That’s awesome! For about another $30 you can boost that guy to 16GB of RAM. Should make a fine little, dirt cheap server. Do you know a guide for replacing the BIOS?
Docs for how to replace the BIOS are here: Getting Started | MrChromebox.tech
There are also many other Chromebox devices (such as the Acer Chromebox CXI3) that are based on the same hardware architecture that have i3, i5, and even i7. I’m downloading the blockchain now and both cores are pegged at 100% so having more cores will help with running the bitcoin client. I imagine running electrs will take even longer.
Cool. Thanks! I’ll post that above.
When I said it would make a fine little server, I was not saying it would make a good Bitcoin node, at least not with the current version of StartOS. Maybe with this hack:
I replaced the SSD with a 1TB SATA SSD and it could take an NVMe drive as well. So from a storage perspective I think it will work as a Bitcoin node. The main issue with the G2 with the Celeron is the CPU is slow.
I suspect it’s really going to struggle with the IBD. But do let us know how it goes!
I have successfully installed on PN50-BBR047MD
|Motherboard/CPU|: ASUS PN50 / AMD Ryzen 3 4300U
Graphics|Built-in Radeon Vega 7
32GB DDR4-3200 (2x 16GB HyperX Impact HX432S20IB2/16, SODIMM, CL20).
|2TB Adata XPG SX8200 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD.
(Case: Akasa Newton A50 fanless)
Had to try a few times and change bios settings.
Knots synced and running ![]()
Thank you Start9 team.
That’s an Asus branded mini PC right?
yes, i bought it already repackaged into the fanless case.
it got quite warm (70C+ max range) by the end of pruned download.
With any fanless device especially, you need to provide adequate ventilation for it to cool down effectively.
70ºc is not too crazy, but don’t keep it hidden in a small closet or it might go a lot higher than that.
On the Lenovo M92p, I had significant problem and could not figure out how to keep the machine awake. Did you get that to work? I heard it needs a firmware patch to disable the sleep?
I have not encountered that problem myself, and didn’t patch anything. However, there is a big asterisk there, since it was heavily used when I purchased it (I basically had to cobble it back to life with bailing wire and duct tape), so I cannot say what was done to it by the prior owners. I still have it and can fire it up if you have anything you’d like me to check or some tests to run on it, etc.
BTW, I’ve not tested this (since I don’t have a server that is falling asleep on me), but since Start OS is built on Debian, you might try some of the relevant OS-level commands:
sudo systemctl mask sleep.target suspend.target hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target
sudo sed -i 's/^#\?IdleAction=.*/IdleAction=ignore/' /etc/systemd/logind.conf
sudo sed -i 's/^#\?IdleActionSec=.*/IdleActionSec=0/' /etc/systemd/logind.conf
sudo systemctl restart systemd-logind
setterm -blank 0 -powerdown 0 || true
xset -dpms s off || true
Let’s continue the discussion on a new thread (or post over on this thread here, where we talked about the Lenvovo Thinkcentre M92p Small if you prefer).
This isn’t a thread to ask for support. Please create your own threads if you need help with something.
Yep, you were right. It’s been syncing since 2025-09-30 and I gave up today, the blockchain was about 65% synced.
The next device I’m trying is an HP T640 thin client. I was able to install start9 on the HP T640 without any issues other than the wifi card wasn’t working. I tried another wifi card but it still did not work. I’m not sure I’ll look into the wifi card issue since I’ve been told in another thread that wifi will be removed from start9 in the future.
Nevertheless, I think we can add the HP T640 thin client to the list of supported Known good hardware. Might want to add to the Hp Chromebox G2 and just mention that the Celeron CPU is too low spec to run Bitcoin well.
Successfully running a Lenovo yoga 730-15ikb
added 32 GB DDR4 (8 GB on board), 2 TB NVME
BIOs - Secure Boot Disabled and switched to AHCI for SSD detection.
Still in process of syncing knots (+/- 22hrs by my calcs)
Running Hot 80-90 C, hopefully it will cool off when done syncing.
Heading to the donation page!
StartOS 0.3.5.1 works on the Topton X2F N150 (it is a solid fanless firewall mini PC). Note that I installed the bottom fan that it ships with, so I didn’t check the thermals in the fanless configuration. HDMI cannot be connected or it crashes during bootup. I did not test with the non-free ISO, only the normal one.
I’ve been running StartOS on two ZimaBoards without any (hardware-related) issues for years. The recently released ZimaBoard 2, with a PCIe NVMe SSD adapter, provides quite decent performance in a very compact form factor. I can recommend.
MINIX Fanless Mini PC, Intel i3-N350, NEO Z350-0dB, 16GB ram 512GB internal drive, (with a 2TB external)
Note - setup using the nonfree.iso and in headless mode (no monitor or keyboard attached as there were some issues with drivers).
Switching to headless install was seamless
Blockchain synced in ~3 days
Are you sure that’s not the Z350-0db?
Ah nice catch - I misread the description from amazon - will update original message
Just installed Start OS on a
HP ProDesk 4 Mini G1i
512 GB, 16 GB, Intel Core Ultra 7 265T
Added a Samsung 990 Pro
2000 GB, M.2 2280
Stats while Syncing the Bitcoin Blockchain:
GENERAL
Temperature
72.0 °C
MEMORY
Percentage Used
31.6 %
Total
15414.19 MiB
Used
4384.66 MiB
Available
10541.63 MiB
zram Used
481.00 MiB
zram Total
3853.00 MiB
zram Available
3372.00 MiB
CPU
Percentage Used
7.0 %
User Space
5.6 %
Kernel Space
1.4 %
Idle
92.6 %
I/O Wait
0.5 %
DISK
Percentage Used
24.1 %
Capacity
1999.46 GB
Used
481.33 GB
Available
1518.13 GB