Beelink MiniMXIII - Quick Pros and Cons and..... is there a Firmware update??? (OTA Not Working)

[api182]

Hi All,

I purchased 2 of these http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_349813.html

I received one around a week and a half ago, and the other a few days back, so far they're working really quite well.

Pros: -

- Solid little box, nice weight, feels good quality
- Stock launcher is nicely presented with big tiles, instead of just stock android which is of no use on a TV...
- Fast startup and generally fast and fluid to use (Good Kodi experience with this!)
- Out of the box remote control is actually quite good, it\'s not the best out there as far as features go, but I've seen a lot worse!

The only cons so far are :-

- System update keeps reporting 'check your OTA servier argent' and obviously doesn't find an update...
- 2.4GHz WiFi is pretty terrible with my Asus RT-AC87U (expensive router) approx 5m away, I've had to resort to a WiFi bridge via the RJ45 port... (The box reports full / excellent signal on WiFi, but for some reason the actual internet is limited down to around 5mbps rather than the usual 18mbps I can get on my tablet or phone in the same position...)
- When playing large films (6gb 720p types) VLC, Android Player and MX Player can't cope. I tried a lot of settings, turning on and off hardware encoding, each either lagged or froze the box up... I found then that playing them through Kodi works fine, so I'm not sure what's going on there!
- Whilst the stock launcher looks nice, it does lack a toolbar at the bottom with basic power buttons etc, I know the remote has a power button which will trigger the power menu to appear but if you wanted to replace that remote, you simply have no way of powering on/off or rebooting without 3rd party apps...

Just wondering if anyone knows of an update I have to flash manually that might solve some of the above or at least how to get the OTA app working..?

Cheers, Adam.

[ronbaby]

Just curious. Do you have the 2GB/16GB version? Or just the 1GB/8GB version?

I'm real curious also about what clock rate the CPU is being run at in these things. This box has almost identical hardware specs as the Odroid-C2, however the C2 comes with a BIG honkin' heat sink on top. The Beelink box is so small, I am betting there isn't even a heatsink inside, so they may just be running the SoC at a reduced clock rate, in order to prevent the thing from melting. I see that there's something called "CPU-Z" in the Play Store which can maybe tell what clock rate the thing is really running at. If you could run that and post results, that would be appreciated.

I'm also real curious about the actual maximum data rate that can be gotten over the gigabit ethernet. If you can figure out a way to run iperf on that and post results that would be great.
(It looks like there is an "iperf" app in the Play Store.) Strangely, if you look at the full description of this box here:

http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_349813.html

if you scroll down, eventually you will see the following VERY BIZZARE statement:

120 Mbps
gigabit ethernet

WTF??? If it actually is "gigabit" ethernet, then that should be 1000 Mbps... not a mere 120. Something is fishy here.

P.S. It really was kind of dumb of the company to give this box only 2.4GHz WiFi. For thing that is supposed to be a streaming media box, you would have thought that they would have given it dual band.

[Alien Heads]

Does this box have a power led on the front to show when it's powered on?

[api182]

Just curious. Do you have the 2GB/16GB version? Or just the 1GB/8GB version?

I'm real curious also about what clock rate the CPU is being run at in these things. This box has almost identical hardware specs as the Odroid-C2, however the C2 comes with a BIG honkin' heat sink on top. The Beelink box is so small, I am betting there isn't even a heatsink inside, so they may just be running the SoC at a reduced clock rate, in order to prevent the thing from melting. I see that there's something called "CPU-Z" in the Play Store which can maybe tell what clock rate the thing is really running at. If you could run that and post results, that would be appreciated.

I'm also real curious about the actual maximum data rate that can be gotten over the gigabit ethernet. If you can figure out a way to run iperf on that and post results that would be great.
(It looks like there is an "iperf" app in the Play Store.) Strangely, if you look at the full description of this box here:

http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_349813.html

if you scroll down, eventually you will see the following VERY BIZZARE statement:

120 Mbps
gigabit ethernet

WTF??? If it actually is "gigabit" ethernet, then that should be 1000 Mbps... not a mere 120. Something is fishy here.

P.S. It really was kind of dumb of the company to give this box only 2.4GHz WiFi. For thing that is supposed to be a streaming media box, you would have thought that they would have given it dual band.

Hi, I got the 2gb / 16gb model...

I'll get onto the testing stuff tonight... I haven't popped it open myself, but I did see a youtube video showing what looks like a block of metal attached to the actual upper part of the case that seems to be their very own version of a heatsink... I'll be honest though, it stays cool, I've had no random reboots with it or anything like that so I suspect you're probably right, they may well have under-clocked it some what... Like I said, if I use Kodi for everything it's all good, Showbox as an App works find too, but if I try and play anything from a USB of around 6gb in file size (720p rip) using VLC etc, it gets upset...

[api182]

Does this box have a power led on the front to show when it's powered on?

Yep, there's a very feint blue led on the front, so feint that I only noticed it the other night when I was down on the same level as the box, I think you need to be looking directly at it to see it... (which I like as I find them a distraction otherwise...)

[Alien Heads]

Yep, there's a very feint blue led on the front, so feint that I only noticed it the other night when I was down on the same level as the box, I think you need to be looking directly at it to see it... (which I like as I find them a distraction otherwise...)

Thanks I have the mini m8s & that is the same can barely see it, thanks

[ronbaby]

Hi, I got the 2gb / 16gb model...

I'll get onto the testing stuff tonight... I haven't popped it open myself, but I did see a youtube video showing what looks like a block of metal attached to the actual upper part of the case that seems to be their very own version of a heatsink... I'll be honest though, it stays cool, I've had no random reboots with it or anything like that so I suspect you're probably right, they may well have under-clocked it some what... Like I said, if I use Kodi for everything it's all good, Showbox as an App works find too, but if I try and play anything from a USB of around 6gb in file size (720p rip) using VLC etc, it gets upset...

So, about the heatsink, yes, I found this image and the associated page makes it clear that the lid of the thing has a big metal plate which has some thermal transfer goo on it, and when the top is on, then the plate pushes down on the processor, so yes, the thing does actually have a kind of a heatsink.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...act=mrc&uact=8

I am still very eager to know what results you got from iperf showing the actual max data rate of the "gigabit" ethernet port (both in and out, if possible) and also, the actual clock rate at which the processor is clocked. Can you please post that info?

Regarding VLC on big files, it is possible, I suppose, that VLC is being (incorrectly) unhappy with anything bigger than 4 GiB. (Obviously, you are using NTFS rather than FAT32 on your USB storage device. Otherwise, you wouldn't even have been able to put a 6GB file on there.)

So i guess that the good news is that this box, with the stock Android on it, supports NTFS, which is Good. As I learned, not all Android devices do that (i.e. support NTFS). It would also be VERY interesting to know if the stock Andorid on this box supports ext3 or ext4 filesystems on USB. Likewise for NFS. My current HTPC is on wireless, out in the living room, and it imports stuff from my file server via NFS mounts which, as I learned, perform WAY better than SMB/Samba shares. Blu-Ray rips buffer when they come in via SMB shares, but they play flawlessly when they come over the exact same WiFi connection via NFS mount.)