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Cheap hardware notes

evolve 4

  • X004IH4XEL
    • PONKLOIE Laptop 11.6" Laptop Travel Laptops, Black New Made In China
    • N4000 Dual1GhzCore intel 8GB RAM 256SATA
    • $50-170 (shipped Q1 2026 Amazon)
    • shipped with windows 11
    • has much improved screen and Keyboard is much better!

evolve 4 comes with all shown. keyboard has a overlay protector which just flops on top

I found the included power wart might be garbage and not provide current well.

evolve 4 now with access port and cheap drive.. had some disk i/o issues and re-seating it might have helped performance.

e4 bios still looks sus has a TPM chip? a lot of heat throttling was shut off also it seems to use 2GB ram for system video?

e-4 guts Shows the lack of any real heat managment for the CPU

e-4 cooling used M2 Coolers and a shim to add mass to the existing thermal system.

Issues had to resolve with OEM hardware

Installed a new SATA (same brand as used in e3 below) Things seem more stable for install of a new OS this go round. The issue might be the cheap loking storage chip. Had many issues with hardware locking and other random i/o errors. Things seem much better and stable after replacing the SATA.

fixed stability for a bit but heat related stability seems back after a few hours of use.

I dont know if this thing is worth the trouble but its 5 seconds faster on the decode of ft8 benchmark

evolve 3

A classic, well loved and still kicking after all these years Linux Mint supporting all hardware now.

  • windows is likely stolen copy no authenticity anywhere and sickers to not upgrade

  • eMMC storage needs upgraded ideally (very slow)

  • open them up fingerprints and hot glue so know your build quality

    • I have opened this a few times and one screw mount has broken out of the plastic
  • track pad function in Linux

    • I2C issues
  • the last and bigger issue you will get a random v1 or v2 hardware

  • v1 stuff works mostly v2 the sound card is hacked up and won’t work from what Lots say

    • sounds like also a “v3” is out there as well.
  • no drivers no bios no wifi drivers included in any official packages it smells like and lots of unstable wifi complains

    • supply chain security issues all over this

SATA installation on v1 hardware

for 80mm cards pull this stud

yanked this

pull the battery header off mainboard before you do this

tape this

put the cheapest amazon SD card (under $14) into the cheap laptop

screen refresh stinks

the screen refresh reminds me of CRT display days!

ouvislite mini pc

  • same as the laptop, N3350 cpu
  • can take SATA
  • upgrade system, will cause slow

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