Edge Computing Division Users Forum

Greetings. Great product!

I took the Mintbox Mini out of the box, attached my Samsung S20D300 19.5" to the mini via hdmi cable, updated the pre-installed Linux Mint 17.1, and installed several packages from the Linux Mint repositories.

The unit behaves much like a usb flash drive does with an operating installed on it. It is slow; lags; is jerky. Furthermore, I am unable to play movies/tv shows from Hulu.com.

Any suggestions which might improve performance?

It may be a matter of expectations - MintBox Mini performs well for its size and power, but not the performance level of systems many times its size and power.

More performance can be squeezed out of MintBox Mini by allowing higher CPU power in BIOS. Note, however that also means MintBox Mini will run hotter.

I don't know what kind of optimization is relevant to Hulu. We tested full-HD video with XBMC and did not observe playback issues.

If MintBox Mini does not meet your needs you are welcome to return it for a refund.

Being as I am essentially illiterate with regard to understanding computer power, I was expecting essentially the same performance from the Mintbox Mini as my desktop and laptops. (I can read and compare specs until I am cross-eyed and still do not comprehend all of the factors that seem to contribute to performance.)

Thank you for the reply, and the offer of refund, but I am very pleased with the product, and will not be returning it. All is well; happy customer.

I am also pleased that I received it so quickly, as I was not expecting it until June or later.

With regard to throttling up the CPU, I am correct to assume that the higher heat will shorten the life of the unit, yes?

Thanks again.

Thermal throttling is reducing frequency after CPU is hot.
The mechanism in fitlet limits the CPU power in advance. If you raise the TDP limitation in BIOS, throttling will kick in if the CPU gets too hot.

Raising the TDP will not affect long term reliability of the system and does not void warranty. fitlet internal components are very tolerant to heat. The touch temperature of fitlet would be higher though.

Viewing Hulu using Linux Mint requires Flashplayer.

My experience has been that Flash doesn't work well in Mint - horizontal bars in the picture for a small window and jerky, slow rendering full-screen. This occurs on both Fitlet and FitPC3 Pro running Mint 17.1

However, HTML5 works great on both systems - non of the problems listed above - very smooth.

It is likely a Flash specific issue and not a hardware issue. HTML5's good performance validates the hardware is sound.

idtent wrote:Greetings. Great product!

I took the Mintbox Mini out of the box, attached my Samsung S20D300 19.5" to the mini via hdmi cable, updated the pre-installed Linux Mint 17.1, and installed several packages from the Linux Mint repositories.

The unit behaves much like a usb flash drive does with an operating installed on it. It is slow; lags; is jerky. Furthermore, I am unable to play movies/tv shows from Hulu.com.

Any suggestions which might improve performance?

idtent,

I also had same experience.
I went into the Driver Manager and changed to 'fglrx'

I have read on the forums about an issue with fglrx 15.200 and blacklisting it in update manager or such but it seems to be working ok atm.

Brad