CWWK/Topton/... Nxxx quad NIC router

[moonman]

Hi,

I finally got my device, however it comes with a completely junk power supply though. It weights nothing and no brand name on the back. Do you think this is a good replacement? Canada Genuine Liteon PA-1360-5M01 EPS-3 12V 3A 36W Switching Adapter

If it is not, what do you think I should get as a replacement power supply?

 

[Devedse]

If you don't use screws & standoffs, then nothing prevents it from flopping around, especially since the unit has to be turned upside down as its installed in the rear. How are you planning to solve that?
I'll take off one of the side plates to get a profile picture for you later tonight. if it is short, I would guess its only by a millimeter or two since it appears to be quite level.

Hmm I think you're right. However can't we make it longer then also on the other end so that it fits snug in the case such between both the bottom and top?

 

[Becks0815]

Hi,

I finally got my device, however it comes with a completely junk power supply though. It weights nothing and no brand name on the back. Do you think this is a good replacement? Canada Genuine Liteon PA-1360-5M01 EPS-3 12V 3A 36W Switching Adapter

If it is not, what do you think I should get as a replacement power supply?

I hope you really took a look at the page, but I have some doubts.

Why should we choose this original ac adapter?

• This Genuine Liteon PA-1360-5M01 EPS-3 12V 3A 36W Switching Adapter with many safe and quality Certification mark
• This genuine Power adapter output clean, smooth, safe power for your machine.
• This ac adapter have short circuit protection.
• This genuine Genuine Liteon PA-1360-5M01 EPS-3 12V 3A 36W Switching Adapter have Overheat protection circuit which is very inportant for safe.
• This original ac adapter have very clean out put, it allows the cpu get maximum efficiency, the hard disk work Smooth and rapid, the Sound Card output Pure sound....
• This Genuine Liteon PA-1360-5M01 EPS-3 12V 3A 36W Switching Adapter have a very good heat dispersion, it will not became hot after working for a long time
• This genuine ac power switching adapter can longer your machine's life.

This is 100% pure Chinglish - English found on Aliexpress, with a lot of garbage but no useful information. I am sure this "genuine" thing is a fake and the "many safe and quality Certification" means it carries the CE sign, which on one side is a certification for Europe, but stands for "China Export" if ordered from Aliexpress. They even used the same approach with the "reduced price - 20 CAD$ instead of 32 CAD$", which every item on Aliexpress shows.

I'll leave it to you, but I would buy a Meanwell 60W power supply, or if in Europe a Leicke 12V adapter, same range, or if you want to use a GaN adapter, order a Ugreen (good brand, high quality) plus a "12V enforcer" USB-C adapter and use one of those to power the box.
Bonus: every power supply has a low efficiency when running below 10W power consumption (70% or below, instead of 88-90%), so fire up the soldering iron and use an adapter like shown here



to attach more than one machine to the same power supply. I have my NAS, the N100 box and a switch running at 12V attached to it. Total combined consumption is in the range of 12-15W, and at that point the Meanwell is in the range of 90% efficiency. That's 20% energy saved with a simple trick.

 

[Becks0815]

I'm not very familiar with PL's in the BIOS, but I believe tweaking these could lower max power draw, and maybe throttle the CPU a little. Does anybody have a good guide on how to do it for one of these types of machine.

info about PL1 and PL2:

On modern Intel processors, PL1 defines the lower limit of power consumption (watts), which applies when the CPU is under low load. PL2 is the higher limit, which applies when the CPU is under heavy load and is temporarily boosted (overclocked). To avoid overheating, the processor returns from PL2 to PL1 after a configured amount of time, even if it's still under load.

