***Updated*** Minix hit it out of the park with the G41V-4!

BoneZ

New member
I own a Neo Z83-4 Pro, which I hardly used (still basically brand new collecting dust) due to only having 32 GB of storage, preventing Windows from updating easily. I was looking for a different option and discovered the Z83-4 Plus, which has 64 GB of storage. I was about to pull the trigger until I saw the G41V-4. After seeing the specs, I pulled the trigger.

I haven't been disappointed. I love having a fast, always-on PC. And even the eMMC storage is fast. It's faster than most mechanical drives, yet just slightly slower than SSD's. It's plenty fast that I haven't felt the need to use an SSD yet. But I will in the near future so that I can dual-boot Windows and Linux. The G41V-4 is definitely a step up from the Z83-4. Minix hasn't disappointed with their hardware, and I'm happy to be using another one of their devices.

-Matt
 
I own a Neo Z83-4 Pro, which I hardly used (still basically brand new collecting dust) due to only having 32 GB of storage, preventing Windows from updating easily. I was looking for a different option and discovered the Z83-4 Plus, which has 64 GB of storage. I was about to pull the trigger until I saw the G41V-4. After seeing the specs, I pulled the trigger.

I haven't been disappointed. I love having a fast, always-on PC. And even the eMMC storage is fast. It's faster than most mechanical drives, yet just slightly slower than SSD's. It's plenty fast that I haven't felt the need to use an SSD yet. But I will in the near future so that I can dual-boot Windows and Linux. The G41V-4 is definitely a step up from the Z83-4. Minix hasn't disappointed with their hardware, and I'm happy to be using another one of their devices.

-Matt
Cheers for the positive feedback Matt (y)
 
I own a Neo Z83-4 Pro, which I hardly used (still basically brand new collecting dust) due to only having 32 GB of storage, preventing Windows from updating easily. I was looking for a different option and discovered the Z83-4 Plus, which has 64 GB of storage. I was about to pull the trigger until I saw the G41V-4. After seeing the specs, I pulled the trigger.

I haven't been disappointed. I love having a fast, always-on PC. And even the eMMC storage is fast. It's faster than most mechanical drives, yet just slightly slower than SSD's. It's plenty fast that I haven't felt the need to use an SSD yet. But I will in the near future so that I can dual-boot Windows and Linux. The G41V-4 is definitely a step up from the Z83-4. Minix hasn't disappointed with their hardware, and I'm happy to be using another one of their devices.

-Matt
Thanks for the kind words, it is much appreciated.
Nice to know you're a satisfied NEO G41V-4 user, it's one of my personal favourites that we've made.
 
@Marty @MINIX - John @notrui


Two months in and I've been having problems. My unit keeps locking up requiring me to hard reset (holding down power until it shuts down). I did make sure the Power Options were set to "Balanced" so that the CPU can downclock to cool as needed. but that doesn't seem to matter. And the lockups seem to be very random. I can leave this thing on for days and watch YouTube videos for hours full screen with no issues. Other days watching a YouTube video for a couple minutes will cause the unit to lock up with no rhyme or reason right in the middle of the video. I've seen it lock up just from sitting overnight doing absolutely nothing (not over-heating).

It doesn't seem that it's over-heating since sometimes I can watch YouTube videos for hours without issue, other times it will lock up within a couple minutes during the video. Or even lock up with absolutely nothing running, just sitting idle. It's getting frustrating having to restart the computer when you're right in the middle of something.

Any ideas?
 
@Marty @MINIX - John @notrui


Two months in and I've been having problems. My unit keeps locking up requiring me to hard reset (holding down power until it shuts down). I did make sure the Power Options were set to "Balanced" so that the CPU can downclock to cool as needed. but that doesn't seem to matter. And the lockups seem to be very random. I can leave this thing on for days and watch YouTube videos for hours full screen with no issues. Other days watching a YouTube video for a couple minutes will cause the unit to lock up with no rhyme or reason right in the middle of the video. I've seen it lock up just from sitting overnight doing absolutely nothing (not over-heating).

It doesn't seem that it's over-heating since sometimes I can watch YouTube videos for hours without issue, other times it will lock up within a couple minutes during the video. Or even lock up with absolutely nothing running, just sitting idle. It's getting frustrating having to restart the computer when you're right in the middle of something.

