aussievintage Posted December 6, 2020 Share Posted December 6, 2020 Has anyone else noticed there's a heap of refurbed M93p computers for sale around the place (eBay and computer shops that do secondhand computers)? Starting at about $199, and lots of places offering optioning up. I got one with Intel i5, wifi, 8GB RAM and 240 GB SSD for $259. Came with Windows 10 Pro, but I am running linux on mine. Goes like the clappers with that much ram and solid state disk in it. Nice and small - I think they claim it's case is 1 litre volume. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussievintage Posted December 7, 2020 Author Share Posted December 7, 2020 No interest? I thought these computers would be great for people wanting to build small media servers, streamers etc, and also as cheap desktops. A cheap alternative to NUCs. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Old Man Rubber Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 13 hours ago, aussievintage said: No interest? I thought these computers would be great for people wanting to build small media servers, streamers etc, and also as cheap desktops. A cheap alternative to NUCs. The price is uncomfortably close to a brand new, low end laptop for me. How much room inside the case for storage expansion? Does it do USB 3? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussievintage Posted December 7, 2020 Author Share Posted December 7, 2020 34 minutes ago, Old Man Rubber said: The price is uncomfortably close to a brand new, low end laptop for me. How much room inside the case for storage expansion? Does it do USB 3? You mean a low end laptop with just 32GB or 64GB eMMc storage? I had one with a while back with 32GB. There wasn't even enough room for Windows to do it's updates. Really! The M93p is a much better performer. i5 cpu vs celeron (usually). The really low prices are machines stuck with Windows S mode like https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/lenovo-ideapad-slim-1-notebook-celeron-4-64gb-grey-11igl05-syipslim1c) whereas the M93p has Windows 10 Pro. My wife (just a casual user) has another a Lenovo Ideapad 110. 4GB RAM and 500GB hard disk. It is so painfully slow she stopped using it. She now has my hand me down Asus i5-6200U with 12GB RAM and 1TB HD and is now happy with the usability, but that was an $800 laptop on special. To your questions, the case of the M93p has room for one drive. I opted for a 240 GB SSD. It has 2 DDR3L SODIMM slots for memory The computer has 5 USB 3 ports and I plug an external 2TB HD into one of them. Performance is good through these ports. Also, I was thinking about the uses we put computers to in hifi. The laptop form factor is not convenient. You need a small box that you can hid away and access remotely. That's why I compared it to NUCs. They can cost a lot more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Old Man Rubber Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 What is the fan noise like? Heat? In my setup the NAS / media server is usually not plugged into a display so using an old laptop has been very handy. I am thinking about using a Raspberry Pi as the next one though, depending on what the USB 3 external storage speed is like. I'd agree that the cheap laptops aren't much good for interactive use, but sitting in a cupboard with a drive attached and running Debian they are a bit of a no-fuss alternative to having something that requires a keyboard and display. I like the idea of these Lenovo units but the extra performance in my setup wouldn't be used on a machine that is primarily flinging files off an attached HDD. That might just be me though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussievintage Posted December 7, 2020 Author Share Posted December 7, 2020 1 minute ago, Old Man Rubber said: What is the fan noise like? Heat? I cannot hear the fan. I even changed the BIOS settings for more performance - it was set to minimise noise. Still can't hear it. I think the highest temperature I have noted was 52 degrees C and that's in the stinking hot weather we have been having here lately. 3 minutes ago, Old Man Rubber said: In my setup the NAS / media server is usually not plugged into a display so using an old laptop has been very handy. I find it better to use VNC to work on the desktop of any headless machines I am running. I don't like working on a cramped laptop using the touchpad. 4 minutes ago, Old Man Rubber said: I am thinking about using a Raspberry Pi as the next one though, depending on what the USB 3 external storage speed is like. I have one Raspberry Pi 4 running Raspbian. Is there a test I could do for you to see what it's like? I also have 2 rPi 3B's I can test as well. 6 minutes ago, Old Man Rubber said: I'd agree that the cheap laptops aren't much good for interactive use, but sitting in a cupboard with a drive attached and running Debian they are a bit of a no-fuss alternative to having something that requires a keyboard and display. I like the idea of these Lenovo units but the extra performance in my setup wouldn't be used on a machine that is primarily flinging files off an attached HDD. That might just be me though. No I agree. The low end laptops will perform adequately with linux on them, just doing background stuff. However, interactively, as you say, no, not