ASRock Deskmini 110 Is Garbage

[pastrychef]

A few years ago, I picked up an ASRock Deskmini 110. It wasn't because I needed it, I just loved the form factor and its ability to house two SATA drives and an NVMe SSD. Since I didn't need it, after installing macOS, it went in the closet and had been sitting there since.

Now that we are at peak heat of the summer, I find myself at home a lot because I despise the heat and humidity. So, I've been looking for projects to do to keep myself busy... I decided to pull out my Deskmini and turn it in to a Batocera box.

Everything ran great... for a few days. Then the system started freezing randomly for no apparent reason when it had been running just fine previously. I also tested and experienced freezes in macOS too. So, I went down the rabbit hole...

I tried:

• Two different CPUs
• Three different sets of RAM
• Two different CPU coolers
• With and without NVMe SSD
• With and without Wi-Fi/Bluetooth

Nothing helped. Then I went searching on Google and found:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ASRock/comments/gshvua

Solution for Intel Graphics freezing system

?MY COMPUTERASRock DeskMini H110-STX/COMIntel Pentium G4560 （with HD610?Corsair DDR4 2133 8GSAMSUNG...

forum.asrock.com

Apparently, this is an issue that afflicts many (all?) Deskmini 110 owners. There was a long thread on the ASRock forum about it which ASRock deleted. The workaround seems to be to use Intel XTU to undervolt the IGPU. This, of course, is useless to me because I run Batocera (Linux) or macOS...

So, in to the garbage this Deskmini goes...

 

[trs96]

So, in to the garbage this Deskmini goes...

Another ASRock customer caught between a Rock and a hard place. Maybe they should change their name and take the S out. At least then you'd know you are buying A Rock or a brick or paperweight, whatever.

 

[phunguss]

I originally purchased an AsRock, it was DOA, bought a 2nd one, it fried upon power up. Since then I have purchased 3 Gigabyte boards, and they all work fine.

 

[pastrychef]

Update:
I picked up a barebones SFF Optiplex 3050 to replace the Deskmini 110. I chose the SFF over the Micro version because I need more than just a single internal 2.5" drive.

I was up and running with no freezes within hours. Turns out the SFF works perfectly with the EFIs that I had made for my old Optiplex 3050 mini tower clunker.

Although considerably larger than the Deskmini, I like that the power supply is internal and I won't have to deal with a huge power brick. Plus, if I ever needed, there's room for a video card, albeit a single slot, half height one...

Total cost:
$65.33 Optiplex 3050 SFF
$12.96 PCI-e adaptor for M.2 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card
---------
$78.29 Total

 

[trs96]

My experience has been similar. I've bought many Optiplex USFF, SFF and MT PCs over the last three years to use with either Windows or macOS. I've never experienced a single hardware failure. Never needed to replace anything including the PSU. Prices were all extremely low for the quality you get. It's a different story with the consumer Inspiron line of products. Best to go Optiplex for the added BIOS options you need for a hack. They sell at huge discounts to retail prices because they are off lease from many large companies that return them after 3-4 years of use. Currently the best hackintosh value you'll find today.

The only caveat with refurbished desktops like this is the cosmetic condition. If the seller provides actual pics of what you'll get, then it's easy to find one in good condition. Generally you'll still need to clean up the fans and apply new thermal paste. That's acceptable considering the ultra low prices you pay for these.

 

[pastrychef]

My experience has been similar. I've bought many Optiplex USFF, SFF and MT PCs over the last three years to use with either Windows or macOS. I've never experienced a single hardware failure. Never needed to replace anything including the PSU. Prices were all extremely low for the quality you get. It's a different story with the consumer Inspiron line of products. Best to go Optiplex for the added BIOS options you need for a hack. They sell at huge discounts to retail prices because they are off lease from many large companies that return them after 3-4 years of use. Currently the best hackintosh value you'll find today.

The only caveat with refurbished desktops like this is the cosmetic condition. If the seller provides actual pics of what you'll get, then it's easy to find one in good condition. Generally you'll still need to clean up the fans and apply new thermal paste. That's acceptable considering the ultra low prices you pay for these.

The best part was that the address to set DVMT Pre-Alloc and CFG Lock were exactly the same as for my Optiplex 3050 mini tower. So I didn't have to go digging for the addresses.

 

[craighazan]

When deciding on a board for the Cube, a couple of ASRock motherboards came up in searches, but fortunately @phunguss mentioned the Gigabyte 110. Never had an issue with it, lots of expandability options for such a tiny board and, it can even connect to a graphics card!. Dells are also a favorite, they always seem painless to hack!.

 

[trs96]

Dells are also a favorite, they always seem painless to hack!.

Back in the early days of Intel hackintoshing around 2008/09 there were many Dell laptops and mini PCs (Core 2 Duos) that you could install Leopard and Snow Leopard on without much effort at all. Seemed like they were built to run OS X back then.

 

[trs96]

Lots of expandability options for such a tiny board and, it can even connect to a graphics card!.

Here's a mini hack build you might find interesting.

 

[pastrychef]

Here's a mini hack build you might find interesting.

I've seen that one. The Raspberry Pis are fun to play with and decently powered for many things. But this guys isn't really running macOS...