Yes mate and as I mentioned in my own comment it also occurs to me that this may be seen as a criminal act by that company seeing that these viruses are capable of stealing personal information and that is scamming or even fraud.
@@johngoard8272 It is all coming from the CCP. Considering their political landscape it wouldn't surprise me if this turned out to be an intentional attack. Be safe.
I ALWAYS install my own copy of my OSes, and usually when I buy a pc it’s out if need not because I have extra income to spend. Great to notify, but better to simply teach people how to get around those issues. The hardware itself is fine and would be what I’m interested in, and the software can be cleaned/fixed
"There is no issue with current stock", their stock stock held by retailers will still be infected. Their lack of concern and laziness will bite them in the pocket, and rightly so.
As stated in the video it still doesn't explain how and why it was there in the first place. Given the function of this particular virus one can only come to the conclusion there was a bad intent here.
Thanks for the heads up. I've seen a few reviews of these PC's on other channels and ALL recommended it. Hopefully, they'll see this or get the warning and put out a video reversing their recommendation. Them just saying they fixed the problem is absolutely meaningless until they answer the bigger question of "Why that problem is there in the 1st place?"
My wife bought a Lenovo laptop here in China, and the store we bought it from installed Windows from and image they had, they told use it had all the necessary tools on for Lenovo laptops. After getting home and running a virus scan on it I discovered that they had a pirated version of windows 10 with a nasty "Windows 10 crack" installed on it that was backdooring the system. Wiped the drive and put my own copy of Windows on, and have done with every new laptop since.
@@unnamedchannel1237It's China they are at war with Western society....You guys are dumb ... We're in another cold war avoid their junky garbage and buy from western countries
Damn. No wonder one of these mini pcs I saw they specifically mentioned if you reinstalled their bios, the after market support would be void. Aftermarket support as in malware I suspect.
If you dont trust them why do you trust the other brands? ASUS could do the same thing on the bios. To say you don't trust them is silly. Imagine all the other brands that have hidden stuff but you feel safe. Lol. 😅
Well done for being honest a lot of people would have just taken the free PC and done a good review for the money and to get more stuff from the company I wonder if there are any other mini-PCs with viruses. I was a little concerned a few years ago when I bought a bmax b2 so did some research and I did several scans with Malwarebytes and eset online. didn't find anything and its been a great little PC for years
As a A+ and C&G PC Engineer also being a veteran, I appreciate your attempt to educate the masses on how their Security, by the way Security is not a dirty word and does not apply to the uniform people in supermarkets, is important from life to online. This is one particular grievous attempt to scam people out of money and sometimes their Entire identity, to that end people should be especially aware of those trying to scam your elders, as my 76 year old Mother has had many attempts at her details online, though I have taken the necessary education and software protections.
Ah, that's why I never saw a problem. The FIRST thing I do with a mini PC is to load Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Now, one mini PC would not accept the install. So I bleach-bit-ed the internal drive, then it worked fine. That told me that the EFI had been compromised. (Thank you, ex Secretary of State, for the product placement.)
I've been watching this channel for years and I have to say you are 100% legit, glad you caught that, but no worries you wouldn't, thanks for letting me know, I am in the market to get a mini computer for my daughter, I will avoid this computer, and I give this channel a 5 star review I do recommend my friends to watch and subscribe, thanks Brian for the honest review.
Yes Paul and me too have followed Brian from the days of Windows 7 and have great regard and respect for Brian's computer knowledge and advice. For this peace of crap to be manufactured either knowingly or not (I suspect the former) is in my mind a criminal act seeing that it is set up to collect personal and private information. Worse still is that one has to pay a fair bit of money for it too!!
Hopefully when this problem becomes more widely known there will be some very cheap devices around. I have had one around a year now but wiped windows and installed Dragon Focal o/s on it. A very good device and well worth the money, if the prices drop I'll be buying more
NiPoGi is another rebrand of these AceMagic/AceMagician/Kamrui mini PCs. I bought one of someone and did a secure wipe on the SSD so can't confirm if it shipped with malware - it's not too bad of a machine, cooling could be better but it performs as it should and is very easy to take apart. Another thing to consider is that the included PSU may be low quality and a potential fire hazard - may be better replacing it with a compatible FSP/Delta ETC PSU with the same TIP and voltage and amperage.
They can say all they want that they "cleaned up their act" The damage has been done. I would not trust them. Many others have had the same experiences. The reason they keep sending out units for review is that they deliberately want to get information. The cost of the units to them compared to what they steal is negligent. I'm glad you informed your audience about this because many people were not aware of this problem.
Reminds me of the time Microsoft Store was marketing their "Signature" laptops which in reality was actually just a clean install of Windows 8/10 devoid of bundleware which is a lot better than the stock Dells and HP . Still recommend to do a fresh install on any PC to be safe as there are history of OEM shipping malware intentionally/unintentionally.
Good on you Brian for bringing this to your loyal viewers attention, I think you said it was in the recovery partition, so persistent.... Bloody hell,! Myself I read all reviews good and bad of the same product... Sometimes you get what you pay for, but sending you a review pc to review, were they targeting you... As a trusted pc influencer and perhaps trying to do a Linus as you stated, 🤔 You called it. Take care
Thank you so much for sharing this vital information with us. I find it interesting (to say the least) that there are currently 1,064 likes and 39 dislikes (96.46%) on here. Why would anyone dislike the honesty of this video? Well, I think we all know the answer to that. Stay safe and well.
Thanks Brian for the information. It seems to be getting to the point these days where you cannot trust anyone or any so called honest companies. Very sad my friend. Take care everyone. Cheers
I want to say that the malware was done by design to mess with unsuspecting users, and it potentially stealing people's identities. As much as I wouldn't mind investing on a mini PC, research is definitely key. Keep doing these honest reviews, Brian. Cheers.
