CWWK i5-1235U 6 port i226 report

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.
C

chiefhsu

New Member
Nov 20, 2024
1
0
1
Hello guys,
I got a CWWK i5-1235U mini pc and put a 14cm USB fan on top of the machine.
When I turn off the power, the USB fan keeps spinning.
Does anybody know how to disable standby power of the USB connected fan?
 
G

gio_se

New Member
Dec 5, 2024
2
1
1
Hello everyone, can you confirm that the USB-C port is exclusively a video output and does not provide any kind of power supply? I have tested it with various storage peripherals/smartphones/etc., and nothing is recognized or powered. I tried both on Windows and Ubuntu Live. Thank you
 
D

DougQuaid

New Member
Jan 7, 2024
21
12
3
gio_se said:
Hello everyone, can you confirm that the USB-C port is exclusively a video output and does not provide any kind of power supply? I have tested it with various storage peripherals/smartphones/etc., and nothing is recognized or powered. I tried both on Windows and Ubuntu Live. Thank you
Click to expand...
It also works as usb 3 port, I have no problems with connecting external nvme drive through it
 
G

gio_se

New Member
Dec 5, 2024
2
1
1
Thank you for the feedback @DougQuaid .

In my case, it seems the issue is related to the power supply of the USB-C port: if I connect an externally powered device, it works. I’ll perform further checks to determine whether it’s a hardware issue (e.g., a defective power circuit in the port) or a software issue (perhaps some USB port settings in the BIOS?).

In the meantime, an update for those who might be interested: I’ve personally installed 64GB of DDR4 3200MHz RAM, a 1TB WD NVMe SSD, and Intel BE200 Wi-Fi with the corresponding antennas, and everything is working perfectly. With all these components installed, I was still able to fit an 80x80x15mm PWM fan without any issues, which is undoubtedly better than the 10mm ones that practically generate no noticeable airflow for cooling.

That said, even with this setup (i5-1235u), temperatures rise under heavy loads (especially on the NVMe SSD), so I’ll likely install an additional external fan over the heatsink.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SBMe
P

peake

New Member
Dec 1, 2024
2
2
1
Hey guys!

I just picked up one of these units and to my surprise, it had a vasty revised motherboard. The changes are really good if anyone is looking to finally buy one now too, or to buy another.

I put up a review on amz that I'll include below that summeries the changes. Short story: DDR5, Gen4x4+Gen3x4 NVMe, and 40Gbps TB4/USB with DP-Alt

SATA ports aren't proprietary anymore either. Data is standard 7-pin, but power has to be adapted from a 4-pin JST.

There's an additional 4-pin 5V/12V JST alongside the two for SATA which can supposedly be used to power a breakout board that will split the Gen3x4 M.2 into four Gen3x1 M.2. If I order another unit, I'll hit up support about getting one sent with my order to play around with.

Feedback on the review or questions about the unit are welcome :^)

Fanless King, Version 2.0

TL;DR: CWWK makes really great computers -- including this one -- but doesn't update their product listings when they make hardware revisions to said computers.

This is my third CWWK unit and the first of this model-line (previous two are the J6413 6-ports). Build quality is high. Fit and finish is good. Customer service is also good. Typically get a response within a day and they resolve issues to my satisfaction.

The big problem, as summarized above, is that this is the second unit in-a-row now that has come with specs different from what I was expecting, which is not good. Any orders should probably come with a pre-order email to CWWK support to verify currently shipping hardware specs. In this case tho, the pros outweigh the cons sooooo LFG

PROS: This is the MBX-AD12 REV 2.0 revision of the motherboard, a.k.a. CW-MBX-AD12R200, a.k.a. CW-MBX-AD12-5-#B. The forwards-incompatible change here is the move from DDR4 to DDR5. I would have preferred DDR4 for a number of reasons (temp being a big one); but putting my personal preferences aside, the changes are all unambiguous positives:

The single Gen3x4 M.2 slot has been upgraded to two M.2 slots: a Gen3x4 and a Gen4x4 (the Key E slot for Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/WAN is still there under the Gen3 slot). There's also an additional USB2.0 type-A on the front (it has a SuperSpeed connector but it's 480Mbps) and the type-C can now do DisplayPort Alt Mode and is 40Gbps, all of which is very nice.

The proprietary 20-pin SATA Data+Power ports have been replaced with standard 7-pin SATA data and a 4-pin JST providing +5V and +12V that has to be adapted to standard SATA 15-pin power. The unit comes with at least one combo-adapter cable and an email to customer support before your order ships should be able to score you another one.

MIDS: Chassis can get very hot under sustained loads. Hot enough to be painful to the touch -- be careful!

