LarkBox - questions about installing / updating Windows

MiniPC
#1

Hi. I am considering buying a LarkBox Pro and, reading these forums, I have a couple of questions:

  • Does the pre-installed W10 now update successfully to 20H2?
  • If not, does it successfully clean-install W10 20H2?
  • Is it recommended to do a clean install (of any version) either way or is the pre-installed version fine?
  • How would I go about doing a clean (re)install, but ‘keep’ the valid license included with the pre-installed W10?

Hope someone can help me with these! Thanks!

1 Like
#2

…if you buy the Pro, order it with an upgraded 256GB SSD (mine is an M.2 Kingston USNS4180S3/256GJ) as Drive ‘C’ (largest available is 512GB). Systems equipped this way seem to upgrade and behave normally with respect to Win10. Also, don’t tamper with the UEFI bios after you receive it, as it’s ‘delicate’ and you risk ‘bricking’ your system.

Best,
-Rob

1 Like
#3

Thanks for the info Rob! When you say to have the M.2 SSD as C:, does that mean Windows should be on that drive? And just curious re. the BIOS: do you mean ‘don’t try to update it’, or literally ‘don’t touch it’ (settings-wise)?

#4

…yes, the bootable Windows OS on ‘C:’ - Chuwi will install it that way, if you order it directly from them. Be very, very careful when viewing or changing the UEFI bios, as there are numerous reports on the Blog of ‘bricked’ systems after bios changes … particularly when changing video setting or changing the OS setting from Linux (default) to Windows (go figure).

Regards,
-Rob

#5

Ok, good to know, I will not be futzing with the BIOS, thanks for the tip! One thing I still did not fully get- I understand it comes from Chuwi with W10 on the eMMC as drive C:. Can I just add an M.2 and update, or does the M.2 need to be changed to C: (and/or Windows moved to it)?

#6

…I’d remove the eMMC entirely, install the new M.2 SSD - then install W10 with the instructions contained in the thread below:

https://forum.chuwi.com/t/useful-larkbox-rebuild-links/15897/7

…perhaps experiment with adding the eMMC back in later as D: – some posts say the eMMC interferes, asserting control and boots to itself regardless of position.

-Rob

#7

The specification is OK with good cost performance.
However, customer services after-sales is very, very, very poor.
If you were not an expert of computer software, I never recommend a LarkBox.

3 Likes
#8

I have now successfully updated my LarkBox Pro (with M.2 SSD) to W10 20H2. I am however left with 5 ‘unknown devices’ in device manager, and I no longer have my oem installation partition…

Can anyone identify which drivers are missing? I would prefer to only install what W10 cannot already install by itself to end up with as ‘stock’ an installation as possible.

#9

I’ll see if I can work on that. I bought a license for iobit Driver Booster Pro. With any luck, I’ll update windows, run Driver Booster and it will tell me what I’m missing.

#10

deleted so I could reply instead

#11

There was a guy on here who said he found a 1TB 2242. I haven’t seen one, though. I have a 512 GB.

#12

Thanks, that would be great- I am more or less stuck with this issue at the moment, and without reply from Chuwi as well. I have seen several reports of successfully clean installing 20H2, I wonder how these people have managed to do so.

#13

I upgraded from the previous version 20 something to 20H2. The only driver it lost is “PCI Data Acquisition and Signal Processing Controller”.

When I googled it, it said it was part of the Intel Chipset driver. I didn’t have any luck fixing it with that.

I downloaded the free version of Driver Booster and it installed an “Intel® Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework Manager”, which got rid of the item I was missing. One of the main differences between Free and Pro is that Free requires you to update drivers one at a time.

#14

Thanks. It seems ‘Intel® Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework Manager’ by itself is only available via vendors directly, like Dell. I’ll give Driver Booster a go this weekend, and also noticed that there are a couple of optional driver updates listed by W10 (far more than there are unknown devices though…) so I’ll have a look there as well.

#15

someone has posted them on another thread: We need LarkBox chipset drivers

#16

Thanks. I can confirm neither Windows Update nor Intel Driver Assistant can identify or install these drivers, but with Jonh’s extracted drivers I was able to install them.

All seems to work fine, but I noticed Event Viewer is consistently logging the error:

“Idle power management features on processor 0 in group 0 are disabled due to a firmware problem. Check with the computer manufacturer for updated firmware.”

Does anyone else have this, both pre and post 20H2-update?