Mini PC, Intel N100 (latest gen), 16Gb DDR5, 512GB SSD, Dual ethernet, wifi - Sold by Cutesliving Store

This annoys me

I paid around £200 for a much earlier Intel NUC10i5FN from CEX as a spare computer after managing to wreck my desktop (don't ask..).

Brilliant bit of kit either way though. Perfectly fine for basic desktop browsing and a bit of light emulation while I wait for my new PC to be built and delivered.

Don't know about this model, but I know I had to buy a USB soundcard for my one to get some tunes going.

At 5 day delivery, I'm half tempted to sell the one I've got back to CEX and order this one instead ! (edited)

Congratulations on your first deal post!

Worth noting that with sellers on AliExpress there's very little form of redress if you have a warranty issue with the devices, although issues are not overly common, it may be something the more cautious would want to consider.
Voted hot because I love SFF low power computing. (edited)

Mine arrived today. Looks cool. My only concern is has it been rootkitted before I got it. Can I trust the windows install ?

Back

Inside

Inside 2

Inside 3

Back (edited)

Step-by-step guide on what i went through yesterday for the re-install:

0. create a windows 11 bootable USB (Download Windows 11)

1. Boot the PC.

2. It will ask to create an offline acct and password/PIN - make something up and write it down - it is temporary. Don't divulge any real passwords.

3. Once booted up, set up the internet connection

4. Go to Windows Accounts and sign into your microsoft account. if you have authenticator set up , you won't have to enter a password. Authenticate login through your mobile phone.

5. Restart the PC into recovery mode (start->restart) while holding left shift on your keyboard.

6 On recovery page select boot from USB

7. Select re-install windows (not repair). You'll need to select the largest partition on the disk to install to. (something like 470 GB)

8. Follow on screen prompts. login with your Microsoft account. You will need your password/PIN from (2) - this is the last time you will use that pw.

9. Job Done.

Steps 1 to 4 may not be necessary, but i did it anyway in case the pc had to be linked to my MS acct in some way. Maybe someone else can share whether you can reinstall straight out of the box. (edited)

I've got this, bought 2 and gave one as a gift. Really good systems. I purchased with a portable monitor and stand to make a mini setup.

Comes with W11, 16gb Ddr5 and 512gb nvme. On arrival I had to change the ddr5 RAM frequency to 4800 from 3200. Was super simple and easy to do. Bios is unlocked.

N100 supports ddr5 4800 speed. It plays light games LoL, DOTA 2.

Buy 2 from the same seller and dodge the auto the tax (edited)

How do you reinstall windows ?

Here is my Win11 reinstall method. Googled a lot along the way as never needed or wanted to do it before...
Credit @k9plus1 as I borrowed some things there and used it as a base.

**On another computer (if possible):**
1) Download Windows 11 install software onto a USB drive
**On the new mini:**
2) Boot to windows using any old name, password and security. Nothing real (write it down)
3) You do not need to connect to the internet, bypass by doing this... - I needed a USB keyboard here for some reason, probably just me
4) Once windows is up Get your Win11 product key - it was not on my packaging (write it down)

Option A (new windows 11 install):
5a) Boot to BIOS / UEFI and change the 'Boot' option so that USB is option 1 before disc, for me I used the Hold SHIFT then click restart in Win11 - INSERT USB before doing this
6b) Follow the instructions to reinstall win11
7c) You can decide to delete the other partitions or not (I would)

Option B (wipe the lot and start from scratch):
5b) Go to settings, recovery and reset device. I followed this guide... - NOTE: this will take a while, maybe a good few hours
6b) Install windows. I needed to use the oobe\bypassnro method again to avoid network connection (wouldn't type until I did CTRL+SHIFT+TAB and selected command prompt) and also the no@thankyou.com method to avoid setting up or linking an account (probablt a better way, i didm't look too hard).

I'm doing Option B now, will update when complete. Saving the post now so I don't lose it!!
UPDATE: took over 3 hours, didn't need the windows key but good to keep anyway (edited)

Does anyone know how or have a guide how to increase the CPU & RAM speed on these? thanks.

Can anyone recommend a good, reasonably priced UK power supply for this? I'd rather not use an EU adaptor. Thanks!

Nice deal, I got a beelink with the same processor running proxmox and a virtualized pfsense instance and it can handle 1gig over wireguard if anyone is interested. I also run pi hole and my unifi controller on it too.

Having toyed with it last night I can confirm.

1. a reinstall of win 11 did not need additional drivers (no need to backup drivers!)
2. I did not need to reactivate win 11 pro (no need to 'link' or export serial key!)
3. Had to set TV hdmi mode to 'standard' on my hisense TV

I also set up moonlight on the mini PC (client) and sunshine on my host PC (AMD GPU) upstairs . Now can fully stream my entire epic AND steam library to the living room which is fantastic.

Guide on how to do this below.

Download moonlight (client) from here: github.com/moo…ses
Download Sunshine (host) from here: github.com/Liz…8.4
Download gamepad emulation drivers (host) from here: Releases · nefarius/ViGEmBus

Make your networks on both PC's PRIVATE NETWORKs under 'network and settings'. Otherwise the client won't find the host. Essentially it lets you remote into your host PC and run all apps/games remotely.