I got a refurbished Dell Latitude laptop few weeks back, I wanted to put windows 11 and 10 dual boot so I ended up formatting it anyway. Had some fun with MBR and GPT and it didn't want to load 11 from ventoy so that was fun, got 11 on it in the end lol. Moral of the story, I don't usually trust default windows installs on new or second hand PCs anyway. Me being me I may even open that thing up and replace the drive on that mini PC you got there lol.
I researched it a bit more and found out (from microsoft themselves) that defender is supposed to be able to find and fix known rootkits (except for the newest one which is rare because it sells on the black market for 5k) if you run it using "offline" which tells it to reboot and scan before windows is able to boot up. I scanned and it found nothing there. So that is promising. New T8Plus incoming tomorrow so I get to do this all over again.
I bought a different model from the same OEM before I was aware of all this dodgy software skullduggery. The only thing saving me was that I swapped the installed SSD out with a better NVME one and didn't even boot their install of Windows. (I was making an OPNsense firewall.) My original SSD at least has the Chrome install with an altered homepage. Had I known about this, I'd have bought something from a more reputable OEM that doesn't ship malware and doctored pre-installed Chrome setups.
Ok Brian yes mate I actually had an email from I can't remember pointing to avoiding this product. However I am always interested in what you post regarding our computer use. Now what I find very scary is that something like this product should even have viruses embedded in them in the first place as you pointed out and I consider that to be verging on a criminal act as the viruses are made to extract personal information for gain. What you said about reinstalling Windows for me at least would not be good enough for me to even vaguely trust this device and I also reckon that some government regulatory body should be made aware of this and for them to take the appropriate action against the manufacturers that seem to me to have done this deliberately - why else would this malware be on the machine??
Awesome thanks for the warning I don't understand how companies like this get away with this crap? They should be seud a lot of money. And the company should be closed down and people doing this should go to prison these are fraudulent criminal acts in my opinion
Has anyone tested these for hardware rootkits? A compromised UEFI or it's firmware, even a TPM chip can be customized/compromised with a backdoor. Reinstalling your OS will not remove these types of rootkits.
Thanks for pointing out this heinous state of affairs. The company can't just say it is all fixed now. If they had a due diligence regime of quality control and inspection in place it would not have shipped in the first instance. How could you trust their fix will be any better given they failed first time around.
hi mate, just seen your video about this mini pc, so i thought i would check mine althrought not the same product it came from china i am happy to say no issues . trigkey g4 mini pc , what happen to product testing before leaving the factory. very sad to see, no research being done here.
it could have been one of their employees who was setting up the PCs. I have their "Intel i7-10810U, Mini Gaming PC" model for about 15mo now and I did not have a problem with malware. I was considering the "standing" mini PCs like the one in the video, luckily I chose a different model.
WOW not what I was expecting. What I think has happened here is either they used a iso they found online or a disgruntled employee built them a iso for there systems and they didn't do any checks before putting it on all the systems they sold. No matter how you look at it that is bad. Shame as that is a very nice looking case on the mini pc
If you do a fresh Windows install, do you have to find and install the drives (screen, WiFi, etc) yourself or will the Windows install find and install them?
Windows will use generic drivers during install if it does not have them preloaded in the installer. Once you connect to the internet and do a windows update windows will automatically install the correct driver in most cases.
Worth reiterating that the PC only becomes safe to use after you've used a clean Windows USB stick, created on a clean PC, to completely delete the partitions and reinstall from there, because the malware is coded into the Recovery partition on the drive.
@@Britec09 Completely agree, also agree that the manufacturer is responsible for the malware, either by action or inaction. They shipped these PCs worldwide through Amazon/AliExpress etc and now innocent people need to know how to make their computers safe again.
Yep, and it might be the kind that moves to memory so a shutdown after nuking the partitions might be a very good idea and even then, I worry about a rootkit
I wonder if they also had Logo Fail on them. That would be enough that just a wipe and reinstall would not make you safe. I wonder how you could check for Logo Fail anyhow. It infects the BIOS and could be really nasty on its own. I am also glad never to have bought these mini PCs seeing how bad the malware can be. Can you imagine all of the hours you would have to spend on the phone undoing or trying to undo the damage that was done (missing funds from accounts and things like that)? It is not like malware used to be. Back in the 2000s it was more of an annoyance than anything but in those days it did not steal credentials.
I have recently bought a mini pc from acemagic, to be specific, an Intel I7 11-700B- 32gb RAM... Now... neither windows antivirus nor Microsoft antivirus had found anything + I updated everything and checked everything and still can't find anything, although, I am suspecting quite a weird activities such as log-ins from other devices that I don't really know.. what should I do to be 100% sure everything is ok or to recognize any eventual virus?..
I bought one of their mini pc's a couple of months ago - fully aware that most of these machines with windows pre installed could and do have malware etc inbuilt. so before I even use them they get wiped and a linux distro installed, mint being my go to. Alas many of the present crop of machines are basically the same units with different manufacturers names on them with a few tweeks here and there to make them look different, BUt if they come with a free windows pro - which is usually way more money than the pc itself you know it;s going to have something hooky. My advice if you buy any Chinese supplied PC is to either install linux or install a genuine Windows 11 iso from microsoft. Besides, using linux frees up a fair lump of drive space.
After watching your video I checked my Kamrui and it had the same malware you described. Now reinstalling Windows would not be too much of a problem. But what about the bios 🤔
I would have sent the mini pc back to the manufacturer after format and wiping the disk through the Hiren Boot Rescue Disk with one of the disk partition software and then once I done that remove the mini pc from the laptop and boot into windows and format the usb stick with Hiren Boot to make sure it is malware/virus free and make a new Hiren Boot Disk Usb and also scan Windows with Windows Defender and Malwarebytes Free version to make sure Windows hasn't been effected.
Hello I am interested in buying this due to the good performance/space ratio. Also due to the price. If I do a clean installation of Windows will I get rid of all this malware? Thanks
I had the malware on mine that was detected with Windows Defender. It apears to be only activated with Chrome (which I don't like using anyway). So I just deleted it.
I was never keen on the idea of someone installing windows on my behalf anyway. I had someone(a technician) do it without my knowledge on my month old pc (turned out to be a cloned version). I wiped the system(via usb), and installed with a new license. Although it is understandable that the average user would just take s prebuilt as it is...
Cause Amazon dont give a crap about their customers. Also they treat their workforce as slaves. Bezos is a true piee of shit! After hearing about an event where multiple Amazon workers died when one of their warehouses collapsed over them because of a tornado after they were refused to seek shelter and demanded to continue on working I decided I will never want anything to do with Amazon.
I guess we need to look at these mini PCs as if no OS was provided with it. The first thing you should do is go get latest iso of Windows or your other OS, and flash it immediately. The windows license from your mini pc will transfer over to the new install also. If it doesn’t, use the Microsoft activation script by massgrave. I use a beelink ser5, I removed windows from its nvme and put my preferred Linux distro there. I did however, mount an SSD in the built in bay for it and install windows to that drive. I didn’t need a new license key even though windows was never on that sata drive before. These mini pcs are pretty great though! I use mine to play gta5 and the new Tony hawk 1 &2 game with bottles on Linux. Have had no issues
I just bought one of these basically just set it up but haven't really used it. there is no win 11 licence on the case or in the documents. if I install win 11 will i need to buy a licence?
@@soulwarfare I logged into microsoft on mine before I knew about this so it registered in my microsoft account. When I did a clean USB format, delete of partitions and reinstall it activated right up. I don't know if it would if you didn't do that though, just try to isolate it from any other systems on the wifi and keep it on only long enough to do the initial stuff and sign in so it is registered on your account then shut it down and do the usb thing.
@@WindsofChange yes I received an email saying welcome to windows 11 so I should be ok. I ran a scan on it and it didn’t flag up any spyware. But I might just do a reinstall just to be sure.
@rfare Go look in the following location C:/Windows and look to see if there is a folder in there named OsVer....that is where this specific malware files are found. Mine came up clean on scans but the files were there. I'm thinking that they don't show up as dangerous to the system till you start installing stuff (which is good for this because that would mean they aren't doing anything while you're just quickly initializing your account and looking around). And that doesn't mean there isn't more going on....finding that was enough reason to wipe everything.
It's a pity that this company has put a black mark on Chinese products, as China is currently dealing with the US sanction in the chip market, put on them by the US. However, China seems to be doing quite well in their retaliation by developing a chip which relies on light rather than electricity. Meanwhile, the US market is badly suffering from that move. C'est la vie!
Thanks for the warning I be safer with beeline mini pcs I noticed the reveiws on this pc looked a bit odd none of the pics was of the pc but some other one.
PSA: You should ALWAYS wipe your drives and do a fresh install from ANY Manufacturer. Some will say only bother if its from China. I don't care if it's from Dell. That shit is getting wiped the fuck out.
When I got my laptop back in 2016, it came with some crappy web filtering software called NetIntelligence. Uninstalling it required a password I didn't have access to, so I tried to force remove it and completely fried the machine's internet connection. So I'm 100% with you in completely nuking the system drive (including partitions) and starting with a fresh OS install.
You can find same infected files (windows\osver\*) in other mini pcs too. This thing HAS SPREAD. I just reinstall windows via usb and delete all partitions beforehand. Easy procedure but not for all maybe.
Assume anything built in the PRC has a virus and /or root kit and you'll be ok. As you say,format or replace the HD and install Windows ,Linux or the OS of your choice.
It's honestly a shame because I liked the form factor of some of the things they put out. Apparently their new cube-like TANK 03 has some issues when using Linux on it because the nVidia card in it needs a very particular custom driver, which also just struck me as weird. Acemagic is one of the ones I'm not trusting at all anymore, unfortunately.
I don't trust anybody including big name brands like HP. Had an issue once with HP. I say build your own, this way you will know exactly what you are getting. Just my opinion.
i nearly got one of these last year, at the time all of the reviews were vine voice reviews and that put me off, i don't trust vine reviews. built my own instead.
I'm a vine voice reviewer, but this virus didn't come up on any of my scans, until I went looking for it in the files. It didn't come up for this video creator until he started loading the computer up with stuff. Sometimes it is hard to catch it right away.
I got a arm 5 and within 6 months it died faulty motherboard and when I tried to RMA it they wouldn't honor the factory warranty and my CC got flagged for fraud as well I'm sure this is why I wouldn't buy there products again
Can they be prosecuted for this? Taking advantage of unsuspecting people, factory installing this and then selling it to people. Makes u wonder how long, how much info have they stolen and possible resold. Thank u for bring this to public attention.
Scan it again after reinstalling the OS, and change the date to a few months, and few years in the future. You don't know if there is malware in the bios that reinfects windows after a certain date.
Hey Brian Right now ETA prime made a about acemagic pc without any critisms I post the comment about your video and how dangerous those pc are since there malware inside of these pc.
I'm willing to buy one if the price go so low because of this scandal. I can always just re-install windows to clean everything up and install ESET Smart security premium
The problem is even worse, the firmware is a deep black box in any device. I bought a Gigabyte b550ds3h mainboard, installed everything fresh and instantly lost one of my emails. Long later i learned, they had a windows exe in their uefi which was unsecure. There is a uefi update, but still you have to deactivate their exe in the uefi manually. Its not only Gigabyte though. Dont trust anyone....
