EGLOBAL Mini PC Tech Support Blog

The instructions below are for Windows Vista, 7 and 8 installed on the Eglobal Micro PC you use.
To install a microphone in Windows 10, first click the search icon (magnifying glass) in the bottom-left corner of the screen. Then type: “Set up a microphone” and push enter. Then follow the instructions.

Now back to the Windows Vista, 7 and 8 instructions. In Vista and Windows 7, open the Start Menu and click on Control Panel.
In Windows 8: take your mouse cursor to the upper-right corner of the screen, when menu pops up, click search. Type: “Control Panel” in the search box, and then click Control Panel.

Once the Control Panel window opens, click on Hardware and Sound.

When you are in the Hardware and Sound list, click on em>Sound.

In the Sound window you have three tabs: click on the Recording tab.

Once you are in the Recording tab, right click on the microphone device you just plugged in and select the ‘Set as Default Device’ option.

Now, to test and see if it really works, tap the microphone with your finger a few times. In the Sounds window, the empty lines next to the default microphone should fill up with a green color.

If you are in the Recording tab and you can’t see your microphone device, right click on any device shown in the Recording tab. In the contextual menu, click ‘Show Disabled devices’ if it isn’t marked with a check sign.

If you still can’t see your microphone, you might have not plugged it properly or you need to install a driver for it to work. In the first case, check to see if you have plugged it properly into your computer, plug it again or, if it is on a USB port, plug it in another USB port. As for the second case, use the drivers from the manufacturer’s site or from the CD that came along with the product.

Read the text aloud

At this point Windows Vista may still not recognize that the microphone has been activated. So we need to make Windows Vista aware of the tone and sound of our voice.

Important: The following steps will be also done in the Windows Speech Recognition article so, if you came to this article from that one, you can now go to that one and continue reading from there. Open the Control Panel window and click on Ease of Access.

Now, in the Ease of Access window, click on Set up Microphone.

Choose the microphone device that you currently use and click on the Next button.

A few indications are given and, if they are followed, will give a better user experience. In my case, since I have selected the Headset microphone the indications are as shown in the image. Once you have read the advice given, click on the Next button.

If you accidentally selected the wrong device or want to go back to a previous page of the setup, click on the blue Back arrow positioned in the top left corner of the setup wizard.

Read the given text aloud and, afterwards, click on the Next button.

In some cases the microphone does not work in the wizard setup, although it might be enabled and functions properly according to the Recording tab. If this happens, close the wizard setup and, after you checked to see you have the correct microphone device enabled, open the setup wizard again.

In my case, for example, I have activated the microphone on the headset only when I got to this step and it doesn’t seem to work. A few taps on the microphone shows me that it works in the Recording tab, but does not work in the setup wizard, so I must restart the wizard setup.

Now, assuming you read the text and clicked on the Next button, the wizard setup will tell you that the microphone has been set up and also you will be prompted about setting up the Speech Recognition by pressing the Finish button.

1. Make sure the VGA Cable/HDMI cable between the PC and display is well connected.

2. If that doesn’t work, change a VGA/HDMI cable for trial.

3. Make sure the memory you use is the same kind as per Eglobal mini computer requirement.

4. Close the power and try to open the mini computer case carefully, check if the memory plugged correct or loose, unplug the memory and wipe it up by nonwovens then insert it on the mini computer, connect power adapter and re-start it.

5. sometimes the problem comes due to CMOS battery problem, the CMOS battery remember some error information and make the computer no display, you can remove and try it again.

If your computer is losing its time or date settings, or you are receiving a message CMOS Read Error, CMOS checksum error, or CMOS Battery Failure, or lost display, for example, some users using Eglobal mini computer and find all indicator shows correct, RAM also correctly plugged in, but totally no display, it may due to the CMOS problem, it remember some error and shows nothing on hardware, you will need to remove your CMOS battery and try it again.