More on GitHub - horshack-dpreview/setPL: Set PL1 and PL2 power limits for modern Intel processors running on Linux

You can either set the limits in the BIOS, or by running the following commands under linux (e.g. proxmoax):

> powercap-info -p intel-rapl

enabled: 1
Zone 0
name: package-0
enabled: 1
max_energy_range_uj: 262143328850
energy_uj: 53023267885
Constraint 0
name: long_term
power_limit_uw: 6000000
time_window_us: 27983872
max_power_uw: 6000000
Constraint 1
name: short_term
power_limit_uw: 26000000
time_window_us: 2440
max_power_uw: 0
Constraint 2
name: peak_power
power_limit_uw: 78000000
time_window_us: 0
max_power_uw: 0

-> here the PL limits are 6W and 26W


to set the limits (here 25W peak and 6W normal), use

> powercap-set -z 0 -p intel-rapl -c 1 -l 25000000
> powercap-set -z 0 -p intel-rapl -c 0 -l 6000000

Then you can use the typical programs (stress-ng etc.) and sensors to monitor power consumption, CPU speed and heat, and choose whatever suits you. I am using 20W/6W at the moment and haven't run into any situation this wasn't fast enough or caused the CPU to overheat.

 

[xternal]

No matter what I try I keep running into this:
View attachment 31207

What driver have you installed? Sometimes the 43 error is due to the drivers inside the VM.
Have you tried the latest one from here: Intel® Processor N100 (6M Cache, up to 3.40 GHz) Downloads, Drivers and Software | Intel
I read somewhere about MS update installing the wrong one or an older one and needing to force it to use one manually installed. Can’t remember where though

 

[ohm]

What command do you run to get this information?

lspci -vv

 

[Devedse]

What driver have you installed? Sometimes the 43 error is due to the drivers inside the VM.
Have you tried the latest one from here: Intel® Processor N100 (6M Cache, up to 3.40 GHz) Downloads, Drivers and Software | Intel
I read somewhere about MS update installing the wrong one or an older one and needing to force it to use one manually installed. Can’t remember where though

I tried this but still the same error.

 

[xternal]

Hey all.
I have an n100 running proxmox with an opnsense vm
I have passthrough the nics using the guide on STH.
I have also configured it to use host CPU and q35.
I am seeing 100% CPU usage when i download a large file. I am on a gigabit connection and achieve those speeds but then the CPU maxes out and it drops.

I have tried enabling and disabling hardware offloading in opnsense.
Is there something else I am missing?

 

[Becks0815]

Is there something else I am missing?

No idea. Here are the setting in proxmox I use:



disk: virtual,
network: 2 NIC pass through, and then another virtual NIC added to build a second subnet with a virtual bridge, so I can add vms on Proxmox and push data through the firewall (typically wireguard and jdownloader). display,.... - all default. 4 cores assigned, 8GB RAM (of 16 GB total), and several flags set to disble spectre migation and other things.

Then I use 6W/20W for PLx settings in the Bios, the rest is done withoin opnsense. In opnsense I am not running any special software (zenarmor,...) which eats the CPU, and hardware offload is enabled on the two NICs.

 

[moonman]

I hope you really took a look at the page, but I have some doubts.
.
.
.

Thank you for the detailed response. You are probably right. I am in Canada hence why I picked *.ca website. I'll try the brands you suggested.

 

[gregg098]

Has anyone done any testing to see virtual network vs passthrough performance on the N100 boxes? I've always used virtual bridges in my OPNsense VM which makes migration super easy to a backup device with different interfaces. Haven't really ventured out of this since I get full internet and routing speeds. I have setup a test VM with passthrough and did some basic tests. I didnt see any major improvements, but was really just making sure it worked as a potential option.

Also wondering how it would impact IDS/IPS/Zenarmor usage (virtual vs passthrough). I did use Zenarmor for awhile on an older mini PC (N5105), but it seemed like it caused more issues than it was worth. But I believe its also single core on BSD. Heard there is an upcoming release to fix that.

 

[B0rg]

Hey all.
I have an n100 running proxmox with an opnsense vm
I have passthrough the nics using the guide on STH.
I have also configured it to use host CPU and q35.
I am seeing 100% CPU usage when i download a large file. I am on a gigabit connection and achieve those speeds but then the CPU maxes out and it drops.

I have tried enabling and disabling hardware offloading in opnsense.
Is there something else I am missing?

I got the same settins as you. Used UFS.


On the PCI device i checked All function, Rom=bar and pci-express.
I have the QEMU Guest Agent checked under options and I installed the QEMU Guest Agent plugin in OPNsense.

