[SvenLorenz]

Thanks MediaPi, you are right about the msata / m2 size difference, did not notice that.
Trouble is that by the time I get one of these cables the pc will be passed its sell by date. I really cant believe that HP designed a cable exclusively for one product, there must be something out there we can use in its place or some old obsolete hardware out there that used this cable.

[Mark142]

Can I ask. All the talk about this cable. Would putting an ssd drive in make it considerably faster than the current drive. Or is it just for storage. If storage, the easiest solution is just plug in a USB drive. It's not ideal but seems a lot easier than sourcing the cable. Personally if using for just kodi you wont need any bigger but if you are planning to run as a small windows pc then the extra storage would be good.

[noggin]

Looks sweet. The DVD module looks like it was meant for the HP260! But I'm confused I thought you can attach the unit without the sleeve. It's got integrated vesa mount.

It was I think. There are at least three external modules for the HP260 range - one has Serial, Parallel and other expansion ports (presumably for PoS etc. type applications), one has those ports AND an internal hard drive, and one - which was used above - carries a DVD drive. I think the OP swapped out the DVD module for a BD one?

The expansion modules aren't cheap though - so getting lucky on eBay is probably the only cost effective solution?

[noggin]

Trouble is that by the time I get one of these cables the pc will be passed its sell by date. I really cant believe that HP designed a cable exclusively for one product, there must be something out there we can use in its place or some old obsolete hardware out there that used this cable.

I can. Devices like the HP 260 are leveraging Laptop expertise, and using laptop style construction for a SFF PC. As such bespoke cables designed specifically for that product make sense in construction terms. The HP 260 G1 is a range of devices - Celeron, Pentium, Core i3 - aimed at corporate customers (it's not a consumer product). If you sell these things in high volumes, it makes sense to have bespoke cables that allow you to add functionality that off-the-shelf interface ports and cables don't - same reason that laptops don't use standard cables.

[noggin]

Can I ask. All the talk about this cable. Would putting an ssd drive in make it considerably faster than the current drive. Or is it just for storage. If storage, the easiest solution is just plug in a USB drive. It's not ideal but seems a lot easier than sourcing the cable. Personally if using for just kodi you wont need any bigger but if you are planning to run as a small windows pc then the extra storage would be good.

It's a way for people to run a more comprehensive dual-boot set-up. Windows is marginal in 32GB, so putting in a second SSD would allow you to dual boot with a decent sized Linux distro, or store content locally without having to worry about external drives.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of booting from external drives and prefer my OSs to be internal.

Of course you could replace the 32GB M2 SSD with a higher capacity one, as I did with one of my Chromeboxes (which I mainly run a Linux distro on rather than OpenElec) but that means ditching a perfectly good SSD, and M2 stuff is more expensive, on a like-for-like performance basis.

[Mark142]

I've just flubbered another request. I'll let you know the price. It's a gift for someone to use as a small home pc for general Web browsing and some ms office. Will chuck in another 2gb ram and connect to monitor via vga.

[Mark142]

Just been offered 86

[LarrxX]

Has everyone got the windows 10 update icon yet? I've posted on how you can manually force it on first post. How does it work, if you don't reserve your copy, do you miss out?

I have it on both my Windows 7 Machines at home, but still nothing on my windows 8 machine at work. I wouldn't fret it, you have 1 year after the release of Win10 to do the upgrade (read the fine print on the bottom of this page). "Reserving" a copy will download the ISO ahead of time and only install it on the correct date. It's an understandable way for Microsoft to reduce the load on their servers.

So unless you absolutely positively definitely mandatorily must have Win 10 in the next couple of weeks, there's no rush to "reserve" it.

And now to write my review!

[LarrxX]

So here's my review on the HP260 after a couple weeks of fidgeting with it. I'm going to try and explain what went wrong for me and how I managed to repair it. I might not cover everything that interests YOU in particular, but I got it working like I want it to. If you'd like me to test some other stuff out, ask nicely, and I might just do it if it's not much of a hassle

The hardware

• Main unit: HP 260 G1 Mini, Pentium Edition, with 500GB HDD and 4GB RAM. I bought it on ALternate but they don't seem to have it in stock anymore at the price I got it (which was 169€ including shipping).
  
• WiFi Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN822N 300Mbps external WiFi USB adapter.
  
• IR Remote: RC118 with USB IR adapter.
  
• DP to HDMI adapter: HQ CM-ADAP571 works flawlessly. First, I got the confirmed adapter from eBay but it wouldn't work (although it worked on another PC using the same cables and connected to the same amp and tv).
  
• OS: I installed a Windows 7 Home edition since I had a license to spare (my unit came without any OS preinstalled).
  