Before opening your computer, make sure you are aware of ESD and its dangers: ElectroStatic Discharge, ESD is one of the few things you can do to damage or destroy your computer or parts of your computer. Much like the shock you receive when rubbing your feet on the carpet and touching something metal, ESD can occur when working in your computer and can cause components you touch to no longer work properly. ESD can occur without the user feeling a shock and only occurs while working on the inside of the computer or handling an expansion card or other hardware. The best method of preventing ESD is to use an ESD wrist strap, grounding mat, or grounding workbench. However, because most users do not have access to such items, we have included the steps below to help reduce the chances of ESD as much as possible.

For our mini pc, after remove the CMOS battery, you can plug power adapter and turn on the mini pc again, this time it will shows normally and confirms the computer has no hardware problem. After that, power it off and remove power plug, then put the CMOS battery back again, after CMOS battery back work, everything will runs normal now.

When first time connect the mini pc (XBMC with Openelec pre-installed) to TV by HDMI, you should select the correct HDMI device if it didn’t have any sound.

The following pictures to teach how to set sound on XBMC System:

Step 1: open the Mini HTPC computer and go to its homepage as this picture:

Step 2. Click “System “ button and go into system setting

Step 3. Click “system” button

Step 4.Click “Audio Output”

Step 5. Select the right audio output device from the list shows there:

After set the Mini PC to “Stand by” mode, I cannot wake it up directly by touch keyboard or mouse, no matter long press the power switch or short press the power switch, the mini pc will restart directly instead of wake up, does you mini pc have this problem? And how to solve it.

To wake up the computer directly via mouse or keyboard, you should not close your hard disk when the computer goes to “stand by” mode, go to Power Options and set the hard disk never turn off will be ok. Operate step by step as per the following picture:

If you are using Win7 OS: First, click on the battery icon and go to “Power Options”, you can also find “Power Options” from “Control Panel”.

Secondly, click the > Change advanced power settings link in the bottom left.

Hard disk: Set it never turn off the hard disk in sleep mode.

If you are running XP: Open the Control Panel and switch to Classic View (if not already selected), Select Power Options and adjust the settings in the power scheme, select never turn off hard disks,choose ok to save  your changes.

Some customers ask: The system is installed on Eglobal mini pc computers. But there’s only one partition. I don’t want to reinstall the system to re-partition. Is it possible to create another partition?

This might be a problem that troubles many users. Generally, some third party software can provide such features. However, now Windows 7 enables you to make some certain degree of adjustments towards current partition sizes.

Let’s check the How-to:

Preparation

An essential requirement of this operation is that your file system must be NTFS. FAT32 file system doesn’t work.

Right click the drive -> Property -> on the General tab -> File System will display your file system.

If it is FAT32 system, it can be converted to NTFS.（Alert: Converting to NTFS will bring some trouble. For example, if there are two systems installed on the computer, and one of them is an earlier system like Windows 98 or Windows ME, then the older system will not be able to recognize NTFS’s drive letter.）

1. Start -> In Start Search, type cmd, -> and right click cmd in the result list at the top – >Click Run as administrator.
   If you see a message saying Windows needs your permission to continue, don’t be surprised. Just click continue to confirm.
2. Type the following command, and press Enter to run it (x represents your drive letter, and it should be replaced with you specific drive letter).
   convert x: /fs:ntfs

3.Wait for a few minutes, and don’t close the window until you see the confirm message.

To create a partition or volume (the two terms are often used interchangeably) on a hard disk, you must be logged in as an administrator, and there must be either unallocated disk space or free space within an extended partition on the hard disk.

If there is no unallocated disk space, you can create some by shrinking an existing partition, deleting a partition, or by using a third-party partitioning program.

To create and format a new partition (volume)

1. Open Computer Management by selecting the Start  button. The select Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.
2. In the left pane, under Storage, select Disk Management.
3. Right-click an unallocated region on your hard disk, and then select New Simple Volume.
4. In the New Simple Volume Wizard, select Next.
5. Enter the size of the volume you want to create in megabytes (MB) or accept the maximum default size, and then select Next.
6. Accept the default drive letter or choose a different drive letter to identify the partition, and then select Next.
7. In the Format Partition dialog box, do one of the following:
   1. If you don’t want to format the volume right now, select Do not format this volume, and then select Next.
   1. To format the volume with the default settings, select Next.
8. Review your choices, and then select Finish.