Included is a black 80x80x10mm ~500 RPM PWM fan with a 4-pin JST connector matched to the CPU fan header on the motherboard. It's decent enough and I can recommend it: the fan is basically silent unless you're within a foot of it and it will help keep your RAM and SSDs cool. Without the fan, MemTest86 (10.4.1000) reported temps as high as 91° Celsius before I intervened; with the fan: 74° C

The fan has no flow indicators and came mounted with the label facing out. Assuming it's like most PC fans and blows towards the label (I say "assuming" because the thing moves so little air that it's honestly hard to tell which side the air flows out from, no joke), I flipped it around to take in air and this works quite good with the exhaust air being pushed out through the three oblong-patterned vents surrounding the fan intake.

I also added some small rubber O-rings to the screws between the fan and the panel it's mounted to to create about a 0.75mm gap between the fan housing and the panel to help keep any sagging blades spinning freely. Might also get some vibration dampening as a bonus!

PSU is a Dajing 12V/8A unit, model ADP-96H12. I have no problems with Dajing PSUs and it does its job fine.

Sustained power draw measured at the wall came in at around 50W, with a peak of 76.5W during the most intensive parts of Memtest86+ (7.2.0). Single-threaded Linpack Xtreme (1.1.5) comes in at 35W (& 37 gflops) sustained. Multi-threaded hits a peak of 82.9W (& 62 gflops) for about three seconds. Good stuff.

CONS: Update your product listings, CWWK. Seriously. Customers have the right to know what they're buying and the customers who buy these things can care very much about the subtle, technical differences between them.

SUMMARY: I really like this little guy and I'm looking forward to seeing what it can fully do. The hardware revisions make fuller use of the SoC's capabilities and expand the chassis' features; and there may be others that I didn't take note of.

That's about all for now. Take care and good luck.
Click to expand...
 
  • Like
Reactions: SBMe
P

peake

New Member
Dec 1, 2024
2
2
1
DougQuaid said:
What's the idle power usage? The old DDR4 model with unlocked bios can be tweaked to 7-9W at idle.
Click to expand...
Some quick and dirty testing shows about 12-15W idle for a default install of both Mint 22 and Ubuntu Server 24.04. That's with two DIMMs, one NVMe, and a basically default BIOS config
 
  • Like
Reactions: SBMe
K

KevinR

Member
Jul 3, 2024
70
29
18
peake said:
I just picked up one of these units and to my surprise, it had a vasty revised motherboard. The changes are really good if anyone is looking to finally buy one now too, or to buy another.

I put up a review on amz that I'll include below that summeries the changes. Short story: DDR5, Gen4x4+Gen3x4 NVMe, and 40Gbps TB4/USB with DP-Alt
Click to expand...
That's an interesting set of changes. Delving through the old specs that are still the only thing posted it seems like the 1235u/8505 series of 6 port boards were a very simple reworking of the previous J6312 series.

They might have added something but the basic architecture seems identical. However the 1235u has far more pcie lanes available (20 vs 8 I think), and it seems the new board revision has set out to use more of them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SBMe and peake
K

khyze

New Member
Mar 3, 2025
1
0
1
I bought a Mini PC to use as a home router and the PC has CW-MBX-AD12 board in it (the BIOS Main page says it). It also has a mark on DRAM slots, stating CW-MBX-AD13.5 (not sure what it means) The board has i5 1335U installed.

So I found a BIOS update on their website which was seemed to be for this one:

畅网官方网盘

pan.x86pi.cn pan.x86pi.cn

After installation, HDMI port stopped working. Then, I’ve got inconsistent number of network devices (6 ethernet ports) being listed in the BIOS screen. It ever changes when I insert a USB disk at the front, the number of network devices change.

I’ve also installed the BIOS that was mentioned in the earlier comments, but it didn’t change the situation.

Has anybody tried this BIOS on CW-MBX-AD12? If so, how was your experience?
 
F

ficki

New Member
Mar 6, 2025
1
0
1
Hi, i have a CW-MBX-AD12 board with i5-1315 and DDR5(!) Ram, on the PCB is written "Rev2", but on the ram-slot is a small label that tells: CW-MBX-AD12-3#B. The board was bricked by the owner just with doing some bios-settings, and clear-bios etc etc dont work. I have tried some bios files from the Website and other forums, but it dont really boots up. Does someone knows if there is a working bio?
 
S

schubdog

New Member
Mar 14, 2025
1
2
3
Hey Guys,

i recently bought from Ali the CWWK Firewall 2.5G Server i5-1235u 6port Lan.

Looks like it's a slightly newer revision as the one from 2023 as mine has DDR5 Ram.

From what i've seen the following revision is noted:


Motherboard Backside: CW-MBX-AD12-5
Label RAM: CW-MBX-AD 12-5#B
Mainboard Frontside: MBX-AD12 Rev 2.0

Is the modified Bios of FTA compatible with this Revision ?

With the stock bios and without cooler the power draw in idle is almost 23Watt with 2x Ram and 2x Nvme. And also mine didn't came with a fan so im hitting 70° to 81° easily under average load. Therefore i wanted to try to modified Bios in order to reduce the clocks, improve temps and power consumtion but i do not want to brick the device.

Hast anyone tested the modified bios with this revision ?

br

Schubdog
 
  • Like
Reactions: SBMe and Drone971
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom