Fairly well specced Mini PC for the price - quality wise not at the level of Beelink but pretty much best specs for the money atm and lowest price ever according to the three ungulates.
Haven't bought one yet so can't offer any first hand experience but here's a good review:
CamelCamelCamel.
Some quick research indicates it isn't a firmware trojan, so a complete wipe of the installed disk should fix it (which you should always do anyway).
Reading further apparently the malware was introduced via a 3 party contractor that supplied the software image, and that has since been rectified.
That being said, there also may be a undetected firmware trojan as well!
is reinstalling windows using "Reset this pc" and choosing the option to do a clean install enough to get rid of these malware?
I would imagine not seeing as though it maybe hidden in the Windows software image itself
Nah you'll have to delete all partitions on the disk and reformat because the malware is also in the system recovery partition that 'system reset' uses.
Irremovable
Is this Sky News? It didn't take long for the story to get twisted. Installing a fresh copy of Windows from bootable media won't have the virus.
No, it's worse than Sky News.
Initially I thought "what sort of person posts a bloody Youtube video as authoritative news on tech?" then I clicked on it anyway. vid_ghost has instead linked to some extreme anti-China propaganda channel. Every single video is some twisted up story trying to put anything to do with the country in the worst light possible.
Just clicking on that link has probably contaminated my YT profile for other batshit crazy political 'recommendations.'
It would have been better just to link the last deal for these computers, where there were loads of comments, explanations, and arguments about the preinstalled spyware. As well as very simple instructions on how to get rid of it.
China Observer is actually pretty interesting sometimes and they just state the news coming out of china like unemployment rates and shop closures, stock and housing market crashes.. They don't harp on about it or giver their personal opinion just blurt out info to digest.
Video images and titles are however as clickbaity as you can get
@rumblytangara: Engineer from work is from HonkKong..He wont be going back there ever again. You need to travel with a blank new phone if you go to china now.. anything on there is evidence
@vid_ghost: Well known in the technology industry that when visiting Chinese companies you have disposable computers/phones without important information because security will confiscate it and the data copied. It's resulted in a lot of intellectual theft.
In no way is it racism or anti-China. It's simply a fact and part of doing business in the world.
@Clear: I was in a AFP/ASD briefing about it some 15yrs ago. They said how blatant it was, like grabbing your laptop at airport security to do a drive dump & usb chargers in hotels, conference centres, etc which installed malware and even installing hardware with the ability to backdoor your device. The funniest ime was a business guy coming back to his room & finding someone at his laptop and said to him quite calmly "I won't be long, take a seat, I'm just copying your hard drive". Their advice was take hardware you no longer need and destroy it when you get back.
I love China & the Chinese and they're not the only ones, Many middle east countries (especially Israel) do it, the US/CIA has been caught tampering & inserting malware/backdoors into computer hardware (like Cisco switches). But since China manufacturers the majority of electronics these days, their ability is of concern.
But that YT channel is fairly selective in producing negative Chinese content. Its possibly true, but still selective.
@M00Cow: This reminds me of ASD getting into unpatched Exchange Servers and leaving messages about having to do updates and contacting ACSC for assistance if necessary a few years ago. Funny but scary in that there's so much more they can do without you knowing.
@Clear: for corporates that applies to many countries, we give workers citrix access to corporate data that we don’t want leaving an organisation.
@vid_ghost: Yes, I am in a similar situation to the person you are citing, and I have used burner phones and SIMs when travelling to certain locations. Yet even I think that channel you quoted is basically propaganda.
And the channel is simply factually incorrect about the product this thread is about.
Have you ever lived there, is most your information about the place from… social media?
That youTube is clickbait on the irremovable bit. The dodgy version of certain pre-built Windows image contains a pre-installed Chrome with malware and attempts to remove that malware for Chrome proved futile.
Install the fresh copy of Windows. As for the BIOS, it is more important to remember to increase the power limit so you get more multi core performance.
However, I wish we can get a version without the SSD (and perhaps without the RAM) for a lot cheaper. I noticed they send review units with decent RAM and SSD to reviewers, but what customer will get can be generic RAM and no name brand SSD.
The AliExpress versions you can get barebones. Firebat using the sourceType trick are often the cheapest, especially during sales. None of mine have any malware either.
@Clear: How cheap can they get during sales? I missed out on the < $100 OZB deals on these N95 Mini PCs. Also, I found AliE's barebone prices aren't great (with SSD + RAM deal seem better).
