12gen N-series Nas motherboard (topton, cwwk, ... )

[chripo]

@m11k Sorry, I completely missed your post.

@chripo, I would be interested to compare BIOS settings with you, and am curious which Linux distro you are using. I just got this board (CWWK-ADLK-NAS-V10) w/ the N305 CPU, and I've been struggling to get it booting for several days. [...] All of the recent installers that I tried (Debian 12, Ubuntu 23.10, Proxmox 8.1, Fedora 39) cause the system to hard-reboot about a second after grub starts booting the kernel.

My board runs Linux fine without changing any BIOS settings (I loaded BIOS default settings before I started to play around with Windows and some Linux NAS distros). Currently, I'm running Unraid 6.12.6 which uses kernel 6.1.64. But for testing I also had Ubuntu 23.10.1 Desktop running fine before, which comes with kernel 6.5.

Overall, this seems like a BIOS bug to me, or maybe I've got a bad board. The BIOS defaults should be "safe".

You are right, BIOS defaults should be safe. Have you compared your BIOS version an date to mine (v5.27, CW-ADLN-NAS-10, 11/15/2023 14:20:54)? And do we really talk about the same board (I have CW-ADLN-NAS-10, you mentioned CWWK-ADLK-NAS-V10)?

On the off chance it is related to the RAM (which is unlikely, as I ran a full Memtest86+ without issues), I have an alternate stick coming in the mail tomorrow. [...]

Did you have a chance to test the other RAM stick already?

 

[m11k]

@m11k Sorry, I completely missed your post.



My board runs Linux fine without changing any BIOS settings (I loaded BIOS default settings before I started to play around with Windows and some Linux NAS distros). Currently, I'm running Unraid 6.12.6 which uses kernel 6.1.64. But for testing I also had Ubuntu 23.10.1 Desktop running fine before, which comes with kernel 6.5.



You are right, BIOS defaults should be safe. Have you compared your BIOS version an date to mine (v5.27, CW-ADLN-NAS-10, 11/15/2023 14:20:54)? And do we really talk about the same board (I have CW-ADLN-NAS-10, you mentioned CWWK-ADLK-NAS-V10)?



Did you have a chance to test the other RAM stick already?

@chripo, Thanks for the info. I haven't tried unraid, but considering that you were successfully able to run Ubuntu 23.10 with kernel 6.5, that makes me think it is a hardware issue on my end. Sorry for the typo and confusion, I do indeed have the CW-ADLN-NAS-10, with BIOS version 5.27 with the same date as you.

I did try the other stick of RAM today, and it did not make a difference.

The only other item I have not tried to replace is the power supply. I bought this one for this build: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WFX3FZ5. I might have an old ATX supply in an old PC that is compatible, but I'm not sure. I'll take a look tomorrow. It seems pretty unlikely, but worth checking if I'm able to.

 

[chripo]

@chripo, Thanks for the info. I haven't tried unraid, but considering that you were successfully able to run Ubuntu 23.10 with kernel 6.5, that makes me think it is a hardware issue on my end. Sorry for the typo and confusion, I do indeed have the CW-ADLN-NAS-10, with BIOS version 5.27 with the same date as you.

I did try the other stick of RAM today, and it did not make a difference.

I'm sorry that changing RAM did not solve your problem. And yes, from reading your posts it really seems like there is something wrong with your board.

The only other item I have not tried to replace is the power supply. I bought this one for this build: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WFX3FZ5. I might have an old ATX supply in an old PC that is compatible, but I'm not sure. I'll take a look tomorrow. It seems pretty unlikely, but worth checking if I'm able to.

I'll keep my fingers crossed, but I'm not particularly optimistic that the PSU is the cause of the problem.

 

[youddha]

I'm not too familiar with unraid, but it looks like the most recent version is using kernel 6.1. Could you share your unraid and/or kernel version?

I'm running unraid 6.12.6, not sure about the kernel version

 

[Steffe]

Since I am also building my first DIY-NAS/Homelab with this mobo, I am definitely not the one for an in-depth review and comparison to other boards. If anybody is interested, I could give you some details on the components I used and post pictures of my current CWWK-N305/36TB NAS-Homelab build inside a Jonsbo N3 case. Just let me know.


The header next to the 24-Pin-Connector is the front panel connector. The two other headers you saw on pictures are TPM und USB2. As far as I can tell, the board has no NIC or SATA activity and no sound headers.

It looks like this and does mention Led...

 

[Dr.FrankenHouse]

I'm waiting to receive my n305 board. A question for who already own that: is there a way in the bios to disable the JMB585 sata controller?
This controller doesn't support PCIe ASPM, so I'm plan to disable it and use a nvme to sata adapter for HDDs 2/6

 

[DaAliG]

Here you go...