And obviously, a wired network on the host would be pretty much essential.

(edited)

Looks like it will be about £2.50 cheaper on Choice Day, if that persuades anyone... looks like there might also be coupons on that day that would take it down further if they work.

Sale price US $123.48 on Feb 1 PT

hrm this is very tempting for a plex box. there's no expansion on the storage i presume, it uses some goofy m.2 standard so i don't know if you could easily upgrade that way anyway, but you totally could run external storage for media streaming.

i was going to buy a HP Prodesk 600 G3 Mini on facebook market for 40 with a 6100t in it and upgrade the chip to something 7th gen for the better iGPU but this would be objectively far superior, right? for plex specifically.

Had this in my basket but not 100% sure which model to go for. I'm looking to use it for home assistant/ home bridge with 3 cameras and accessories, VPN and NAS, how much RAM should be enough, 8GB or 16GB?

TIA.

Can someone do me a favour and put this on a power reading plug and say how many watts used at idle and under load

Thanks for the deal ! Thinking of using this for Home Assistant home-assistant.io/. Anyone have any experience or thoughts? Thanks !!

A question for users that use Aliexpress regularly...

What are they like if items don't arrive or are faulty?

I'm kinda interested in a few but there's a lot of bad reviews.

Has anyone bought a uk plug replacement charger for this or are people just using adaptors? If you’ve got a new charger which one?

Can anyone recommend something similar but with usb-c for power instead of a barrel plug?

i was bored so i modded it a little with an antenna kit
...now i can pick wifi and bluetooth up from the next town

aliexpress.com/ite…tml

joking aside, i didnt expect the antennas to be this big lol

not bad for £3

Mine arrived today, exceeding expectations. Excellent bit of kit. Increased the DDR5 speed to 4800MHz. Overall, running Plex at ~4W CPU package power. Much better than my Pi4

Set-up mine as a plex server for now following this, working well thanks OP -

Make sure though when you install ubuntu that you disable this option during the install so that all of the storage is available.

Set up this disk as a LVM group

(edited)

Mine just arrived. Thinking I'll format and go with Ubuntu. I don't want to lose the option of returning to Windows, is there anything I need to do to "back up" the included Windows license so I can still use it in the future?

Do I just have to connect to your Microsoft account to get it to store the digital key, and from there I'm free to format and can use again? I'm guessing this can't be gotten around which could be a problem if I didn't trust the current Windows installation on there? (edited)

Good price for a Mini-PC with these specs, but I don't see any information about all the available ports.
Can anyone shed any light on this? Primarily interested in how many USB ports this has.

Wow the 8GB / 256GB on is down to 85 now!!!

How do people think this would be best to expand the storage to say 8tb?

In case anyone's interested, there's a deal on an alternative N100 miniPC: aliexpress.com/ite…tml

[UPDATE: my deal above was removed as the seller doesn't yet meet the HUKD 300 review bar (only 227 so far)]

£126.43+VAT (at moment) for 16GB 512GB version -allegedly ends early tomorrow

Differences to the one above:
-Got two (additional) full function USB-C ports
-DDR4-3200 RAM
-Removable RAM module (one module only)
-possibly a better quality make

I've posted this deal: hotukdeals.com/dea…615 (edited)

Code hotukdealsc8 gives $8 off.. $132 total which is around £103!
(edited)

Was about to jump on this, but a little tempted by one of the NAS N100 boards instead.

Dual ethernet is a bit of a weird one as each one is only 1gbps meaning if you can link them together via teaming that's only a 2gbps bandwidth.

Compared to just having one 10gbps ethernet.

Recommended adapter for plug?

Warning, this deal is showing as ending in less than 14 hours for me, so order it tonight if you haven't already.

Arrived this morning. Came with 2-pin 12v 2.5a power supply and a little VESA mount.

Can anyone please confirm whether this has the setting to turn itself back on automatically after a power interruption or not? Many thanks in advance for any input.

With risks being mentioned towards the end of this thread, how much more would a UK or Amazon sourced mini PC be? Thanks in advance.

Would this work well as a device to stream games to from my gaming PC? I currently use an NVIDIA Shield Pro & that works brilliantly. How does this compare in terms of power? I'd also use it as a 24/7 media server. Thanks!

I have some spare computer parts from my 2016 HTPC build a few years ago (Intel Core 4170 CPU & a Gigabyte 1150 motherboard along with some DDR4 RAM) but I'd need a new PSU & case. Am I better off utilising these parts? I'm assuming there'd be a big difference in terms of energy efficiency though...

I can't speak about this exact PC but I can say that the N100 is an amazing low power server chip. I use a microATX N100 board as a home server running Jellyfin, Pi-Hole, qBittorrent and various other Docker containers, alongside using it as a file server between my main PC and phone. Also ran a 10 player CS2 server for a few days flawlessly! Definitely a worthwhile upgrade from the Pi 4 I was using.