jotapesse
Now these are just estimated values (I don’t have exact numbers), but someone measured 180w from the socket with stock BIOS settings (balanced). And from the socket that is already crazy if you then take into account possible conversion inefficiency.
In addition, it only crashes for me in Unigine Superposition and 3DMark Timespy, which produces around 58°C, but not in Furmark, which produces 69°C, so it can’t be the temperature. But it could also be because Furmark doesn’t load a lot of data, whereas the other two might stream data from the NVMEs, but I would have to test it more closely.
And yes, it doesn’t matter whether the NICs are connected or you are using them, it is enough if they are simply switched on, for me another indication that it is something hardware related. Whatever it is, it is fatal because it destabilizes the entire system, leads to stuttering and then to hard crashes with system reboots. The only way to get the system to be 100% stable is to turn off the NIC completely, which is simply not acceptable for a $2k+ product.
What I found most blatant was the green Link Connection LED that started to flicker and lost the link almost every second when Unigine Superposition was running in a window. By the way, the NIC didn’t crash there. Are both devices, GPU and NIC competing for shared resources (PCIe bandwidth, power delivery via the motherboard VRMs) or are the NICs or something not adequately shielded or PCIe lanes too close together on the board and creating electromagnetic interference (EMI)? Whatever it is, it’s fatal.
Either way, I no longer believe it’s just a firmware problem that can be easily fixed with simple software updates. Rather, I now believe that this is a serious hardware-level design flaw or hardware-level power delivery problem that requires a recall of all devices and a completely redesign and revision of the board.
Of course, this is extremely annoying and will be expensive for Beelink, but if that’s the case, then it’s still better to just admit it and bite the bullet than to keep stalling customers with promises that there will soon be a simple solution that enables stable use of the System with enabled NICs as if they were switched off.
I also hate beta testing hardware for manufacturers; to be honest, it’s enough for me if I have to do that with games and software. If I buy a $2k device, I expect it to be extensively tested before it goes on the market. I only tested it for about a day and ran into various fatal errors, which makes you wonder whether the devices were properly tested before they were marketed.
I’m sticking with it, either there will actually be a fix soon or I’ll expect a 50% refund (I keep the device) or I’ll send the device back (full refund and I’ll never buy a device from Beelink again). The alternative would be a callback and complete revision and replacement, extremely annoying, but then I would perhaps, depending on how it is handled, at least consider continuing to buy products from Beelink in the future.