Yes mate and it makes one wonder how may other brands of mini PC's - which I do not personally like - are using the same methods of manufacturing and dishonest selling of something that they surely must have been aware of eh??
I just got an email from the email address I used to ask them about the malware offering me one of their other mini pc's for FREE once I left it a 5 star review with pictures and video. So that is attempted review manipulation. LOLOLOLOL You can't make this stuff up hahahahaha. Of course I'm not going to go for it, I'm not that slimy. I find it endlessly entertaining though.
What if the virus hidden inside the motherboard after clean hard drive installed and still come back again if virus hidden in the motherboard it impossible remove it unless rid of virus hidden then will be fine . I had one time the tablet I ordered and it growing more problems after used the android that time it ran so slow and getting worse and worse I gave up bec it freeze and waiting response for 2 to 5 min to run again it hell I m tired of freezing up and I destroyed and throw away it. I bought it from Amazon I don’t trust brand again .
Win32/Wacatac might be a false positive. And I say "might". Not sure about the other ones, but it looks sketchy. It's likely that the company got infected and they used an image infected with the malware.
Microsoft windows 11 is great because they only distribute legal malware! :-) To be fair, it would be hard to prevent a disgruntled employee of ACE Magic from contaminating some units on the production line, or during quality control/testing or their volume license Win10/11 server or something. I am super wary of an OS that does not let me install it, configure and test it before exposing it to the inter-webs. M$ itself should be considered a PUP really.
The amr5 is a great little PC. Just format the drive and make a new install of whatever os you prefer. You can even save some money by getting one with the smallest ssd, then take it out and put in bigger one you got from another seller. Problem solved. I understand the trust issue stated in the video but if you do the above steps you will be fine.
I followed your video on using mini tool partition tool to resize one partition smaller and the other one bigger.It seemed to work the windows update went through.Now the password fails and it won`t boot into windows.I have not tried to reinstall windows yet,will get into bios and reset ram to factory settings,any ideas?Trying the get update to Windows 11.
Same thing happened when I installed the latest update. I downloaded a copy of win11 from microsoft and was able to get into it that way doing a system restore.I wonder if I do a fresh install will I still be registered as having a win 11 licence.
Can you factory reset and re-download win 10 or 11 they have security and using ani-virus and then double check if still their all the spy ware di€ks if you know what I mean
But thats nothing new. HP is guilty of the same, around 2014/2015 preinstalled malware, 2017 keylogging audio and touchpad drivers... so why going so hard into judgement with a chinese no brand when premium "respectable" brands are guilty more of the same?!
You always get more than you expected when you buy a Chineese made product. Would you buy a used PC which has the previous owner's files on it which is the same situation as this video covers?
Install the scanners for the bad stuff off a thumb drive before connecting the PC to the internet at all or pull the drive for storage (wipe) and install a virgin install of the OS you want on the drive size and quality you prefer? Freeware scanners for viruses and rootkits, etc. etc. are readily available on sites that have been around more than a decade, trust those only?
Thanks for highlighting this. 👍
Unbelievable they would sell this system knowing it contains malware. 🤦♂️😲
Tell me about it
Yes mate and as I mentioned in my own comment it also occurs to me that this may be seen as a criminal act by that company seeing that these viruses are capable of stealing personal information and that is scamming or even fraud.
its all about money and profits...and more profits
@@johngoard8272 It is all coming from the CCP. Considering their political landscape it wouldn't surprise me if this turned out to be an intentional attack. Be safe.
I ALWAYS install my own copy of my OSes, and usually when I buy a pc it’s out if need not because I have extra income to spend. Great to notify, but better to simply teach people how to get around those issues. The hardware itself is fine and would be what I’m interested in, and the software can be cleaned/fixed
"There is no issue with current stock", their stock stock held by retailers will still be infected. Their lack of concern and laziness will bite them in the pocket, and rightly so.
Yes, there is not so called issue with current stock, according to them, but there reputation is done. I would certainly not recommend them now.
As stated in the video it still doesn't explain how and why it was there in the first place. Given the function of this particular virus one can only come to the conclusion there was a bad intent here.
Their name is done. I expect a rebrand at some point.
Well we'll see, I have one coming in a week or two and you KNOW I am going through it with a fine tooth comb.
@@WindsofChange Wouldn't it be easier just to wipe the drive and put your own windows in?
Thanks for the heads up. I've seen a few reviews of these PC's on other channels and ALL recommended it. Hopefully, they'll see this or get the warning and put out a video reversing their recommendation. Them just saying they fixed the problem is absolutely meaningless until they answer the bigger question of "Why that problem is there in the 1st place?"
People who review them don't do there research.
My wife bought a Lenovo laptop here in China, and the store we bought it from installed Windows from and image they had, they told use it had all the necessary tools on for Lenovo laptops. After getting home and running a virus scan on it I discovered that they had a pirated version of windows 10 with a nasty "Windows 10 crack" installed on it that was backdooring the system. Wiped the drive and put my own copy of Windows on, and have done with every new laptop since.
Hell, you can't trust nobody these days
电脑城？他们在国内已经臭名远扬了
I would not even trust the BIOS on that machine. You can reinstall the operating system but the BIOS may have some kind of a back door built into it.
exactly, even if they gave me one free i wouldnt take it because of that reason...
I was thinking the same thing
@@unnamedchannel1237It's China they are at war with Western society....You guys are dumb ... We're in another cold war avoid their junky garbage and buy from western countries
Damn. No wonder one of these mini pcs I saw they specifically mentioned if you reinstalled their bios, the after market support would be void. Aftermarket support as in malware I suspect.
