Beelink AP42 Mini PC 4/64GB

[kentauta]

Yes, I tried a few Live DVDs from different distributions. They all fail to boot in the same way.

[bluesmanuk]

Is there an option in the BIOS to lock/unlock Trusted Platform Module?

[RISCy Dude]

I don't have this device, so can't try.
In BIOS, under security tab(if available), is secure boot enabled? If so, try disabling it. Though significant vulnerabilities exist with secure boot disabled. Secure boot.

[kentauta]

Hi. There is no TPM option in BIOS. Secure boot is disabled.

[sgargiulo327]

try this link there may be a hint http://www.cnx-software.com/2017/02/...o-lake-laptop/

[trebor]

A backup of Bios and drivers can be found

http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/beelink-aa/beelink-intel-mini-pc/new-channel/firmware-roms-tools-av/639264-backup-of-ap42-oem-bios-drivers#post639264

Thanks Guest

[kentauta]

try this link there may be a hint http://www.cnx-software.com/2017/02/...o-lake-laptop/

Thanks. I had seen this webpage. AP42 lacks the "OS Select" option. I believe we need BIOS mod or update to install Linux on AP42.

The BIOS version on my AP42 is AB1 0.12 which is same as the one trebor is referring to.

[Guest]

BTW, I ran PCMark 8 Home and Work benchmarks and compared them to my Z83 II, which is based on the CherryTrail x5-Z8350 SoC. Here are the results:

PCMark 8 Home Conventional: Z83 II - 1140, AP42 - 1585 (+39%)
PCMark 8 Work Conventional: Z83 II - 1446, AP42 - 2008 (+39%)
PCMark 8 Home Accelerated: Z83 II - 1434, AP42 - 1692 (+18%)
PCMark 8 Work Accelerated: Z83 II - 1166, AP42 - 2741 (+135%)

So, you can see a pretty significant performance improvement with the Apollo Lake N4200 chipset (although some improvements are certainly due to the additional DRAM).

BTW, I tried to run the much faster WinSAT formal benchmark, but it failed on the AP42 because of a BIOS issue.

[Gormar]

@Magendanz.
Could you check how many memory channels that device use? I would really like to see CPU-Z memory page.

[Guest]

Could you check how many memory channels that device use?

Is what you need not here?

[Gormar]

Is what you need not here?

Yes and no .
I can see there picture of PCB with just two ELPIDA FA232A2MA chips (32 bit data bus each). That tells me there is only 64 bit memory bus. I mean "only" but for N4200 it is quite enough even if it can support even 128 bit bus width.

[Guest]

Okay, here's the CPU-Z report...

[Gormar]

Thanks.

It seems that CPU-Z can't properly identify such memory.

DMI Memory Device
designation ChannelA-DIMM0
ormat DIMM
ype unknown
otal width 16 bits
ata width 16 bits
size 2048 MBytes

DMI Memory Device
designation ChannelA-DIMM1
format DIMM
type unknown
total width 16 bits
data width 16 bits
size 2048 MBytes

Nevertheless I'm almost 100% sure that it is 64 bits not 32. It is a little shame that only one DIMM channel (A) is in use. Probably 8GB version will use both.

[Guest]

Yeah, I think this is what's causing a problem for WinSAT too. I see this in the log file for the formal WinSAT performance assessment (with funky characters after Part_Number that don't show when I paste them into this thread):

61305640 (11072) - common\loadrecentresults.cpp:0789: We could not find a match for HARDWAREID_MEM_DIMMS
61305640 (11072) - common\loadrecentresults.cpp:0791: SystemBoardInfo_1[0]: Manufacturer:0000, Part_Number:         , Form_Factor:9 Type:24 Type_Detail:128

61305640 (11072) - common\loadrecentresults.cpp:0791: SystemBoardInfo_1[1]: Manufacturer:0000, Part_Number:         , Form_Factor:9 Type:24 Type_Detail:128

61305640 (11072) - common\loadrecentresults.cpp:0794: SystemBoardInfo_1[0]: Manufacturer:0000, Part_Number:, Form_Factor:9 Type:24 Type_Detail:128

61305640 (11072) - common\loadrecentresults.cpp:0794: SystemBoardInfo_1[1]: Manufacturer:0000, Part_Number:, Form_Factor:9 Type:24 Type_Detail:128

61305656 (11072) - exe\datastore.cpp:1090: No files with exact match in the datastore
61305656 (11072) - exe\datastore.cpp:1151: DEBUG::We could not find a match for Assessment DATASTORE_MEM

...and then later...

61305671 (11072) - exe\main.cpp:4076: ERROR: 0X80004005  DataStore::BuildFormalFromMostRecentPartialAssessments failed.
61305671 (11072) - exe\main.cpp:4847: ERROR:  Unable to save validated results.
61305687 (11072) - exe\processwinsaterror.cpp:0298: Unspecified error 46 occurred.

I think the bogus characters in the Part_Number are causing problems saving the results, since others have related similar problems online with unexpected characters obtained from the BIOS.

[Guest]

While I couldn't get WinSAT to save the formal composite assessment because of the problem above, I was still able to compare the raw results with the Z83 II. The performance improvements are significant:

Given that read performance for eMMC is roughly three times as fast, it's no wonder to me now why it feels so much more responsive.