even with linux on them. I tried Linux Mint on the old ideapad. Much better than Windows, but even running an email client and a browser (Chrome), they slow down. Mostly it's ram. Chrome can chew through what's left of 4 GB of ram by just having half a dozen pages open at once. That's the main reason a Raspberry Pi was no good as a desktop. Now they have an 8GB version - maybe it's possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Old Man Rubber Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 22 minutes ago, aussievintage said: I have one Raspberry Pi 4 running Raspbian. Is there a test I could do for you to see what it's like? I also have 2 rPi 3B's I can test as well. It's SMB performance that is my biggest bugbear - if I'm dumping a ripped CD onto the NAS the write performance is pretty woeful - 10mb/s over a mesh wifi, with the laptop connected to the ethernet port on one of the Google Wifi pucks and a drive connected to an old USB 2 port. Read performance is good but writing is terrible. If the Pi was no worse I would probably switch over and retire that laptop. There is a big old HP server here that easily does 10-100x better write performance albeit running Windows Server. If it didn't sound like an F-111 taking off and suck power like an aluminium smelter I would repurpose it. I have a Pi 3 here I have been too lazy to test - should probably give it a whirl today and see how it goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussievintage Posted December 7, 2020 Author Share Posted December 7, 2020 36 minutes ago, Old Man Rubber said: It's SMB performance that is my biggest bugbear - if I'm dumping a ripped CD onto the NAS the write performance is pretty woeful - 10mb/s over a mesh wifi, with the laptop connected to the ethernet port on one of the Google Wifi pucks and a drive connected to an old USB 2 port. Read performance is good but writing is terrible. If the Pi was no worse I would probably switch over and retire that laptop. There is a big old HP server here that easily does 10-100x better write performance albeit running Windows Server. If it didn't sound like an F-111 taking off and suck power like an aluminium smelter I would repurpose it. I have a Pi 3 here I have been too lazy to test - should probably give it a whirl today and see how it goes. I too find that writing to windows shares, whether they are on my NAS, or my rPi, or even Windows machine to Windows machine, is woeful. However, I did read once (a while back) that wifi device to wifi device on the same access point can be terrible, depending on the wifi router running the access point. Apparently bandwidth between connected wifi devices is fairly low in the router. This may or may not have changed with more modern hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muon* Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 Next time visit the auctions where these guys pick up these used computers, get them for what they get them for Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LogicprObe Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 I'm using a DELL with the same specs on my TV. Got it for free as it had a blown hard drive. Just put a SSD in it and away I went. The only problem I have with it is that it has Display Port rather than HDMI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussievintage Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 5 minutes ago, LogicprObe said: I'm using a DELL with the same specs on my TV. Got it for free as it had a blown hard drive. Just put a SSD in it and away I went. The only problem I have with it is that it has Display Port rather than HDMI. Cheap fix https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B00S0C7QO8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 18 minutes ago, muon* said: Next time visit the auctions where these guys pick up these used computers, get them for what they get them for I am not "in the know" when it comes to auctions. How do you find out about where and when etc ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LogicprObe Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 That's exactly what I'm using but it's not a quality fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muon* Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 (edited) 3 hours ago, aussievintage said: Cheap fix https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B00S0C7QO8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I am not "in the know" when it comes to auctions. How do you find out about where and when etc ? Notifications in the Courier mail paper, forget what days, maybe Wednesday or Saturday.. Been to some IT clearance ones at west end and archerfield, and eagle farm in the past, ex gov stuff goes for about 50 bucks a PC on average. Edited January 19, 2021 by muon* 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussievintage Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 22 minutes ago, muon* said: Notifications in the Courier mail paper, forget what days, maybe Wednesday or Saturday.. Been to some IT clearance ones at west end and archerfield, and eagle farm in the past, ex gov stuff goes for about 50 bucks a PC on average. Thanks, much appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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