• NAS: I have a Synology 212j NAS with all my media stored. So, when using Kodi, I'm streaming everything from the NAS.
  
• Amp/TV: I connected the HP260 to an Onkyo TX-507 Amp in turn connected to a Samsung TV (the model escapes me). (I'm planning on getting a new amp and a Benq W1070+ projector).
  

Fiddling the BIOS

• Changing the language: Just press F8 when you're in the BIOS and you'll get a language selection screen. This was actually a piece of knowledge that was extremely complicated to find
  
• Setting up power on from remote: First, you need to connect the IR receptor of the remote to one specific USB port in the back of the unit, marked with a keyboard icon. Second, you need to activate the "Power on from USB Kbd Port" option int the "Power" menu of the BIOS.
  
• A little troubleshooting: I fiddled around with the BIOS options, and something broke the "power on from remote". It would work normally for a while, but if the unit was off for several hours, it wouldn't work anymore. So I just reset my BIOS options, and only activated the "Power on from USB Kbd Port" and everything was back in order. I don't know what option was the culprit and I'm not really up to testing them one by one. Here are the "Power" and "Advanced" settings I'm using. Only thing I changed is highlighted in red:
  
  

The good stuff

• Setting up the remote: I used the amazing Advanced MCE Remote Mapper Tool to configure the buttons just the way I like them. The most important change I did was replace all "sleep" commands with "shutdown" commands. So now I can completely turn the unit off and on with the remote.
  
• HD Audio: I configured Kodi to output in 5.1 (and use passthrough when possible). Nothing to say here, everything works peachy.
  
• Hardware decompression: I put the samples from this post on my NAS and streamed them through Kodi. Everything went great.
  
• Streaming from the NAS: I noticed a couple seconds of delay when skipping ahead repeatedly in the 60fps samples, and I suspect it's a buffering issue. Using a wired connection, the issue disappears, so it's only on WiFi that this happens. 1 or 2 seconds of buffering when you quickly and repeatedly skip ahead is not that big an issue IMHO.
  
• Steam in-home Streaming: This is the main reason I'm using Windows instead of OpenElec. It works fine, although I did encounter a few dips in network performance but apart from temporary image quality loss, nothing to report (game controls keep responding spot on). Don't know if it's from the server machine, client, networking or a problem with the Steam streaming itself, but it's not that big a deal. So I deem this a success.
  

In conclusion
Very compact unit, very silent, and capable of showing me all the videos I want, like I want them, while controlling everything with a remote from the comfort of my couch, and occasionally allowing me to play video games on my bigass screen (soon to be even bigger-asser!). All this for about 200€ and a very high WAF! I'm a very happy camper indeed.


And I would like to say a big thank you to all you guys on here for your help and patience and friendliness. The Kodi community is awesome!

[MediaPi]

Just been offered 86

Thats a cracking deal. I think we getting spoilt with stupid deals and 86 doesn't have the same ring it did a week ago but thats still aamzing. Did you accept?

[MediaPi]

cracking review LarrxX. well done well worth the wait. I really like the time you took at the layout and the BIOS pictures are great!! I'm sure it will help out users! I'm going to link this in first post.
How does it feel to be able to start your HP260 from remote?
Thanks for your time and effort at writing the review.

[Mark142]

Just been offered 86

Thats a cracking deal. I think we getting spoilt with stupid deals and 86 doesn't have the same ring it did a week ago but thats still aamzing. Did you accept?

I rejected in the end. The friend I was buying for has decided the want a laptop instead.

[MediaPi]

If anyones interested tesco are selling
Toshiba 1TB USB 3.0 for £37.50
http://www.tesco.com/direct/toshiba-1tb-...ff_1018132
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/toshiba-...ct-2251272

I have an idea, instead of buying the sata cable why not buy this drive, open it up, use the internal 2.5 inch drive (its no different to any other 2.5 inch drive) then use one of the usb 3 ports to power the drive. There will be a slit somewhere where you can take the usb connection out of the HP case, or is there even any way to use one of the usb ports internally?

heres how to open the drive

[stammie]

I have an idea, instead of buying the sata cable why not buy this drive, open it up, use the internal 2.5 inch drive (its no different to any other 2.5 inch drive) then use one of the usb 3 ports to power the drive. There will be a slit somewhere where you can take the usb connection out of the HP case, or is there even any way to use one of the usb ports internally?

There isn't any slits in the case to route the cable through,
that being said I'm very tempted to order one of the adapters you linked to in your other thread and cut out a slit in the lid for the USB cable.

Alternatively if anyone with the 500 GB model wants to do a swap for the sata cable and I'll send them my m.2 drive and a USB 3.0 enclosure to put their hdd in I'm open to offers

[Roders]

I ordered another one for a guy at work, got it for £84.01 on flubit.