If you dont trust them why do you trust the other brands? ASUS could do the same thing on the bios. To say you don't trust them is silly. Imagine all the other brands that have hidden stuff but you feel safe. Lol. 😅
Well done for being honest a lot of people would have just taken the free PC and done a good review for the money and to get more stuff from the company
I wonder if there are any other mini-PCs with viruses.
I was a little concerned a few years ago when I bought a bmax b2 so did some research and I did several scans with Malwarebytes and eset online. didn't find anything and its been a great little PC for years
"I wonder if there are any other mini-PCs with viruses." Don't wonder and check for yourself.
@@MrMaxeemum I have with the bmax one I bought it was clean
I reformat ALL my PC's that I buy back in the days but mostly to remove all the bloatware.. 👍
Windows has quite a bit of bloat
As a A+ and C&G PC Engineer also being a veteran, I appreciate your attempt to educate the masses on how their Security, by the way Security is not a dirty word and does not apply to the uniform people in supermarkets, is important from life to online. This is one particular grievous attempt to scam people out of money and sometimes their Entire identity, to that end people should be especially aware of those trying to scam your elders, as my 76 year old Mother has had many attempts at her details online, though I have taken the necessary education and software protections.
I would not trust this company
Ah, that's why I never saw a problem. The FIRST thing I do with a mini PC is to load Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Now, one mini PC would not accept the install. So I bleach-bit-ed the internal drive, then it worked fine. That told me that the EFI had been compromised. (Thank you, ex Secretary of State, for the product placement.)
I've been watching this channel for years and I have to say you are 100% legit, glad you caught that, but no worries you wouldn't, thanks for letting me know, I am in the market to get a mini computer for my daughter, I will avoid this computer, and I give this channel a 5 star review I do recommend my friends to watch and subscribe, thanks Brian for the honest review.
Thanks for the support
Yes Paul and me too have followed Brian from the days of Windows 7 and have great regard and respect for Brian's computer knowledge and advice. For this peace of crap to be manufactured either knowingly or not (I suspect the former) is in my mind a criminal act seeing that it is set up to collect personal and private information. Worse still is that one has to pay a fair bit of money for it too!!
@@johngoard8272 💯
Hopefully when this problem becomes more widely known there will be some very cheap devices around. I have had one around a year now but wiped windows and installed Dragon Focal o/s on it. A very good device and well worth the money, if the prices drop I'll be buying more
I'll pick some up too, they are decent little machines if you get rid of the malware.
Thank you for helping us non-techies avoid these problems, Brian
Happy to help!
NiPoGi is another rebrand of these AceMagic/AceMagician/Kamrui mini PCs. I bought one of someone and did a secure wipe on the SSD so can't confirm if it shipped with malware - it's not too bad of a machine, cooling could be better but it performs as it should and is very easy to take apart. Another thing to consider is that the included PSU may be low quality and a potential fire hazard - may be better replacing it with a compatible FSP/Delta ETC PSU with the same TIP and voltage and amperage.
They can say all they want that they "cleaned up their act" The damage has been done. I would not trust them. Many others have had the same experiences. The reason they keep sending out units for review is that they deliberately want to get information. The cost of the units to them compared to what they steal is negligent. I'm glad you informed your audience about this because many people were not aware of this problem.
That is the way I look at it, what was they doing it in the first place. Its a crime.
Many thanks for bringing this to the communities attention Brian.
My pleasure!
Reminds me of the time Microsoft Store was marketing their "Signature" laptops which in reality was actually just a clean install of Windows 8/10 devoid of bundleware which is a lot better than the stock Dells and HP . Still recommend to do a fresh install on any PC to be safe as there are history of OEM shipping malware intentionally/unintentionally.
Good on you Brian for bringing this to your loyal viewers attention, I think you said it was in the recovery partition, so persistent.... Bloody hell,! Myself I read all reviews good and bad of the same product... Sometimes you get what you pay for, but sending you a review pc to review, were they targeting you... As a trusted pc influencer and perhaps trying to do a Linus as you stated, 🤔 You called it. Take care
Thanks for that
Nice going Brian. I'm sure you saved many asses with this post. Great work! 👍👍👍
You're welcome
Thank you so much for sharing this vital information with us.
I find it interesting (to say the least) that there are currently 1,064 likes and 39 dislikes (96.46%) on here.
Why would anyone dislike the honesty of this video? Well, I think we all know the answer to that. Stay safe and well.
Thanks Brian for the information. It seems to be getting to the point these days where you cannot trust anyone or any so called honest companies. Very sad my friend. Take care everyone. Cheers
Very welcome
I want to say that the malware was done by design to mess with unsuspecting users, and it potentially stealing people's identities. As much as I wouldn't mind investing on a mini PC, research is definitely key. Keep doing these honest reviews, Brian. Cheers.
Cheers Bard
I got a refurbished Dell Latitude laptop few weeks back, I wanted to put windows 11 and 10 dual boot so I ended up formatting it anyway. Had some fun with MBR and GPT and it didn't want to load 11 from ventoy so that was fun, got 11 on it in the end lol.
Moral of the story, I don't usually trust default windows installs on new or second hand PCs anyway. Me being me I may even open that thing up and replace the drive on that mini PC you got there lol.
I researched it a bit more and found out (from microsoft themselves) that defender is supposed to be able to find and fix known rootkits (except for the newest one which is rare because it sells on the black market for 5k) if you run it using "offline" which tells it to reboot and scan before windows is able to boot up. I scanned and it found nothing there. So that is promising. New T8Plus incoming tomorrow so I get to do this all over again.
Got the T8 2/27/24 and it is infected to high heaven.
Great due diligence Brian, thanks and keep exposing those nasties... You're The Man!
