Best Minipc Forum

It's not really a GK3, but rather a GK1 case with a J4125 based AK3 system board, so it's close. I had a J4105 based GK1 and a J4125 based AK3. I liked the GK1 style case with the detachable add on storage carriage on the bottom, but the AK3 had the better system board, with the better CPU and double the RAM and storage, so I swapped boards, as the system board layout is identical.

The most recent Windows 11 updates rendered my Brother HL-2040 laser printer obsolete. Prior to the updates it worked just fine, but now every Windows 11 PC I have that is up to date no longer has a driver for it. It's as if the updates purged the old drivers needed to run it, so now it never 'installs' when I connect it. And my M1 Mac Mini has never had a driver for it.

So, I went back to Windows 10 Pro on this PC, and it works perfectly with the printer. I run it from the add on SSD in the bottom carriage, as the onboard storage is the older eMMC type, which is a bit slow in comparison.

I know I need to get a new laser printer, as it's nearly 15 years old, and I'll probably get one next month, but for the time being this is working just fine. An older, seldom used mini PC to the rescue!

So wait, are you running it as a network print server? Or do you have to remote connect to it, to print directly?

I admit, I'm happy I bought a Brother HL-L2395DW network laser printer five years ago. I've always preferred laser printers, and this has both wired and wireless capabilities, so anyone in my house can print from it. I'm sure they have updated models now, but that's the way to go!

I'm just running it directly connected to the PC using Windows. It can't connect wirelessly, so I have to connect it via USB.

The next one will be different, as that one will most definitely be wireless, and it will have drivers for both my Mac and the W11 PCs. I'm looking at the Brother HLL2305W. I don't print things all that often, so an inexpensive one like that will be fine.