Notes: When you create new partitions on a basic disk, the first three will be formatted as primary partitions. Beginning with the fourth, each one will be configured as a logical drive within an extended partition.

To format an existing partition (volume)

Warning: Formatting a volume will destroy any data on the partition. Be sure to back up any data you want to save before you begin.

1. Open Computer Management by selecting the Start  button. The select Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.
2. In the left pane, under Storage, select Disk Management.
3. Right-click the volume that you want to format, and then select Format.
4. To format the volume with the default settings, in the Format dialog box, select OK, and then select OK again.

Notes

Notes: You cannot format a disk or partition that is currently in use, including the partition that contains Windows.
The Perform a quick format option will create a new file table, but will not fully overwrite or erase the volume. A quick format is much faster than a normal format, which fully erases any existing data on the volume.

Eglobal mini pc can stand up by desk bracket but also can be mounted back of monitor by VESA bracket we supply. When you fix the computer back of monitor, it is inconvenient for you to press the On/Off Switch button each time, so it would be good if Eglobal mini pc could start automatically when connecting to the mains power.

Here let’s see the BIOS setting for your reference(different models of Eglobal Mini PC have different BIOS interface):

Step 1: Press On/Off Switch on the mini pc and then keep press “Esc” on the keyboard until goes into BIOS;
Or Press “ F11 ” after booting, select “ Enter Setup ”  into BIOS interface as the picture shown:

2. Select “ Chipset ” and Press “ Enter ” into “PCH-IO Configuration” .

3. Select “ Restore AC Power Loss ” and setup “ Power on ”.

4. Press “ F10 ” and Select “ Yes ” to save the setting and re-start the machine. Now you can test the function “Auto-Power-On”.

Here let’s configure the USB port from the BIOS for your reference(different models of Eglobal Mini PC have different BIOS interface):

Configure the USB port from BIOS as per the following picture step by step:

Step 1: Press On/Off Switch on the mini pc and then keep press “Esc” on the keyboard until goes into BIOS like Picture 1;

Or

Press “ F11 ” after booting, select “ Enter Setup ” into BIOS interface like Picture 2.

Step 2:Find “Integrated Peripherals”

Step 3: Choose the “Onboard Device Function”

Step 4: Choose the “USB Configuration”

Step 5: Choose the “ Legacy USB Support”

Step 6: The last, it will show Legacy USB Support become “Disabled”

Step 7: Press “F10″ on the keyboard to save the above setting and finish it.

Eglobal fanless mini pc using aluminum alloy case to help CPU heat releasing, so even it is fanless, it won’t be very hot, normally around 36 centigrade degree around the mini pc. Our mini PC’s normal operating temperature is around 50 °C -80 °C, and the maximum can’t exceed 100 °C. This is real testing from one of our customers, tested model: V2-C1037U and 5257E

When normal web browsing, office work and online chatting, temperature surround the CPU part alloy case from 36°C to 39°C; When the CPU load maintained at 60% ~ 60%, temperature surround the CPU part alloy case from 40°C to 43°C, when touching won’t feel thorny hot;

Testing summary: this fanless mini computer is quiet with no noise, the thick aluminum alloy case is good for heat dissipation, very suitable for using in living room and bedroom at home.

Suggestion: Let the mini computer stand by the plastic holder we supply freely or mounted back of monitor if the package include VESA Bracket you bought.

The following is our mini pc 5257U cpu temperature in different environment.

5257U RAM TEST

Temperature under free

Temperature under busy

Max Temperature

A customer who bought a miniPC from our company was very enthusiastic to help us pass back a video of the temperature of the CPU display of our products after playing various games. From the video we can see that the customer played. After several different games, the temperature displayed by our minipc is still within a normal range of use: https://youtu.be/IoPUH39oeNo