Cheers Andy
I bought a different model from the same OEM before I was aware of all this dodgy software skullduggery. The only thing saving me was that I swapped the installed SSD out with a better NVME one and didn't even boot their install of Windows. (I was making an OPNsense firewall.) My original SSD at least has the Chrome install with an altered homepage.
Had I known about this, I'd have bought something from a more reputable OEM that doesn't ship malware and doctored pre-installed Chrome setups.
Ok Brian yes mate I actually had an email from I can't remember pointing to avoiding this product. However I am always interested in what you post regarding our computer use. Now what I find very scary is that something like this product should even have viruses embedded in them in the first place as you pointed out and I consider that to be verging on a criminal act as the viruses are made to extract personal information for gain. What you said about reinstalling Windows for me at least would not be good enough for me to even vaguely trust this device and I also reckon that some government regulatory body should be made aware of this and for them to take the appropriate action against the manufacturers that seem to me to have done this deliberately - why else would this malware be on the machine??
Place I worked for has already turned in samples to the FBI and gotten at least some acknowledgement.
Awesome thanks for the warning I don't understand how companies like this get away with this crap? They should be seud a lot of money. And the company should be closed down and people doing this should go to prison these are fraudulent criminal acts in my opinion
Its a pretty serious crime they committed
Has anyone tested these for hardware rootkits? A compromised UEFI or it's firmware, even a TPM chip can be customized/compromised with a backdoor. Reinstalling your OS will not remove these types of rootkits.
Thanks for this Brian.
My pleasure!
Thanks for pointing out this heinous state of affairs. The company can't just say it is all fixed now. If they had a due diligence regime of quality control and inspection in place it would not have shipped in the first instance. How could you trust their fix will be any better given they failed first time around.
If they think they can put a band aid in something like this and it will go away, then they are mistaken.
I've had no issues with my mini PC, it runs smoothly.😌
hi mate, just seen your video about this mini pc, so i thought i would check mine althrought not the same product it came from china
i am happy to say no issues .
trigkey g4 mini pc , what happen to product testing before leaving the factory.
very sad to see, no research being done here.
Wow. Not good. Brian, it's good that you give a fellow TH-camr a plug👍
When they deserve it I do
it could have been one of their employees who was setting up the PCs. I have their "Intel i7-10810U, Mini Gaming PC" model for about 15mo now and I did not have a problem with malware. I was considering the "standing" mini PCs like the one in the video, luckily I chose a different model.
WOW not what I was expecting.
What I think has happened here is either they used a iso they found online or a disgruntled employee built them a iso for there systems and they didn't do any checks before putting it on all the systems they sold.
No matter how you look at it that is bad. Shame as that is a very nice looking case on the mini pc
I think they were using a compony to supply the windows images, but its not good no matter what way you dress it up. Its BAD
@@Britec09 I agree
Wow thanks for this, I thought they are good company was planning to buy one for my kid. But no more, thanks saving me from a whole a lot of problem
Glad I could help
If you do a fresh Windows install, do you have to find and install the drives (screen, WiFi, etc) yourself or will the Windows install find and install them?
Windows will use generic drivers during install if it does not have them preloaded in the installer. Once you connect to the internet and do a windows update windows will automatically install the correct driver in most cases.
My mini PC works perfectly fine no problems at all 🤓
Thank you friend, at least we are informed... :)
They've addressed this issue, so future buyers shouldn't worry🤓
thank you for the info ,great work😁
More and more TH-camrs are talking about this. I think Ace Magic might have a hard time recovering from this fiasco.
Interesting. I'm currently looking at Mini PC's and think it will be best to just reformat any one that I purchase.
Worth reiterating that the PC only becomes safe to use after you've used a clean Windows USB stick, created on a clean PC, to completely delete the partitions and reinstall from there, because the malware is coded into the Recovery partition on the drive.
But you shouldn't have to do that, it shows you that they can't be trusted.
@@Britec09 Completely agree, also agree that the manufacturer is responsible for the malware, either by action or inaction. They shipped these PCs worldwide through Amazon/AliExpress etc and now innocent people need to know how to make their computers safe again.
Yep, and it might be the kind that moves to memory so a shutdown after nuking the partitions might be a very good idea and even then, I worry about a rootkit
You're absolutely correct not to review that product mate!
I wonder if they also had Logo Fail on them. That would be enough that just a wipe and reinstall would not make you safe. I wonder how you could check for Logo Fail anyhow. It infects the BIOS and could be really nasty on its own. I am also glad never to have bought these mini PCs seeing how bad the malware can be. Can you imagine all of the hours you would have to spend on the phone undoing or trying to undo the damage that was done (missing funds from accounts and things like that)? It is not like malware used to be. Back in the 2000s it was more of an annoyance than anything but in those days it did not steal credentials.
Thank you for looking after our interests.
Our pleasure!
I have recently bought a mini pc from acemagic, to be specific, an Intel I7 11-700B- 32gb RAM... Now... neither windows antivirus nor Microsoft antivirus had found anything + I updated everything and checked everything and still can't find anything, although, I am suspecting quite a weird activities such as log-ins from other devices that I don't really know.. what should I do to be 100% sure everything is ok or to recognize any eventual virus?..
I bought one of their mini pc's a couple of months ago - fully aware that most of these machines with windows pre installed could and do have malware etc inbuilt. so before I even use them they get wiped and a linux distro installed, mint being my go to. Alas many of the present crop of machines are basically the same units with different manufacturers names on them with a few tweeks here and there to make them look different, BUt if they come with a free windows pro - which is usually way more money than the pc itself you know it;s going to have something hooky. My advice if you buy any Chinese supplied PC is to either install linux or install a genuine Windows 11 iso from microsoft.
Besides, using linux frees up a fair lump of drive space.
