Acer Desktop Aspire TC TC-780-UR11 Intel Core i7 7th Gen 7700 (3.60 GHz) 8 GB DDR4 1 TB HDD Windows 10 Home

Newegg link

Stars: 2

Pros:

Good price for an 8th gen i7 PC.

Cons:

Can't run Linux
Even swapping the HD seems almost impossible
No visible POST
No display in BIOS menus of some basic values like installed RAM

Overall:

So far I managed to get the system to boot up with Windows on the HD is came with but when I tried to stick in another drive and install CentOS 7 on it I was surprised to find out I could not. Google CentOS and SpeedStep and TurboMode. Anyway I left it sit for awhile till I needed another Windows PC to upgrade my oldest Blue Iris server. For this one I want an SSD for the boot drive to match the other 4 servers but no go. Wasted almost 2 days not trying to get Windows 10 restored or install on the SSD but best case it finished with no network available and then crashes with Whea_Uncorrectable_Error when I try to login. Not that I could anyway because when you set up the PC if forces you to use your outlook.com login which requires the network. Other accounts are disabled so if you did not set one before you made the restore. I tried it one last time adding some local account and recreating the recovery USB but still could not even get to a login prompt.

I found conflicting info on whether or not is supports a M.2 SSD but this seems to confirm it does support some. But when I ran the tool they mention all I found was a max width of 1 which I gather would be as slow as the HD.

So I went back to the HD it came with (which works fine BTW) and added memory and a medium range graphics card like I used in the Dells. Unfortunately the graphics card requires a 6 pin power connector which this system also does not have.

So I broke down and ordered another Dell. I'll see about using it for something else later and update this then.