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Fun with STX (was:Suggest some new hobby build. Nothing too expensive.)

VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Just a little bored. Built three mini-PCs (well, reformatted a fourth).

Three Gigabyte J1900 Brix units, two for new main PCs (less than 20W!), one for HTPC duty, all running Windows 7, because all the Linux distros that I've tried, freeze up solid after some time, whether you're using the machine actively or not.

One Onda M3 mini-PC, complete with 4GB DDR3 SO-DIMM, and a rather higher-performance, if Chinese / Generic 120GB SSD. Came with unactivated Win10. Put Linux Mint 18 beta on there, it ran well. Then put Win7 64-bit. Found drivers on Gigabyte's web site for one of their H81 mobos with Realtek/Realtek that worked with the Onda M3. (It's an H81 slim mini-ITX, apparently.)

Something cheap, maybe some parts from ebay. I dunno. Or maybe I should save my money.

I went looking for some ASRock DeskMini mini-STX barebones kits, which take a standard 2.5" SSD, SO-DIMMs (unsure at this point if it takes DDR3 or DDR4), and a standard, desktop, socketed Skylake CPU.

I have a couple of Z170 rigs with G4400 CPUs in them, I was thinking I could take the CPUs out of those, sell off the mobos, and build some STX rigs instead. Then I could (hopefully) run Linux instead of Windows 7, which I am unable to do so far with the Brix J1900 units.
 
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UsandThem said:
You really are the Willy Wonka of the computer tinkering world, aren't ya? 😉
Click to expand...

LOL.

When I started this thread, I had forgotten that I was interested in the mini-STX rigs. I think I'm going to wait until those are released. According to the AT review, they are only supposed to be $129.99 MSRP. (But that's not including a CPU. The Brix J1900 units for $100 include the CPU.)
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...163255&cm_re=nas_4_bay-_-11-163-255-_-Product
11-163-255-Z02

This ITX case with 8 3.5" hot-swap bays has caught my eye. I think I might update my NAS. Hope those $35 Hitachi UltraStar 2TB HDDs are still avail. on ebay.
 
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