Minisforum um560 Died

Durham NC

Last week while trying to do a fresh install of Fedora, my Minisforum um560 mini computer died. I plugged it in, heard a faint “pop”, and haven’t been able to power it on since. Unfortunately, after a history of a questionable power supply issues, this wasn’t much of a shock…

History

I purchased the um560 in 2022, after researching several mini-computer models. I wanted a lower powered computer (compared to my desktop), that I could leave running as my “linux dev” machine, and remotely connect to from my MacBook.

I was interested in the the um560 specifically, because it was Minisfourm’s first model to feature ‘alt-mode charging’. This meant that it could (in theory) be both powered and connected from the same cable via a thunderbolt dock. In other words, the ”one cable lifestyle”, just like I have with my MacBook. Even though I wanted the um560 to mostly run headless, I figured this feature would be convienient when I occasionally work on it with a display. Shutdown, plug in, and boot it up.

Previous Issues

In practice, this never truly worked. The um650 would shut off trying to load the OS after the boot screen. It didn’t seem to be getting enough power, despite using connections that had more than enough PD. On top of that, the general power delivery was very unstable and the computer would randomly shutdown while doing tasks like running updates (even when using the included adapter + cable).

Eventually, I tweaked the bios settings to use a lower TDP threshold, hoping it would help. It made the system a bit more stable when running as a headless server, but I never really got the alt mode working consistently.

I ran it for a year or so as a headless server, mostly serving Plex and building my website. It remained stable for longer periods of time, but was always a gamble of when it would crash, not if. Not a great feature for a server. I eventually spun it down to only use from time to time as a Linux test machine. That is until it broke.

Conclusion

That’s all. I wanted to log the issues I had with the um560, just in case others experience anything similar. Hopefully, it’s just an issue with my unit or even just this (now discontinued) model. I haven’t had the same issues with my Minisforum hx99g, although it doesn’t have TB power delivery, and admittedly I don’t have it powered on 24/7 or for very long periods of time.

As for the um560, I’ve removed the SSD and 64 GB (!) of RAM, and will send the unit to e-waste recycling. Bummer. I might hold onto the RAM and keep an eye open for a cheap small computer to use as a new test server, if I need to eventually. For now, I can just setup the Linux SSD in my hx99g finally…