Intel N100 fanless boxes

    I want to share my tests about Intel N100 as a replacement for my Streacom FC8 Evo i3-8100

    tested by me
    - ASUS PN42-BBN100MV https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0C53D43JF
    - MiniX NEO Z100-0dB (512GB) https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0CPLQWN73

    other boxes i did not test, but know of
    - Zotac CI337 https://www.zotac.com/us/product/min…7-nano-barebone
    - Zotac CI343 https://www.zotac.com/us/product/min…-ci343-barebone
    - HUNSN BM34 https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0CHS5RSX8/
    - KingnovyPC https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0CNH27KCW/


    The PN42 is a very nice box and i used it for about 2 month now. The Z100 i did get 2 days ago and it is very nice too.
    Details i will write down later.

    I am preparing to write all down that i learned in making working perfectly for my needs.
    It was very interesting chasing down this problem Intel Alder Lake 2160p @ 23.976 Hz passthrough HD Audio dropouts (i7-1270p/N100) and i am not yet finished (need to open a bug @ Intel), but have found a workaround.

    ASUS PN42 details

    note worthy:
    - with Consumer Infrared RC6: works out of the box with LE and a WMC/MCE remote
    - with HDMI-CEC but ONLY Power Control no using TV remote for Kodi
    - working wakeup from S5 with IR remote (reacts on MCE power toggle and power on)
    - working wakeup from S5 by USB
    - working wakeup from S5 by WoL
    - wakeup from S3 works too for USB/WoL
    - less then 0.18 Wh per day used 4-8h, no sleep or poweroff
    - power button is very bright

    LE11 dmesg, lspci, lsusb, kodi.log
    https://paste.libreelec.tv/complete-tetra.log

    LE12 dmesg, lspci, lsusb, kodi.log
    https://paste.libreelec.tv/awaited-rhino.log

    Sadly my exemplar makes coil whine voltage whistles (hope that is the right word for Spannungspfeifen). I have very good hearing and that is annoying me.

    MiniX Z100-0db details

    note worthy:
    - very tiny full aluminium body and they say it will not throttle ever (not yet tested that, but i will)
    - 2x nice external WiFi/BT antennas
    - with Windows 11 Pro license embedded in BIOS and preinstalled (tested with reinstall W11/W10)
    - working wakeup from S5 by USB/WoL
    - working wakeup from S3 with USB/WoL
    - less then 0.18 Wh per day used 4-8h, no sleep or poweroff
    - HDMI / USB ports are upside down

    LE11 dmesg, lspci, lsusb, kodi.log
    https://paste.libreelec.tv/legal-raven.log

    LE12 dmesg, lspci, lsusb, kodi.log
    https://paste.libreelec.tv/suitable-sawfish.log

    For now that will be my daily driver.

    other boxes details worth to know

    HUNSN BM34
    - USB port only on the front
    - pre assembled DDR4 not 3200 only 2666 (the box i tested)
    - pre assembled SSD M2 SATA (the box i tested)

    Zotac CI337
    - DDR5 4800

    Zotac CI343
    - DDR5 4800

    KingnovyPC
    - no WiFi or BT

    added Zotac CI343

    MiniX Z100 wakeup from S5 by USB is fixed. I did get a new BIOS (compiled today) after asking 2 days ago in the evening with 1st response yesterday.

    I briefly tried the Mele Quieter 4C (N100 fanless) and had all sorts of issues, so try that one at your own risk.

    There is the HUNSN BM34 that sky42 mentioned that I currently have as one of my boxes, which has two HDMI outputs. The only issue with this box is that 'HD2' HDMI output is wired/seen as a display port output (not HDMI), and you cannot get bitstreamed audio or proper BT.2020 colorspace output (from my searching there'd likely need to be some Kodi updates to allow the proper colorspace output over DP). HD1 output works as expected. I've not yet fiddled with wake from S3 on this box, but I do have an external pule8 CEC adapter hooked up, and will tinker with that shortly.

    • New

    I recently switched from an RPi5 to the Asus PN42 (I picked it because of its advertised CEC features). But I've come across some additional caveats with this. As you mentioned, the CEC control is not exposed to the Operating System (only on hardware level, BIOS controlled) and is only used for power control.

    If the TV is turned off, it sends the power-off signal to the box. In the BIOS you can select to ignore it, to send a Sleep or Power signal (it emulates a button press to the system). After setting it to Suspend and updating the keyboard map to have <sleep>Suspend()</sleep> instead of the shutdown dialog, this works exactly as expected.

    However, I found that either my TV (an LG C3 series) does not appear to send a "Wake-up" signal when it is powered back on, or (much less likely) LibreELEC doesn't put the system in a low enough Suspend state (one that the BIOS recognises) when calling Suspend(). Regardless of which of the two it is, this effectively leaves the PN42 permanently in sleep mode until a physical button is pressed on the system. This is impractical when all inputs devices are Bluetooth and thus disconnected when the system sleeps.

    The more interesting detail however: When you look at the HDMI-CEC feature in the BIOS, the "Help" for it indicates that you need to disable it in the BIOS to be able to use any device connected to the CEC header. Did you, per chance, take a look inside the device to see if you can find such a header?

    Having a CEC header available could potentially resolve all the CEC limitations this device has by adding the Pulse8 CEC module for Intel NUC's.