Mele PCG35 Apo works well

I purchased this mini-PC recently, and I am pleased to report that everything works. I am pleasantly surprised how fast it is -- Windows 10 also is very snappy. I am running Easy Linux, and all interfaces work.

I purchased it for US$179 including international postage, from the Mele store:

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Fanless-Windows-10-Mini-PC-Desktop-MeLE-PCG35-Apo-4GB-32GB-Intel-Apollo-Lake-Celeron-J3455/715968_32822268228.html

it has the Intel J3455 CPU, which is the fastest of the Apollo Lake series, power dissipation rating is 10W. I notice competitors using a slower CPU and yet costing more.

The chap at CNX Software has done an unboxing review:

https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/18/mele-pcg35-apo-mini-pc-review-part-1-unboxing-teardown-and-m-2-ssd-sata-hdd-installation/

So far, I have written two tutorials on installing Linux, especially Easy Linux, on a PC, using the PCG35 as a case study:

http://bkhome.org/linux/prepare-your-computer-for-booting-linux.html

http://bkhome.org/easy/how-to-install-easy-os-on-your-hard-drive.html

Everything works. I tested wifi, ethernet, SD-card, sound, all OK. Wifi was missing firmware, which I got from here:

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/iwlwifi-7265D-29.ucode

I haven't tested bluetooth, but I see from dmesg that the firmware loaded ok.

I am running Easy on it right now. There is an error message in /tmp/bootsysinit.log, about a syntax error:

/etc/init.d/start_cpu_freq: line 14: [: too many arguments

Line 14 runs dmidecode, which returns the requested BIOS/UEFI release date, but also appends an error message. Testing in a terminal:

# dmidecode -s "bios-release-date" 2>/dev/null
08/08/2017
Invalid entry length (0). DMI table is broken! Stop.

I have fixed the script to ignore that error message.

It is great to have a silent PC. I usually run my middy-tower, with fans all over it, and it sounds like an aircraft taking off. Right now, I can hear a noise, it is the 3.5 inch 4TB USB drive that is plugged into the Mele -- surprising how noisy that is.

So, very pleased with the Mele. If I have to make any negative comment, it would be my initial disappointment that the fins are plastic! From the advertising blurb and pictures, I expected them to be alloy. There is, however, a large metal-plate heatsink kind of under the fins, which works ok -- not putting the CPU to much work right now, and it is reading 32 degrees C, which is fine. Room air temp is lowish today, probably a tad under 20. It will be interesting to give the CPU chip a heavy workload and observe the temperature rise.

Tags: tech