Any ideas?

How are you viewing the Youtube videos? (Which browser etc.)

Have you tried another browser?

Are you using a VPN? Any other relevant details? (There's a lot of potential variables to a problem like this that could be resolved by simply adjusting a setting or using a different browser rather than immediately resorting to a full system wipe.)

It would also appear that this problem wasn't present initially & if it was obviously you made no mention of it at all. So, what's been changed or updated recently too?
 
I said reinstall again windows (and format) because @BoneZ said " .... lock up with absolutely nothing running... " (and other things he said).

Anyway checking software installed (and uninstall if needed) and testing other things (before format the device).

Please give us more details:
That is hapenning after you update windows (via windows update) ?
Etc...
 
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How are you viewing the Youtube videos? (Which browser etc.)

Have you tried another browser?
I've tried Firefox (which uses tons of resources, and I've tried Opera, which uses much less resources than Firefox.

Are you using a VPN?
No sir!

It would also appear that this problem wasn't present initially & if it was obviously you made no mention of it at all.
It has been doing it from the beginning. I've only had the unit for two months (maybe not even). It doesn't happen very often. Sometimes it can go a couple weeks without issue. Other times I've had to hard reset a couple times in a week. And I've been trying to do some troubleshooting trying different browsers and power plans and seeing what I can do first before reporting it.
 
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@ArcticWolf @notrui

I can re-install Windows again, it's not that big of a deal as I don't have much installed. But it seems like it could be a hardware or driver issue. I have attached a screenshot of the Event Log and the log details showing it is a hardware problem (according to event viewer), specifically erroring the Windows kernel, which could also be a driver issue. I just did a Windows Memory Diagnostic and it came back fine. I'll reinstall Windows and completely update it (which is what I had already did when I first got the unit) and we'll see if it continues.
1GnQ7BF.jpg
 
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@ArcticWolf @notrui

I can re-install Windows again, it's not that big of a deal as I don't have much installed. But it seems like it could be a hardware or driver issue. I have attached a screenshot of the Event Log and the log details showing it is a hardware problem (according to event viewer), specifically erroring the Windows kernel, which could also be a driver issue. I just did a Windows Memory Diagnostic and it came back fine. I'll reinstall Windows and completely update it (which is what I had already did when I first got the unit) and we'll see if it continues.
1GnQ7BF.jpg
You don't need to update windows.

The device must work fine with default windows (1903 build for example).

Test the device with default windows installed programs/drivers (and one more for example kodi).
If you decide to use MINIX firmware the link is in post 6.
 
@notrui @MINIX - John @MINIX – Martin

Okay, fresh install of Windows via the firmware you linked. Updated it completely via Windows Update. Installed only browsers. Went to YouTube, within 3 minutes of watching a video (not in full screen and obviously not overheating because the unit was barely warm), the unit locked up again. I have actually posted a video with sound of what it looks like:

https://streamable.com/1oc0wb

I restarted the unit, and opened the browser, which went straight to the video I was already watching. Within 30-seconds, the unit froze again with the following screenshot (posted below). I'm now of the opinion this is a hardware issue. I will say that when the unit arrived from Amazon, it was in a box with other items, the box had zero packing material, and this unit freely bounced around in the box. This jostling could have damaged the motherboard integrity (thanks Amazon!). But the box this unit came in was perfectly fine. I still think Amazon damaged this unit by having no packing material in the box. Here's the screenshot from the next lockup (error file is at the bottom of the screen):

nopbckQ
20200929_205211.jpg
 
@notrui @MINIX - John @MINIX – Martin

Okay, fresh install of Windows via the firmware you linked. Updated it completely via Windows Update. Installed only browsers. Went to YouTube, within 3 minutes of watching a video (not in full screen and obviously not overheating because the unit was barely warm), the unit locked up again. I have actually posted a video with sound of what it looks like:

https://streamable.com/1oc0wb

I restarted the unit, and opened the browser, which went straight to the video I was already watching. Within 30-seconds, the unit froze again with the following screenshot (posted below). I'm now of the opinion this is a hardware issue. I will say that when the unit arrived from Amazon, it was in a box with other items, the box had zero packing material, and this unit freely bounced around in the box. This jostling could have damaged the motherboard integrity (thanks Amazon!). But the box this unit came in was perfectly fine. I still think Amazon damaged this unit by having no packing material in the box. Here's the screenshot from the next lockup (error file is at the bottom of the screen):

nopbckQ
View attachment 2732
Contact our customer support team - support@minix.com.hk
 
