MINISFORUM N40 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.

Bought this primarily for the specs. Wanted to make sure I could turn it into an NES, N64, and more advanced system emulator (gaming console) AS WELL AS basically being a smart TV and welp... it works perfectly!I can watch youtube, hulu, Netflix, etc - anything you can watch on a regular PC + I can play all my old NES, N64, SEGA, etc. games using emulators :D I haven't tried any more advanced PC games yet or anything but will probably do so soon. For the emulators, you can buy Nintindo, N64, Sega, etc. controllers right here on Amazon. That's where I got mine and they seem to work just fine.Other, added bonus: I can travel with it and plug it into hotel TV's to play games and do work. I have a little mini bluetooth keyboard and bluetooth mouse that work well for traveling (also bought off amazon).So far no slow downs with anything I've thrown at it. Wifi appears to be 5G as it connects to my 5G network and has good speeds so far. No waiting on buffering over Wifi. Although I should mention it's only like 15 feet from my router so that probably helps. I was a little worried about that but then again, that's why I bought this particular one - it has an ethernet port. So if I ever do experience slow downs in internet speed, I can plug the ethernet in.Scanned this PC using Dr. Web (virus scanner) and found 0 threats, which is great because the last mini PC I got from ebay had 168 threats. Returned that one and bought this one.Overall though I'm very satisfied so far.... so satisfied that I had to share :) Hope this little bit of info and showing what I did with mine helps someone else out there :)

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.