@netsurfer: You're not going to get a price error like that $99 deal. Expect like $20-$50 cheaper for a lot of models, unless future AliExpress sales improve with better discounts than recently.
if no ssd then no OS, will need to check mine if ram is soldered, probably is to keep costs down. only downside i found was its win 11 home, not pro, so no bit locker , if stolen or lost you can read the SSD if mounted as a drive on a booted windows machine …it’s a $220 mini PC with an N100, if you get the previous deal. i use it on my work from home desk so i can use browser and download stuff … work laptop is proxies so work spooks logging. doesn’t compete with my i5 13600 desktop but for $220 it’s a great little unit if you only have work laptop and maybe a phone bit want some computing on non work equipment.
@garage sale: I know these are generally good deal overall, but it's different when the reviewer gets Crucial RAM and Kingston SSD, but users reported getting generic brand RAM and SSD. I generally do a RAM test for every new PC. However, for generic SSD, probably worthwhile to do an extended SSD test.
N95 only supports single channel RAM. RAM is not soldered because there is an option for no RAM and no SSD. OS, again, it depends on people. I have quite a few proper / legit licenses.
@netsurfer: had a look inside, the RAM is in single socket "Kinsotin" DDR4 2666 , so could replace, the SSD is SATA YPYC s2000 M.2. It can take a another drive 2.5" Considering CPU and cost of upgrade parts, you'd just add an extra SSD if you wanted more storage rather than swap out the M.2.
@garage sale: While the price is good considering it has everything in it, with these, you still need to:
Some of them would only wire PCIe x1 for the m.2 slot (for NVMe), and some of them actually wired PCIe x4. In any case, N95 is PCIe gen 3 at most.
https://youtu.be/dMrqUgTPd5M?t=174
If it's not for multifactor authentication, Windows Defender would not have detected it?
This is such a BS statement. I wonder how many of the other statements are true in the video
While MFA part of the statement is a load of misinformation, is the key part of that accusation correct? i.e. the recovery partition was found infected with malware.
I doubt most people are brave enough to completely refute everything in that video so it is more likely people will do a full wipe (better safe than sorry).
I am just wondering, what do you mean, "irremovable"? so if re-install os? install linux? I am really curious
As I mentioned in my comment above, that part of the title for that youTube is clickbait. There is one pre-built Windows OS image that also has a dodgy copy of Chrome browser installed with a malware Chrome extension. You cannot remove that Chrome extension apparently. However, a fresh install (which is what most people will do) doesn't have that problem. If your fresh copy of Windows install USB stick automagically installs Chrome, then you really should get a proper Windows install.
Thanks!
didn’t even check if it had chrome before clean install. i do clean installs on laptops when i buy them, doesn’t everybody ?
@garage sale: Most people don't for laptops. It's even rarer for Mac users. While the install is generally quick, if a big Windows update is required, it can take ages for that update to complete (so people generally should get the latest Windows install image before installing OS to avoid installing older version which then require a long time for the update).
A much better discussion of this company's products and OS reinstalls is this thread from last week.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/831586
(This thread is just a total shambles thanks to people relying on alarmist social media for tech advice.)
where is place to cheap foil hats ?
Is that channel run by ChatGPT?
You cant remove the trojan?
You can wipe the drive (including recovery partition) and reinstall.
There is still a risk that there is a backdoor in firmware, which would be hard to detect. Guess it depends if you trust the company. I am going to avoid them.
Same, will stick to the trustworthy dell micro optiplex lol
After doing a fresh install check for WPBT and disable it. Problem solved. If there was anything in UEFI (no evidence, only scaremongering) then it wouldn't be able to embed itself into Windows with WPBT disabled.
That would offer some protection, but definitely wouldn't completely protect you from well crafted malicious firmware.
I wouldn't say it is scaremongering. This company has been caught out multiple times packaging up malware. Firmware is more then likely perfectly fine, but I wouldn't want to support this company either way.
@Aureus: Until there's any evidence that there is a firmware based backdoor to reinstall the malware it's straight up scaremongering and clickbait to claim that it does exist.
Does the motherboard not have TPM? Or is Secure Boot disabled? Real and proper UEFI rootkits like ComicStrand that only target CSM booted systems with ASUS/Gigabyte H81 chipset motherboards wouldn't be able to function with Secure Boot enabled.
@Clear: Can you point to where anyone has claimed there is a firmware based backdoor? Pointing out a risk is very different.
Secure boot would be probably disabled by default, but either way all of that doesn't matter. Secure boot is enforced in the UEFI firmware. They control that code.
