Actually that's not tooooo bad because there's an SBC that I've been using which is sooooooo much faster. But, the prices are all over the place because China. But this is the one that is way faster and doesn't include additional stuff like a heat sink...

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0B17LZ4GD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Mini PC, Beelink Mini S Intel 11th Gen 4-Cores N5095, Mini Desktop Computer 8GB DDR4 RAM 128GB SSD, Mini Computer Dual HDMI 4K UHD/Gigabit Ethernet/Dual WiFi/BT/VESA

When you look at the performance comparison, the Rock Pi is near the bottom of this chart...

I've done the cost/benefit analysis in the past and found Mini-PCs with the J4125 processor are usually the best $/benchmark score. As you can see above, it's not the best in terms of the benchmark but the prices are usually reasonable and the power consumption is lower than the higher-performing processors.

Prices are all over the place these days but you can find a lot of SBCs with the J4125 including the Intel compute stick (very small form factor) for a more affordable price.

@DJ,

Have you tried Auto Power On feature in the Beelink Mini PC you are using? As in "automatically power on" when power is applied? I see in the Amazon description that you point to that this mine PC has that feature if set in the bios.

The link you posted is for the Canada Amazon and they do not ship to USA so I had to find the same one here in the USA. On the USA Amazon site people are complaining that the "Auto On" feature does not work. However that was back early last year. Someone made a remark that Beelink wants people to contact their Customer Service for steps on how to make this feature work. I was just wondering if you have had experience with this setting. If I use this PC I'd to have it power on and boot when the robot powers up. This feature would be such a plus. With the Rock Pi X I'm using now I have a relay soldered to the power button to simulate a power button push to get it to power on and boot with the robot.

I haven't used that feature and could give it a shot next week. It wouldn't hurt to reach out to them. I can only share amazon Canada links because that's where I am. You'd have to do a USA search to find the same product

Thanks DJ. Actually I did a USA search to find one that would ship to me. Thant's where I found the complaints.

No need to test yours but thanks for offering to check. I dug deeper into this issue and found that Beelink has a Bios update that fixes this problem. They don't have it posted because there are several different bios for this unit and if you try to brush it with the wrong update you will brick the unit. They want you to contact the After Sale support group with the serial number on the back of the unit to get the proper instructions.

That’s good to know. I’ll contact them and update mine as well!

@DJ, From the way I read it there are several different bios in this model. Perhaps you have one that will boot if the option is set and you simply plug it in. Perhaps?

I'm right on the edge of getting this Beelink U59 Pro Mini. It has everything I want. I'd get the model with 16GB DDR4 + 500GB SSD. It's not much more money and I like having the overhead. I really want want something that will boot into Windows and start up ARC faster then the Rock Pi X I'm currently using for my onboard CPU in my robot.

Beelink Processor N5105(up to 2.9GHz), U59 Pro Mini PC, Mini Desktop Computer with 16GB DDR4 + 500GB SSD, Supports 4K Dual HDMI/Type-C, Dual WiFi, BT4.0  The only drawback for me is that it's around 1 inch (25mm) wider and longer then the Rock Pi X. I'd have to find a different location in my robot for it to fit. That would mean dropping it lower into the robot's fiberglass torso. Hopefully that wont cause performance problems with Bluetooth for voice recognition and WIFI connection to the laptop for maintenance. I'm running headless.

Hi, I am using exactly the same ROCK PI X replacement as commented by DJ with 256K SSD  and works very well. Windows 11 startup is very fast and also ARC startup.  I have it since oct 2022 w/o any problem. Much better and stable than the Rock PI X.

pardilav, thanks for the review! That's good to know.

OK, I went ahead and bought a Beelink U59 pc mini. It seems to be exactly like the one DJ bought in post #1. Only I got maxed it out with 16gigs ram. It's much faster and stronger then the Rock Pi X I am currently running onboard my robot and headless.

I'll Also be running this new SBC onboard my robot and headless. It comes with Windows 11 Pro. All the setup tips and advice here discuss running "Win 10" on a SBC. There is even a Lite Win 10 ISO offered for download that DJ put together for us.

So, considering that I now have a much stronger SBC then the Rick Pi X I was using, does anyone know if I should down grade from my current Win 11 Pro to the Lite Win 10 ISO offered?

If I keep my current Win 11 ISO are the recommendations for performance and storage and the other tips for running ARC on a SBC still the same as what is offered here for Win 10?

I got impatient and contacted Synthiam CS with this question. They got right back to me and said I would probably be happier with Win 10. After playing around in Win 11 I have to agree. So I'm off to relearn how to downgread to Win 10. Thanks for the quick help!!

Ok, After a lot of playing around I got my Beelink U59 downgraded to Windows 10. I like this version a lot better then 11. It's familiar to me and all the information presented here in the Support section on how to set up a SBC and run Headless pertains and works.

I don't have the skills or patience anymore and couldn't figure how to install the Windows 10 Lite ISO for ARC that DJ provides in the Support section of "Tips to Make a Robot" found here: LINK . That file is over 4GB and the file limit size of the Fat32 formatted flash drive I was using is 4GB. The flash drive would not accept the file. I reformatted the flash drive to exfat format (which has a file limit of 16TB) and then was able to get the file on the drive. However when I tried to boot from it, the windows file would not start the install process. I think I needed to somehow make that flash drive "Bootable" and then add DJ's windows lite file? Anyway I gave up at that point.

I found and used the Microsoft Media Creation Tool that made the process very easy to install Windows. It allows you to create installation media (USB drive or DVD) to install a new copy of Windows 10. This worked perfectly. It automatically formatted and set up my 16GB thumb drive to install any version of Windows 10 available. When I booted from that flash drive I was able to quickly install the Home Version of Win 10 over Win 11.

Installing a full version of Windows 10 on my Beelink is not an issue as far as space is concerned. It has a 500 GB HD and I have plenty of space left after install. The only concern I have in mot using DJ's Lite ISO version of Win 10 is he put a lot of effort in trimming it down by removing everything not needed and turning off services. I did follow the performance and storage tips here: Link but I haven't worked at turning off unneeded services. Maybe later. However this little Beelink U59 is so snappy I may just leave things as is. It blows the Rock Pi X I was using out of the water in speed and graphics performance.

One other hurdle I had to jump were the Drivers for the Beelink U59. When I installed win 10 over the already working Win 11, the installation did not set up the SBC's drivers needed for it to work properly. I had no WIFI capabilities and a lot of stuff in the Device Manager was marked as not working. After digging around I was able to go to Beelink's website and get the Driver Package for this SBC. I had to manually install them though Win's Device Manager one by one. That was OK and the devices were then recognized. However I still had no WIFI or even a WIFI card being seen in Device Manager. I went back to the Beelink Driver page and found a separate U59 driver package for WIFI and Bluetooth. After downloading and installing it with a simple double click on the files I was up and fully running!

The last thing I wanted to do was make this SBC power back on automatically after power was turned off. It's advertised as havin this feature. However it needs to be turned on in the Bios. After booting into the Bios I found the setting under the Chipset tab. There's a setting called State after G3. Not very intuitive, Ugh. I had to change this start from S5 State to S0 State. Now I can shut down Windows properly, turn off the SBC. Then next day I can simply apply power to the robot  and the SBC will automatically power up (without having to push the power "On" button) and boot into windows!

Thanks @DJ for suggesting this little power house!

The BeeLink product line is good for the money.  Small boards that won’t require a large power supply and you can remove their case completely it do things like adding a heatsink or soldering connections to the board, like for a power button relocation.

I concur! Beelink had really stepped up their game the last few years