Are you using PPPoE with your ISP?

 

[Zeric]

info about PL1 and PL2:


More on GitHub - horshack-dpreview/setPL: Set PL1 and PL2 power limits for modern Intel processors running on Linux

You can either set the limits in the BIOS, or by running the following commands under linux (e.g. proxmoax):

> powercap-info -p intel-rapl

I didn't see anywhere to set P1/P2 in BIOS on a CWWK N100 (6 NIC) system, firmware is dated 7/30 so it's pretty current. Where would one look to set P1/P2?

As it is, it's too hot without forced air cooling. The external case was reaching nearly 60C when running memtest86, and there were occasional memory errors (Crucial 16GB) after it heated up. When the test was re-run with a fan sitting on top, the case was just slightly warm to the touch, and presto no more memory errors.

 

[Becks0815]

I didn't see anywhere to set P1/P2 in BIOS on a CWWK N100 (6 NIC) system, firmware is dated 7/30 so it's pretty current. Where would one look to set P1/P2?

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?attachments/img_20230414_135029_096-jpg.28356/

 

[xternal]

Thanks so much everyone. Ive managed to get it to max out my 1Gbit connection. However I am still seeing almost full CPU usage. Are there any specific tweaks in opnsense that people have seen reduce cpu usage?

Borg, my connection is just straight DHCP not PPPoE. Doesnt seem to make a difference if I have wireguard enabled or not. Just maxes the CPU but is achieving full speed

 

[MajorPayneDOF]

Thanks so much everyone. Ive managed to get it to max out my 1Gbit connection. However I am still seeing almost full CPU usage. Are there any specific tweaks in opnsense that people have seen reduce cpu usage?

Borg, my connection is just straight DHCP not PPPoE. Doesnt seem to make a difference if I have wireguard enabled or not. Just maxes the CPU but is achieving full speed

Are you running bare metal or in a VM, How much ram do you have? With my 2 threads and 8gb of ram when i run nothing more then base opnsense I'm only hitting 43% on cpu with my 2.3gb connection

 

[B0rg]

@xternal You have enabled the cpu option that cripples your CPU speed! Turn those off and only leave AES enabled. Or change the cpu to HOST and leave the option cpu flags default. In Proxmox and OPNsense disable these cpu mitigations also.



Edit: sorry i didn't see the "-" sign in you screenshot for the cpu flags. You already disabled those on the vm.

 

[korax]

Just got the n305 from Taobao (within China) from CWWK store and looks to have a bit of a redesign
Includes two SATA ports in motherboard, and what looks like 2x USB 3 ports (haven't checked in os yet), and a USB C port.
Didn't have this on the Taobao listing so was a great surprise

 

[Zeric]

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?attachments/img_20230414_135029_096-jpg.28356/

Thanks, unfortunately I don't having anything related to "Turbo Settings" in the BIOS Advanced tab, unless there is some other setting that enables that menu page.

 

[moonman]

Has anyone done any testing to see virtual network vs passthrough performance on the N100 boxes? I've always used virtual bridges in my OPNsense VM which makes migration super easy to a backup device with different interfaces. Haven't really ventured out of this since I get full internet and routing speeds. I have setup a test VM with passthrough and did some basic tests. I didnt see any major improvements, but was really just making sure it worked as a potential option.

Also wondering how it would impact IDS/IPS/Zenarmor usage (virtual vs passthrough). I did use Zenarmor for awhile on an older mini PC (N5105), but it seemed like it caused more issues than it was worth. But I believe its also single core on BSD. Heard there is an upcoming release to fix that.

I have been running with virtio, albeit on a completely different box with i7-11900. The main benefit of passthrough is that i226 can be used with hardware offloads enabled (but with intrusion prevention it still needs to be disabled, but I don't use that). Main benefit of virtio, besides what you mentioned, is if opnsense (or rather freebsd) doesn't support some weird network hardware, linux probably does so you can use virtio. With gigabit internet and shaping enabled I don't see more that 25% usage on opnsense bare metal intel N100