As I said above, more then likely the firmware is fine, but I don't buy this companies excuses and as I result I don't want to support them.
i own one of these, only issue is bios updates are scarce because not many options for hardware changes. came with windows 11 home, you can reformat and reinstall from an image from MS.
some people can’t find power switch either, chrome and extensions aren’t uncommon in these entry bundled systems, they get rebate from companies for preloaded apps or landing pages.
As long as the trojans come free, I'm good - no way i'm paying for the trojan upgrade :P
Formatting the HDD is the only way to remove the trojan within Windows (Providing you note down the Windows Registration details before hand).
There's no guarantee the BIOS is free of any trojans.
Unless you build yourself a reduced or smaller windows version, you are at risk someone might put something in it without you noticing it
the guy on the spectre clip sounds like the guy that offered to fix my PC over the phone …problem is i couldn’t give him the admin password as i had forgotten it :-(
This much better then a home assistant green?
you can use i5 USFF for home assistant though. I use a Lenovo M700 for ~$100 from a previous deal and running couple of VMs
Only issue is power consumption. Kinda want something efficient.
35w tpd that's 24/7. 35w x 24h =840 = .84kwh x 365 days = 306kwh per year x .35c per kWh = $107 per year.
I think this is correct.
Any good for basic 3d gaming? City Skylines kind of deal.
I'd say so. The review I linked in the description had League of Legends running around 100fps and that is probably more demanding than CS.
Could also use cloud gaming on it.
I’d have to say no, given that the OG Cities Skylines pushed my PC quite hard even back in the day and it wasn’t a slouch. It’s quite a CPU intensive game especially with a larger city & population, my game was running around 25-30 FPS.
You can play League on a potato given the right settings.
Fair enough!
Long time lurker first time poster.
Are beelinks the ultimate mini pc for value?
I keep seeing these and everyone seems to mentioning wiping them first etc.
Would i have to for the beelink as well?
You should wipe it and do a clean install. You can either believe what those miniPC makers indicated on this issue (they let a 3rd party prepare the Windows install image and that 3rd party messed it up) or they themselves are actually dodgy.
Some people reported a fresh install of Windows resulted in a need to enter a real key. That suggests on some of them, the Windows installed could be a hacked copy because nowadays, a proper Windows install will do a digital license activation so when you re-install Windows, it should re-retrieve that digital license.
The only tricky bit is you may need to get some drivers after the Windows install since Windows is not always good at getting the right drivers.
mine didn’t need keys …issue was updates took along time as lots were needed and screen used to blank sometimes until all updates loaded, took over 1 hr with reboots, have 4 k screen. logged in. made new win11 boot media. reformatted booted fine and activated ok.
wipe whole SSD when install a Linux. Avoid windows, avoid virus
lol I was like that around 2004 or so, only had Mandrake Linux a whole year without using Windows at all lol, but now meh! I am too lazy and even use Hyper-V for VMs.
same, and i work in IT , run windows at home, come across a bit of linux at work but 80% is windows.
Just bought one. Let's see if there is malware or not…
takes a while to update and reboots so be patient, once done works fine, can reformat if wanted no issues. it’s only win11 home, not pro.
The listing title and details indicate 16/512, but the specifications show 8/256. Typical Amazon.
has anyone brought from this brand before? how's the noise from the fan?
I have the exact model. Not noisy but you could hear it in a silent room. It also has coil whine noise when turned of.
i can’t hear the fan ..
I have the GK3 plus (16gb/512gb) from a deal a couple of weeks ago - win11 PRO preinstalled, no fan noise, Yes, Chrome was preinstalled. Unhid recovery partition, full scan of all partitions, nothing found.
Downloaded the w11 ISO, created the boot media with rufus (which let's you disable the tpm check and online account components for the install (probably didn't need to do this)).
Formatted, fresh install, didn't need the windows key which I'd extracted from the shipped installation, windows activated without any input. Thanks to clear for the WPBT tip.
I think the only thing I'm missing after the fresh install is the wifi drivers. If you are game, they post the w11 drivers for a number of these mini pcs here in the minipc forum - the site was on the sticker on the base of the unit.
(*edit - nah don't need drivers , my wifi is there)
Great info, thanks for letting us know.
Update on my purchase:
Chrome was preinstalled
Windows defender didn't find anything
Wiped all partitions and did a clean install of Win11
No drivers needed to be installed
Didn't ask for windows key
Wifi works
Caution! Pre-loaded Trojans in China’s Mini PCs, Irremovable, Leave Numerous US Families Hacked
https://youtu.be/dMrqUgTPd5M?si=PmRjwxAWJJ-1JFS3