@notrui @MINIX - John @MINIX – Martin

Okay, fresh install of Windows via the firmware you linked. Updated it completely via Windows Update. Installed only browsers. Went to YouTube, within 3 minutes of watching a video (not in full screen and obviously not overheating because the unit was barely warm), the unit locked up again. I have actually posted a video with sound of what it looks like:

https://streamable.com/1oc0wb

I restarted the unit, and opened the browser, which went straight to the video I was already watching. Within 30-seconds, the unit froze again with the following screenshot (posted below). I'm now of the opinion this is a hardware issue. I will say that when the unit arrived from Amazon, it was in a box with other items, the box had zero packing material, and this unit freely bounced around in the box. This jostling could have damaged the motherboard integrity (thanks Amazon!). But the box this unit came in was perfectly fine. I still think Amazon damaged this unit by having no packing material in the box. Here's the screenshot from the next lockup (error file is at the bottom of the screen):

nopbckQ
View attachment 2732
Have you had any progress or help from Minix? I'm currently looking at buying a mini PC and this unit has piqued my interest.
 
Have you had any progress or help from Minix? I'm currently looking at buying a mini PC and this unit has piqued my interest.
We will immediately fulfil the warranty and replace this customers unit once he contacts our customer support team / replies to messages.
 
Just wanted to give an update on this. Minix did send a warranty replacement. They shipped another one directly from Amazon, so I got it quick. This unit crashes about once every week or two. Once in a while more. Mostly it's the video driver that crashes. My latest and last crash was a Windows blue screen that said "Memory management error" like this one:

img_594b73734961c-1024x813.jpg


This means there's a RAM issue typically. It can also be caused by video drivers crashing as well. Which is what happens most of the time. The video drivers crash and causes issues. Video drivers crashing can also be caused by faulty RAM or memory errors in RAM. I could get a couple crashes a day. Sometimes it would take a week or two to get a crash. Yes, I kept the video drivers and Windows updated.

Not looking for another replacement. Two units that both crash just for using the browser and watching videos, I don't want to try a third unit. I did just pick up another fanless mini-PC from Amazon that is a quarter of the size, has the Intel J4125/UHD 605, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of eMMC. The J4125/UHD 605 is pretty darn fast and snappy. So we'll see how long and stable this one lasts.

Just wanted to update and post that I've retired a second G41V-4 due to instability and crashing.
 
See this thread, which I unsuccessfully tried to attract attention to about 6 weeks ago: https://theminixforum.com/index.php?threads/youtube-freezing-computer.3920/

This is a known issue with this box. Many people have had it.

I got this under control by using Chrome and installing this extension, which forces YT to stream in H264 format:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/h264ify/aleakchihdccplidncghkekgioiakgal?hl=en

There was some speculation on that thread that there might be video drivers for the Minix box that would fix this, but nobody from the forum/Minix side responded to that, hence my attempt to resurrect the thread.

Sure would be nice if this issue could be put to bed, if only to stop me from casually exploring other options for a media PC. I like this box a lot, except for this problem.
 
OK, well, after two more months of occasional crashes, and not a single peep on here, I have decided to scrap this box, and give up on Minix in general. There are plenty of other, better Windows streaming boxes out there, and I'll be in the market for one.

A word to the wise:

You can't just put a product on the market, support it for a while, then go find a shiny new toy to play with. Your customers buy your products, then we expect them to work, and expect you to support them even if newer products come along.

And, this box never worked right, so you can keep your blubbering about supporting products forever. Make it work, then move on.

From now on, I will be warning friends to stay away from your badly-supported products and this useless board full of arrogant but unhelpful "experts".

It's a shame because you occupy a niche that is ripe for exploiting. Too bad your products suck and your support is worse.

Oh well. Onward.

Over and out.

PS: No need to reply. I've scrambled my password, and after I log out it will be for good.
 
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