Bought a mini PC with Windows 10? After set up, it's so slow and barely usable...

TerrorFirmer

What is the budget? You can get a much improved one for about 200, but about 300 would get you a genuinely fast one that would be good for a fair few years.

Also, does it have to be tiny? You can get "mini" PC's that are bigger than those NUC style ones, but still way, way smaller than an actual desktop.

My parents have an i5-2500/4GB Ram/120GB SSD HTPC, think I paid about 70E on Ebay for it and it's lightning fast for Netflix/Kodi/web/etc. It's about the size of a large paperback novel.

It's about this size. Easy to get machines like this for small money on Ebay or Adverts and they'd be three/four times as powerful as what you bought.

0gac3yjefb5sv7

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

What is the budget? You can get a much improved one for about 200, but about 300 would get you a genuinely fast one that would be good for a fair few years.

Also, does it have to be tiny? You can get "mini" PC's that are bigger than those NUC style ones, but still way, way smaller than an actual desktop.

My parents have an i5-2500/4GB Ram/120GB SSD HTPC, think I paid about 70E on Ebay for it and it's lightning fast for Netflix/Kodi/web/etc. It's about the size of a large paperback novel.

It's about this size. Easy to get machines like this for small money on Ebay or Adverts and they'd be three/four times as powerful as what you bought.

Yeah I'd have a budget or 50-200 but obviously I just need it to be speedy for very basic tasks so 70 on eBay would be ideal...

worth getting a newer one so you can output 4k - you need hdmi 2 for that.

also fanless means no noise and uses less electricity.

0gac3yjefb5sv7

Can anyone advise where I would get that ebay one or something similar, I don't mind on size. Price and speed are the main considerations.

cunavalos

One thing worth trying is to stop and disable 'superfetch' and "Windows Search" using the windows 10 services function. I have had a couple of similar spec pc-sticks and this has brought about a noticeable improvement in Windows 10.

https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/should-i-disable-superfetch-and-how-to-do-it/

Having said that there is a limit to these type of pc's and your 32gb will slowly fill up with constant windows updates and something with a better processor, more ram and expandable memory is probably only marginally more expensive

Pheonix10

Pheonix10 wrote: »

Can anyone advise where I would get that ebay one or something similar, I don't mind on size. Price and speed are the main considerations.

search "htpc" on ebay
or "htpc ssd" for one with ssd

unlikely to get one as cheap as what other poster said unless you get lucky

€150 euro is about the cheapest I would say

even then you run the risk of it being unable to run modern formats like hevc x265 that are increasingly used if it's an old cpu (plenty of cpus in htpc's are 6/7/8 years old)

you're better off buying a new modern nuc with a cpu that has hardware support built in for modern codec formats.

other reasons that I mentioned here already also.

power consumption
noise
size
ram - ideally min 6gb for win 10
ssd better than spinning hd or the emmc found in the 32gb and 64gb ones
stuck with old ports like usb 2 instead of 3
hdmi 2 for 4k output (only pretty recent on pc's)

no point in doing the same thing again and buying a pos

although if you're focused on something like that maybe this would do

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-Pc-HTPC-Small-Form-Factor-With-SSD/123609393551?hash=item1cc7b1a98f:g:aZEAAOSw1rpcTEUg&frcectupt=true

but doesn't give cpu number and it has usb 2.0 only so probably fairly old.

nuc's have taken over from htpcs in the non-discrete graphics card form factor so they are not made anymore.

i'd recommend the one that I linked before instead really. it's also on amazon but 20% + more expensive. you'll have it in a week from one of the european warehouse options. the cpu is as powerful as an older i3 but with the benefit of moden codec support and lower power consumption and all the modern ports - hdmi 2, usb 3 etc.

https://www.geekbuying.com/item/Beelink-Gemini-N41-Gemini-Lake-N4100-6GB-128GB-Windows-10-Mini-PC-412379.html

Pheonix10

Pheonix10 wrote: »

Would a firestick be suitable for popcorn time or SkyGo?

yes. maybe buy the newer more powerful one

https://firestickappstips.com/sky-go-on-firestick/

you can also do the other but not legal to discuss here.

check sideload app fire stick

0gac3yjefb5sv7

glasso wrote: »

yes. maybe buy the newer more powerful one

https://firestickappstips.com/sky-go-on-firestick/

you can also do the other but not legal to discuss here.

check sideload app fire stick

I'm going for this second hand
Gigabyte GB-BXi3H-4010 mini PC

Gigabyte GB-BXi3H-4010 mini-PC with 4GB DDR3, 128GB Samsung 830 SSD and Windows 7 / 10 in mint condition.

dubrov

Pheonix10 wrote:

I'm going for this second hand Gigabyte GB-BXi3H-4010 mini PC

That's a huge step up from your previous device. It should run everything you need very quickly.