After watching your video I checked my Kamrui and it had the same malware you described. Now reinstalling Windows would not be too much of a problem. But what about the bios 🤔
Try flashing the bios if you can fine a bios for it
I would have sent the mini pc back to the manufacturer after format and wiping the disk through the Hiren Boot Rescue Disk with one of the disk partition software and then once I done that remove the mini pc from the laptop and boot into windows and format the usb stick with Hiren Boot to make sure it is malware/virus free and make a new Hiren Boot Disk Usb and also scan Windows with Windows Defender and Malwarebytes Free version to make sure Windows hasn't been effected.
i am using tron to scan with and need to say it is an amazing program only takes long time to scan.
Is it safe to say these can be used or be safe if you do clean windows install? Or there's possibly firmware malware too?
That's a slight concern of mine....
Hello I am interested in buying this due to the good performance/space ratio. Also due to the price. If I do a clean installation of Windows will I get rid of all this malware? Thanks
I had the malware on mine that was detected with Windows Defender. It apears to be only activated with Chrome (which I don't like using anyway). So I just deleted it.
I think you're the second youtuber to mention this. Glad I never cared for this system.
We need more honest reviewers
I purchased AceMagic's Ryzen 5 AMR5 and for me I have determined there are no viruses, rootkit or any backdoor trojan. YMMV!
I was never keen on the idea of someone installing windows on my behalf anyway.
I had someone(a technician) do it without my knowledge on my month old pc (turned out to be a cloned version).
I wiped the system(via usb), and installed with a new license.
Although it is understandable that the average user would just take s prebuilt as it is...
It has not been resolved. Bought one last week. Still has everything you mentioned in the video.
I wouldnt go near them with a barge pole...why are Amazon still selling them ?
Cause Amazon dont give a crap about their customers. Also they treat their workforce as slaves. Bezos is a true piee of shit! After hearing about an event where multiple Amazon workers died when one of their warehouses collapsed over them because of a tornado after they were refused to seek shelter and demanded to continue on working I decided I will never want anything to do with Amazon.
I guess we need to look at these mini PCs as if no OS was provided with it. The first thing you should do is go get latest iso of Windows or your other OS, and flash it immediately. The windows license from your mini pc will transfer over to the new install also. If it doesn’t, use the Microsoft activation script by massgrave. I use a beelink ser5, I removed windows from its nvme and put my preferred Linux distro there. I did however, mount an SSD in the built in bay for it and install windows to that drive. I didn’t need a new license key even though windows was never on that sata drive before. These mini pcs are pretty great though! I use mine to play gta5 and the new Tony hawk 1 &2 game with bottles on Linux. Have had no issues
I just bought one of these basically just set it up but haven't really used it. there is no win 11 licence on the case or in the documents. if I install win 11 will i need to buy a licence?
@@soulwarfare I logged into microsoft on mine before I knew about this so it registered in my microsoft account. When I did a clean USB format, delete of partitions and reinstall it activated right up. I don't know if it would if you didn't do that though, just try to isolate it from any other systems on the wifi and keep it on only long enough to do the initial stuff and sign in so it is registered on your account then shut it down and do the usb thing.
@@WindsofChange yes I received an email saying welcome to windows 11 so I should be ok. I ran a scan on it and it didn’t flag up any spyware. But I might just do a reinstall just to be sure.
@rfare Go look in the following location C:/Windows and look to see if there is a folder in there named OsVer....that is where this specific malware files are found. Mine came up clean on scans but the files were there. I'm thinking that they don't show up as dangerous to the system till you start installing stuff (which is good for this because that would mean they aren't doing anything while you're just quickly initializing your account and looking around). And that doesn't mean there isn't more going on....finding that was enough reason to wipe everything.
It's a pity that this company has put a black mark on Chinese products, as China is currently dealing with the US sanction in the chip market, put on them by the US. However, China seems to be doing quite well in their retaliation by developing a chip which relies on light rather than electricity. Meanwhile, the US market is badly suffering from that move. C'est la vie!
Thanks for the warning I be safer with beeline mini pcs I noticed the reveiws on this pc looked a bit odd none of the pics was of the pc but some other one.
PSA: You should ALWAYS wipe your drives and do a fresh install from ANY Manufacturer.
Some will say only bother if its from China. I don't care if it's from Dell. That shit is getting wiped the fuck out.
When I got my laptop back in 2016, it came with some crappy web filtering software called NetIntelligence. Uninstalling it required a password I didn't have access to, so I tried to force remove it and completely fried the machine's internet connection. So I'm 100% with you in completely nuking the system drive (including partitions) and starting with a fresh OS install.
You can find same infected files (windows\osver\*) in other mini pcs too. This thing HAS SPREAD.
I just reinstall windows via usb and delete all partitions beforehand. Easy procedure but not for all maybe.
you need to wipe the drive completely even recovery partition
Yep I wiped ALLLLLL the partitions when doing a usb install...recovery, UEFI, alllllllll of them and let the windows install do all of them fresh.
Always reinstall windows when buying a computer
so if you buy it its best to wipe it completely maybe even change the drive
Assume anything built in the PRC has a virus and /or root kit and you'll be ok. As you say,format or replace the HD and install Windows ,Linux or the OS of your choice.
genius can you review ACEMAGIC again for other newer models from his family? Like the ACEMAGIC M2A.I've heard they've solved that problem.🤔🤔
It's honestly a shame because I liked the form factor of some of the things they put out.
Apparently their new cube-like TANK 03 has some issues when using Linux on it because the nVidia card in it needs a very particular custom driver, which also just struck me as weird. Acemagic is one of the ones I'm not trusting at all anymore, unfortunately.