DIY-NAS/Homelab Components:

• CWWK i3-N305 NAS Mainboard
• Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut Liquid Metal Paste
• Crucial CT48G56C46S5 SO-DIMM 48GB RAM
• Noctua NH-L9i CPU Cooler
• Corsair SF600 Platinum PSU
• Jonsbo N3 Case
• 2 x Noctua NF-A9 FLX 90mm Fans (quiet replacement for the Jonsbo storage bay fans)
• Noctua NF-A8 FLX 80mm Fan (System Fan)
• CableDeconn 6x SATA Cable
• Duttek 4-Pin Molex to 15-Pin SATA Adapter
• Bolwins H62S USB3 20-Pin to USB2 9-Pin Adapter
• 4 x Western Digital WD Red Plus WD120EFBX NAS SATA HDD 12TB
• Western Digital WD Red SA500 WDS200T1R0A NAS SATA SSD 2TB
• ORICO 2,5" to 3,5" SSD/HDD Mounting Frame 2x

View attachment 33459View attachment 33460View attachment 33461View attachment 33462View attachment 33463View attachment 33464View attachment 33465View attachment 33466View attachment 33467View attachment 33468View attachment 33469View attachment 33470View attachment 33471View attachment 33472



Completely agree, if you are looking for a build with the lowest power consumption using this board, it's probably best to go ahead with the N100. Since my build besides NAS functionality should also run several applications (PiHole, Home Assistant, RaspberryMatic, Jellyfin, etc.) and because I plan to use this build for several years, I think that the N305 is the better (future-proof) option for me.

Thank you! Again, I'm seriously looking at the same use cases, was just thinking this would be my first homelaby thing, so I don't know how "heavy" i'd be using it (factorio server?). I oculd spend 50% more for the N305 then N100 board, but feel like I'd sooner move to something supporting ECC then hit the processing limits of N100. Again, this would be my first servery thing so just no sure ha.
How's the Jonsbo N3 for HDD noise? HDD cover open/shut? It's looking like seagate Exos and toshiba ultrastars are the only cheap HDD's around here, not nice NAS ones.

 

[chripo]

My server resides in my living room, so I decided to go with the WD Red Plus drives. Compared to other (Pro) NAS drives (which are usually cheaper) these are fairly quiet. I also run the server with the HDD cover closed, I have not checked whether running it open has a huge impact on drive noise and temperature.

BTW, the DDR5-SO-DIMMs use on-die ECC, so possible RAM errors will be corrected. Unfortunately, information about the on-die ECC status is kept internally and cannot be accessed by the motherboard or the OS. But currently I think that running a good memory test once in a while is sufficient for me.

 

[youddha]

• 2 x Noctua NF-A9 FLX 90mm Fans (quiet replacement for the Jonsbo storage bay fans)
• Noctua NF-A8 FLX 80mm Fan (System Fan)

Hey !
So I see you have change the default ["smart"] settings for the case Fans in the BIOS. But my board does not seem to run the fans (i have noctua PWMs like u).
Are you able to collect the MOBO/CASE temperature via BIOS and, more importantly, do you see it changing ?
On my side I can access [a] temperature in unraid (via dynamix plugin), but it's not changing much (27.8°c) and the fans does not run despite my settings below 20° in bios .
In the BIOS I don't see any CASE/MOBO temperature, I see CPU temp but nothing else.
Am I missing something obvious ?

 

[chripo]

Hey !
So I see you have change the default ["smart"] settings for the case Fans in the BIOS. But my board does not seem to run the fans (i have noctua PWMs like u).
Are you able to collect the MOBO/CASE temperature via BIOS and, more importantly, do you see it changing ?

I set up the BIOS fan settings on Ubuntu and used Prime95 to generate some heat on the CPU. The CPU fan starts to spin when the CPU reaches about 30°C and gets faster on higher temperatures maximum temperature was about 45°C, IIRC. The system fan is intentionally running all the time at a very low speed with my settings. For watching CPU temperatures I used the tool GTKStressTesting, but there should be lots of other tools. Last but not least: I found no way to read other temperatures but CPU, although I must admit that I did not spend much time in that issue.

Edit: Maybe a tool like HWINFO on Windows OS will give you more information (have not tested this).

 

[Zer0_C00L]

DDR5-SO-DIMMs use on-die-ECC, so possible RAM errors will be corrected. Unfortunately, information about the on-die ECC status is kept internally and cannot be accessed by the motherboard or the OS.

I wouldn't be shocked to see some insane hacky method to gain access to the ECC information. But frankly, ECC isn't just necessarily these days. Not sure if RAMs just gotten more resilient or something else, but unless you're running mission critical enterprise workloads and petabites of RAM that needs 100% up time, ECC is at best a nice to have.

 

[chripo]

FYI, I got a beta BIOS from the CWWK support chat because I found the poweron/reboot beeps really annoying. The BIOS binary file name is

CW-ADLN-NAS-V10-TEST3-PTT.bin (SHA-256: 4F1385CE6FC8731025BE47FFE1289D37E16F4040948AD2B08534440200FAFDDE)

and has a build date and time of 12/18/2023 17:01:07. The "Core Version" is still 5.27



The BIOS updating process was a bit adventurous (seems like you have to be very patient on the first boot after flashing), but finally the board is running fine with the new BIOS and does not make any beeps (if the setting is disabled).

I just applied my previous settings, but in comparison to the original BIOS it seems like there are even more options available to play with. I couldn't dive deeper into BIOS settings (because of work, life etc.), but if I find something interesting, I'll let you know.

I really hope that there will be "official" releases of updated BIOS versions. These would most likely appear on the CWWK service & Support site (currently nothing there). If you know of any other trustworthy sources for BIOS updates, I would be very happy if you let us know.

 

[eros23]

FYI, I got a beta BIOS from the CWWK support chat because I found the poweron/reboot beeps really annoying. The BIOS binary file name is

CW-ADLN-NAS-V10-TEST3-PTT.bin (SHA-256: 4F1385CE6FC8731025BE47FFE1289D37E16F4040948AD2B08534440200FAFDDE)

and has a build date and time of 12/18/2023 17:01:07. The "Core Version" is still 5.27

View attachment 33596View attachment 33597

The BIOS updating process was a bit adventurous (seems like you have to be very patient on the first boot after flashing), but finally the board is running fine with the new BIOS and does not make any beeps (if the setting is disabled).

I just applied my previous settings, but in comparison to the original BIOS it seems like there are even more options available to play with. I couldn't dive deeper into BIOS settings (because of work, life etc.), but if I find something interesting, I'll let you know.

I really hope that there will be "official" releases of updated BIOS versions. These would most likely appear on the CWWK service & Support site (currently nothing there). If you know of any other trustworthy sources for BIOS updates, I would be very happy if you let us know.

have you tried to see if all bios options are unlocked so you can operate better?

First make a BIOS backup:

AFUWINx64.exe backup.rom /O

Then use this tool to edit your backup :

https://www.mediafire.com/file/kdicp5kbs...0.rar/file

https://ami.com/download-license-agreement/?DownloadFile=AMIBIOS_and_Aptio_AMI_Firmware_Update_Utility.zip

Open your backup into the AMIBCP tool and set fromd Default to USER all the settings you want to unlock and see into Bios Menu , then save
it and flash back by AFUWin64 again ...

AFUWINx64.exe backup.rom /GAN

Regards

 

[chripo]

have you tried to see if all bios options are unlocked so you can operate better?

[...]

Thank you so much for the hint! I didn't realize that such tools existed, otherwise I would have made a backup of the original BIOS with AFUWINx64. If someone could make a backup of his BIOS with Build Date and Time 11/15/2023 14:20:54 and send it to me, I would be very grateful!

In any case, the backup of my current BIOS worked without any problems with version 5 (also named "V") of AFUWIN. Unfortunately I could not open it with your linked AMIBPC Tool 4.55.0070. After some time searching I found this download for version 5.02.0034:

BIOS-MOD-TOOLS/AMI/AMIBCP/AMIBCP 5.02.0034.exe at main · direstraits96/BIOS-MOD-TOOLS

Previously I had found some other dubious downloads for an AMIBCP 5.x (with malware) via Google, but this file seems to be clean.

According to a screenshot I got from CWWK support, they also use AMIBCP 5.02.0034 - so I'm cautiously optimistic that you can use it to make changes and reflash the customized BIOS. Unfortunately, I won't be able to try this out myself today.

By the way: to run the AMI tools, I created a bootable USB stick with Windows 11 PE on my desktop PC and copied the tools to it - seems to work fine.

 

[whoiswes]

Got my board a few days ago, moving from an old i5-4590 and asrock ITX homelab server that's been running for the better part of a decade.

Once I got the boot drive converted to GPT and configured for UEFI, it booted right up. With 1 NIC active, 1 SSD, three HDDs, and a USB Coral TPU, it maxes at about 43W and idles down to around 20 once everything spins down. Cold boot doesn't seem to go above 70W. I haven't done much in the BIOS save for enabling C-states, and powertop shows that I'm in C8/C10 80% of the time (although the report shows Pkg(OS), not Pkg(HW) so I'm not sure if these are accurate numbers).

Plex transcoding went from 100% to 5-10%. Frigate CPU usage has dropped from 50% to under 5% for 2 cameras. All of my other containers are pretty much unchanged but they're not heavily utilized so no surprise there.

