regularly. Shout-out to Huang, who fixed my problem and got me all straightened out.Now the thumbs-down stuffI initially connected the mini-PC to an older flat-screen TV via HDMI. Pressed the start button. Saw the MinisForum splash screen with spinning-balls progress indicator. I waited. And waited. And waited. It never moved past the spinning balls. Guess it needs a BIOS update,, I thought, since the company support forum had this prominently on offer in one of their sticky postings. The BIOS update installer and file were easy enough to find on the company website, but the instructions were abysmal. Being a computer guy, I was able to decipher the intentions of the instruction from what was written. But good luck to a non-tech person.After BIOS update, try boot-up again. Same thing. Stuck. So went hunting around the Internet and found a obscure posting somewhere from an old Windows guy which said try booting while connected to a "real" computer monitor using the VGA connector. Tried that, and success! It booted into Windows!Next I let it do all its Windows updates. Well that turned out to be a hassle too. One of the updates failed, and from reading the MinisForum postings, the only way to install this Windows update is to download it from the MinisForum website, configure a USB stick to carry the update, and install it manually via command prompt. The instructions document on how to do this update were even worse than the instructions for the BIOS update, which I did not think was possible. The most egregious shortcoming is that the instructions document failed to mention that you need to name the USB drive "WINPE" for this to work. So, after banging my head against the wall for way too long, back to the Internet. Found this instruction in one of the forum postings. MinisForum - please add this to the instructions document! So after renaming the USB stick and deciphering the "Chinese English" instructions (no disrespect intended, I'm sure their English is much better than my Chinese), I was able to successfully install the Windows update. Again, I cannot imagine a non-tech person being able to doing this.Hold on,not done yet! After a day or two, Windows was telling me that I needed to activate it! Somewhere along the way, the system lost the Windows activation credentials (if they were ever there in the first place?). This one was an easy fix. Posted a message on the company support forum, Huang contacted me, and the activation code he provided me with worked.Well this story does have a happy ending, but it was major aggravation to get there. I am now very happy with the performance of this device. Great price for a mini-pc running Windows 10 Pro, many others come with Win 10 Home.Now that the device is finally set up and working, it does the job I purchased it for:1. An always-on computer to run cloud backup software and to run personal VPN software.2. A media device to stream content to my TV.At the end of the day, I would buy this brand again for two reasons:1. The company has an online presence, actively provides support, and seems to have good intentions in regard to providing good after-sale service. Again, kudos to Huang.2. It comes with Windows 10 Professional, not Home.The one recommendation I would make to MinisForum is this: If you want to sell into North America, you should have a native English-speaker re-write you support documents. I found the poorly-written instructions to be great source of frustration.Advice to any prospective buyer. Patience is key. For any tech work, connect the device to a VGA monitor and do not interrupt any updates. I takes it a loooooooong time to reboot after the Windows update.Regarding HDMI connection causing boot process to hang - that happened only with the one TV, there were no issues with my other TV.