The problem is, once you do something this bad, customers will never trust them again.
i would recommend also flashing the bios if possible because likely they are also running a infected bios
That's if you can find a BIOS
I don't trust anybody including big name brands like HP. Had an issue once with HP. I say build your own, this way you will know exactly what you are getting.
Just my opinion.
i nearly got one of these last year, at the time all of the reviews were vine voice reviews and that put me off, i don't trust vine reviews. built my own instead.
A lot of Amazon reviews are fake
I'm a vine voice reviewer, but this virus didn't come up on any of my scans, until I went looking for it in the files. It didn't come up for this video creator until he started loading the computer up with stuff. Sometimes it is hard to catch it right away.
I got a arm 5 and within 6 months it died faulty motherboard and when I tried to RMA it they wouldn't honor the factory warranty and my CC got flagged for fraud as well I'm sure this is why I wouldn't buy there products again
could be any in-rom malware on the device? or any rootkit on the bios or uefi boot? that could bypass any protection?
Can they be prosecuted for this? Taking advantage of unsuspecting people, factory installing this and then selling it to people. Makes u wonder how long, how much info have they stolen and possible resold. Thank u for bring this to public attention.
Yeah, its a crime
Scan it again after reinstalling the OS, and change the date to a few months, and few years in the future. You don't know if there is malware in the bios that reinfects windows after a certain date.
Be hard to find a BIOS for it
Hey Brian Right now ETA prime made a about acemagic pc without any critisms I post the comment about your video and how dangerous those pc are since there malware inside of these pc.
He may be unaware, I did one today in more detail showing the virus
Thank you very much!!!!!!
I'm willing to buy one if the price go so low because of this scandal.
I can always just re-install windows to clean everything up and install ESET Smart security premium
The problem is even worse, the firmware is a deep black box in any device. I bought a Gigabyte b550ds3h mainboard, installed everything fresh and instantly lost one of my emails. Long later i learned, they had a windows exe in their uefi which was unsecure. There is a uefi update, but still you have to deactivate their exe in the uefi manually. Its not only Gigabyte though. Dont trust anyone....
Blimey, nearly did but got a Beelink ser6.
Beelink is fine
Yes mate and it makes one wonder how may other brands of mini PC's - which I do not personally like - are using the same methods of manufacturing and dishonest selling of something that they surely must have been aware of eh??
I just got an email from the email address I used to ask them about the malware offering me one of their other mini pc's for FREE once I left it a 5 star review with pictures and video. So that is attempted review manipulation. LOLOLOLOL You can't make this stuff up hahahahaha. Of course I'm not going to go for it, I'm not that slimy. I find it endlessly entertaining though.
What if the virus hidden inside the motherboard after clean hard drive installed and still come back again if virus hidden in the motherboard it impossible remove it unless rid of virus hidden then will be fine . I had one time the tablet I ordered and it growing more problems after used the android that time it ran so slow and getting worse and worse I gave up bec it freeze and waiting response for 2 to 5 min to run again it hell I m tired of freezing up and I destroyed and throw away it. I bought it from Amazon I don’t trust brand again .
Win32/Wacatac might be a false positive. And I say "might". Not sure about the other ones, but it looks sketchy. It's likely that the company got infected and they used an image infected with the malware.
Wouldn't be a Chinese company would it? Clearly the answer is to stop manufacturing in, and stop buying products from there. People need to learn.
Nice video
Microsoft windows 11 is great because they only distribute legal malware! :-) To be fair, it would be hard to prevent a disgruntled employee of ACE Magic from contaminating some units on the production line, or during quality control/testing or their volume license Win10/11 server or something.
I am super wary of an OS that does not let me install it, configure and test it before exposing it to the inter-webs. M$ itself should be considered a PUP really.
I always format and reinstall windows on these mini PCs. I did this before I heard about the virus issue.
what about Beelink? are they good?
Not had any issues with Beelink
Why they even want to start such a relation with the buyers....
Bad move and the internet never forget this type of things.
Is the AMR5 model included in all the models that come/came with the viruses?
Think so
The amr5 is a great little PC. Just format the drive and make a new install of whatever os you prefer.
You can even save some money by getting one with the smallest ssd, then take it out and put in bigger one you got from another seller. Problem solved.
I understand the trust issue stated in the video but if you do the above steps you will be fine.
My T8 Plus/Pro from this past december wasn't infected. One I got in Jan WAS infected. Just a matter of about 3 weeks between them.
I followed your video on using mini tool partition tool to resize one partition smaller and the other one bigger.It seemed to work the windows update went through.Now the password fails and it won`t boot into windows.I have not tried to reinstall windows yet,will get into bios and reset ram to factory settings,any ideas?Trying the get update to Windows 11.
Same thing happened when I installed the latest update. I downloaded a copy of win11 from microsoft and was able to get into it that way doing a system restore.I wonder if I do a fresh install will I still be registered as having a win 11 licence.
Can you factory reset and re-download win 10 or 11 they have security and using ani-virus and then double check if still their all the spy ware di€ks if you know what I mean
But thats nothing new. HP is guilty of the same, around 2014/2015 preinstalled malware, 2017 keylogging audio and touchpad drivers... so why going so hard into judgement with a chinese no brand when premium "respectable" brands are guilty more of the same?!
You always get more than you expected when you buy a Chineese made product. Would you buy a used PC which has the previous owner's files on it which is the same situation as this video covers?
Install the scanners for the bad stuff off a thumb drive before connecting the PC to the internet at all or pull the drive for storage (wipe) and install a virgin install of the OS you want on the drive size and quality you prefer?
Freeware scanners for viruses and rootkits, etc. etc. are readily available on sites that have been around more than a decade, trust those only?
And why you cannot just reinstall Windows after you buy it, and then you will be sure that there are nothing wrong with it?
See comment about the BIOS above.