CWWK i5-1235U 6 port i226 report

[fta]

I added a couple things to the first post in this thread:

1. A link to the unlocked BIOS
2. A link to a good replacement power supply on digi-key

 

[skimikes]

I'm considering to order 8505 board. The information of this thread was useful.
I have few questions/requests.
1. Can somebody made objective recap of improvements achieved by updating the BIOS. e.g.
- power IDLE
- power single/multy thread load
- CPU score
2. What are the consequences of flashing unofficial BIOS - can you upgrade /downgrade later on or is just one way route?

You can flash forwards and backwards on the 8505 unit. I started with a stock unit, flashed the non-HWP BIOS @fta provided, flashed back to the stock BIOS, flashed the HWP BIOS, reflashed the stock BIOS, then reflashed the HWP BIOS, then the stock BIOS, then the HWP BIOS again. The latest stock BIOS is available on http://pan.changwang.com:8888

You're not going to save any power by flashing the unlocked BIOS. The lowest achievable idle power is with the stock BIOS with C-states enabled. This is also the highest latency configuration. "Latency" in this case is approximately half a millisecond. There is a chart in this thread that lists the performance gains I had between stock and tuned settings. Suffice it to say you may gain between 3% and 10% depending on the type of calculations being performed. I opt to use the HWP BIOS because it gives slightly worse idle power usage but slightly better latency. That said, I could live with the stock BIOS if I had to. Those with more than 1 P-core will see bigger gains from the unlocked BIOS if they follow the recommendations fta provided.

 

[ChrisP]

I'm considering to add a M2 Wifi card, but just saw on the STH article that the AX210 would not work. Any idea why, and if this could be workarounded ?

I'm planning to have an OpenWRT instance dedicated to the Wifi card using passthrough.

 

[beisser]

"AX210" is mentioned zero times in that article.
where did you see that info?
i see no reason why it wouldnt work.

AX210 in OpenWRT on the other hand is probably not going to work very well, since Intel cards dont work well in AP mode (if you can get them to work at all).

Intel ax210 support

Hi All! Do !That! means now intel ax 210 supported by openwrt? But i see no package, is it integrated in kernel? Or i have to compile it from somethere.. I've tryed use ax210 year ago and it wasnt supported so i've sold it..

forum.openwrt.org

 

[ChrisP]

It was mentionned in the middle of the second page: https://www.servethehome.com/fanless-king-intel-core-i5-6x-2-5gbe-system-review-by-cwwk/2/

But that's a very good hint, I would have made a stupid mistake there ! Then what would be the recommanded option to build a Wifi 6 AP there ?

 

[beisser]

interesting. i overlooked that part.
i think fta's bios supports both nvio (ax201/211) as well as pcie (ax200/210) (at least there are options related to both in the bios).
what i personally would be interested in is if the ax411 is working.
it also uses nvio , but only works with 12th/13th gen cpus due to it using a newer nvio version which is only supported by those.

As for AP-Mode, no idea, im not so deep into that topic so i cannot give a good opinion here.

 

[ChrisP]

Looking at the product description on Aliexpress, the Wifi port is stated as: "M.2 2232 A.E slot support CNVio2 WiFi6 (optional)". I would guess AX411 would work. That does not explicitly state pcie are not supported however.
You are right that using an Intel card is a no go to build an AP with OpenWRT, and probably for any system. For now I do not see a lot of good options for doing ax AP.

 

[dfarning]

Sorry for the possibly dumb question. Is there a workaround for installing proxmox 7.4 if I don't have a type-c video cable/connector?

 

[ChrisP]

Sorry for the possibly dumb question. Is there a workaround for installing proxmox 7.4 if I don't have a type-c video cable/connector?

For me, the simplest workaround was to just install Proxmox 7.1-2 first, then upgrade both proxmox and the kernel to 6.2.
The tricky part is to find a mirror that still have this old iso file: "proxmox-ve_7.1-2.iso" mirror - Google Search

 

[dfarning]

Thanks that worked perfectly I just installed 7.1-2 then ran:

• apt update
• apt dist-upgrade
• apt install pve-kernel-6.2

Did a reboot and everything was working

 

[jmartinez50]

I'm thinking in buying one but not sure which cpu, i5 or i7.
Would anyone know if Intel AMT remote control works on the i7 version?
Looks like the cpu supports AMT because is vPro enterprise, but also the motherboard and bios must support it.

 

[slidermike]

you should run " update-pciids" to update all the ID's and then you could see the device names.

Thanks, now I can see my i226-v correctly. whew, I was wondering if somehow I had some odd knockoff 2.5gbs.

 

[MichaelW]

Awesome thread! I have one on the way. Disappointed to hear that Quick Sync doesn't seem to work though.

 

[beisser]

why would quicksync not work?
i run plex in an lxc container on proxmox and its using quicksync just fine.
at least the ~1% cpu load while playing content suggest so

 

[iceman_jkh]

We might be confusing the terminology of QuickSync (video encoding) with Quick Assist Technology (QAT) (cryptographic processing).
Currently, it does not appear that QAT is enabled/working on these boxes, which would have been of benefit to lower CPU loads when running VPN.

 

[ordor]

Sorry for the possibly dumb question. Is there a workaround for installing proxmox 7.4 if I don't have a type-c video cable/connector?

Just use Display Port (not HDMI).

 

[MichaelW]

We might be confusing the terminology of QuickSync (video encoding) with Quick Assist Technology (QAT) (cryptographic processing).
Currently, it does not appear that QAT is enabled/working on these boxes, which would have been of benefit to lower CPU loads when running VPN.

Ahhh yes, I read through the thread quickly and saw comments about QAT which I misread as talking about quick sync.

 

[jmartinez50]

I'm thinking in buying one but not sure which cpu, i5 or i7.
Would anyone know if Intel AMT remote control works on the i7 version?
Looks like the cpu supports AMT because is vPro enterprise, but also the motherboard and bios must support it.

FYI, I asked CWWK and one of the Topton stores.

Topton just answered "It's not supported", but CWWK:

Hello, I found out that the CPU supports AMT, but the 226 network card does not support it. You need to use the 219 network card to achieve AMT. Sorry, we don’t have it yet.

So, I think for my use case, proxmox+opnsense+nas+plex+other vms or containers, the i5 would be more than enough.

 

[PavanG]

Hey guys, awesome thread! Has one checked out this version of the mini pc with an integrated fan?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005335443256.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.25.1f901e4buUHw9C&algo_pvid=d437d1c7-dac7-4abf-8236-b6bb040feb23&algo_exp_id=d437d1c7-dac7-4abf-8236-b6bb040feb23-12&pdp_npi=3%40dis%21GBP%21452.17%21415.99%21%21%21%21%21%402102186a16841650922895244d077f%2112000032656303060%21sea%21UK%213928145169&curPageLogUid=T9hls1wzIj65

If the temps are kept cool then going for the i7 version might make sense.

 

[weiyiaw85]

P-cores VS E-cores - is virtualisation environment able to utilise E-Cores?
some of the forum ppl mention better to turn off E-cores which make me curious on E-Cores design processor
another part I'm also looking forward to see N305 review whether compatible to most of the VM enviornment Proxmox or ESXI