Overall, I'm pretty happy. but I'll be watching this thread as more experienced users share insights on optimizations and/or tweaks. I'll try to pull a BIOS dump for @chripo. If anyone has any feedback/ideas or wants any info, let me know. I'd also be open to suggestions for a new PSU (edited, thanks chirpo)

 

[chripo]

In case you mean suggestions for a new PSU: I went for buying a 2nd hand but hardly ever used Corsair SF600 Platinum (CP-9020181-EU) which has a power dissipation of just 7 - 8W with loads of 20 - 40W. An SF450 Platinum would have been better (drawing even 1W less)[1]. From my research on the web, the Corsair SFXXX Platinum PSUs still belong to the most efficient SFX PSUs for low power builds available today.

If your Homelab case allows for a standard ATX PSU, the Corsair RM550x 80+ Gold 2021 (CP-9020177-EU) would even be more efficient, having a power dissipation of only 5 - 6.5W with loads of 20 - 40W. [2]

Unfortunately, the lower wattage Corsair SF/RMx PSUs seem to be out of production and are not available any longer (at least here in Europe/Germany). That's why I decided buying a "good as new" 2nd hand one.

[1] Corsair SF750, SF600, SF450 Platinum im Test - SFX jetzt mit Platinum-Effizienz
[2] Corsair RMX 2021 im Test - Die neue Generation der Mittelklasse!

 

[audelair]

Has anyone tried the N100 motherboard with passive cooling only? I was thinking of either buying a compatible heatsink (no fan) or buying the motherboard with the Jonsbo radiator, but possibly taking the fan off. I wonder if the heatsink without the fan would be cool enough? I was thinking if it's a little warm, I would add a 140mm case fan to my case. I have a Mini-ITX case with a nearly silent 140mm front intake fan, and thinking this might cool the CPU enough, even if I take off the Jonsbo fan.

 

[youddha]

I would say passive cooling might be possible, i have the n305 running since 2 or 3 weeks now with a noctua nh-u9s (totaly overkill) and the cpu temperatures are never above 30°c (with fan to the absolute minimum). I'm fairly sure that with the n100 and a proper passive radiator plus good case ventilation you will be fine.
Also: cwwk is selling a lot of "computer"/"router" based on the n100 with passive cool only.
Not sure if i read your post properly but i don't think the copper plate is enough by iself! You would definitely need to mount something on top to increase your surface area with air. I wouldn't try that.

 

[youddha]

In case you mean suggestions for a new PSU: I went for buying a 2nd hand but hardly ever used Corsair SF600 Platinum (CP-9020181-EU) which has a power dissipation of just 7 - 8W with loads of 20 - 40W. An SF450 Platinum would have been better (drawing even 1W less)[1]. From my research on the web, the Corsair SFXXX Platinum PSUs still belong to the most efficient SFX PSUs for low power builds available today.

If your Homelab case allows for a standard ATX PSU, the Corsair RM550x 80+ Gold 2021 (CP-9020177-EU) would even be more efficient, having a power dissipation of only 5 - 6.5W with loads of 20 - 40W. [2]

Unfortunately, the lower wattage Corsair SF/RMx PSUs seem to be out of production and are not available any longer (at least here in Europe/Germany). That's why I decided buying a "good as new" 2nd hand one.

[1] Corsair SF750, SF600, SF450 Platinum im Test - SFX jetzt mit Platinum-Effizienz
[2] Corsair RMX 2021 im Test - Die neue Generation der Mittelklasse!

I second that, the corsair RM550x is n°1 if you can find it. Then your best second option is the "be quiet Pure Power 11 FM 550W" with only 1 more watt lost at load below 20w compare to the rm550x. The "be quiet" psu it much easier to find and almost/just as good. Of course this is only if you have space for ATX PSU.

 

[audelair]

I would say passive cooling might be possible, i have the n305 running since 2 or 3 weeks now with a noctua nh-u9s (totaly overkill) and the cpu temperatures are never above 30°c (with fan to the absolute minimum). I'm fairly sure that with the n100 and a proper passive radiator plus good case ventilation you will be fine.
Also: cwwk is selling a lot of "computer"/"router" based on the n100 with passive cool only.
Not sure if i read your post properly but i don't think the copper plate is enough by iself! You would definitely need to mount something on top to increase your surface area with air. I wouldn't try that.

Thanks! Yea, my case ventilation should be very good. And yep, I would definitely have a heatsink on the copper plate . I was thinking of just getting the bundle with the Jonsbo radiator and try it with and without the fan (but with the heatsink still on it). I wasn't able to find any cheap LGA115x heatsinks without fans, so for the $17 extra (to get the Motherboard + Jonsbo bundle), I figured I might try it with the Jonsbo and just unclip the fan. Worst case scenario is I put the fan back on, and if it's too noisy, I can always swap out the fan.