CWWK i5-1235U 6 port i226 report

[phil-2024]

I actually have a Chinese miniPC with N100 and I was able to reduce idle power usage to 1.5W, but there are several limitations and constrains that must be adhered.

ASPM must be enabled in bios for all PCI-E root ports
package C-states must be enabled in bios
no SATA device must be connected, only NVME drive (also this heavily depends on the NVME drive that should correctly support ASPM and have very low idle power consumption)
no USB device must be connected, I'm using bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo
no lan cable must be connected, box is connected through WiFi
display must be disconnected or in sleep mode

if everything is fulfilled, then the cpu package goes to C10 state, while still accepting remote ssh connections and everything working
Unfortunately, there is some bug in the bios or something and after cca 30 minutes the package C-state start switching between C10 and C8 rapidly and increases the power consumption to 4W, happens both in windows and linux. Limiting the C-state to C8 in bios helps and in stable C8, the idle power consumption is 2W.

just connecting some USB device or LAN cable limits the package C-state to C6 and increases the power consumption to 5-6W

Thanks for the info. I tried my N100 network box with Linux and that was down to 6 watt when idle and monitor off (with keyboard and mouse and a SATA drive) so similar to what you found. In FreeBSD (pfSense) I think there is some issue or incompatibility between the BIOS and FreeBSD support of hardware P-states, this means despite the CPU spending a great deal of time in C3 or even lower, it reports as low as C8, it makes absolutely no difference to power consumption with C-States on or off. I've mentioned to @fta for some info on the HWP issue in the BIOS of these types of boxes so hopefully that may get a solution.

It just annoying that an older box with 6 network ports and older less efficient CPU, with SATA drive and 3 network cables attached idles at 4 watt and runs lovely and cool, and that just happened, I didn't need to do anymore than enable C3 states in pfSense, and then newer more efficient processors from Intel can't get anywhere near that and run like a handwarmer. Not sure what Intel has done, but they seem to be going backwards, or its a problem with how these boards are designed .

 

[beisser]

guys i stumbled upon a bit of a snag here.
im not sure if that has been the case from the start, but i noticed that my processor doesnt enter any package c-states.
the cures go to c-states just fine, but the package doesnt.

the bios shows in the advanced settings as packe c state limit c0/c1 which cannot be set to anything else. due to that the cpu burns more power than necessary.

maybe one of you could have a look at their bios (or powertop) and see if the cpu package also doesnt enter any c-states.

 

[beisser]

found it. i had the newer bios on. installed the one from february and the package c-states are back on the menu

 

[JTech]

I'm from the US and considering ordering from AliExpress before the tariffs take place. Does anyone know if tariffs are imposed based on purchase date or shipped date? In my experience it takes topton a few months to ship

 

[cyrild89]

Hello everyone,

Do you know of a compatible Wi-Fi card that can work as an access point?

I have an AX211 but no AP mode in Opnsense...

 

[beisser]

forget that. you will not find any even halfway modern wifi card that works on freebsd, which is what opnsense is based on. afaik they basically stopped wifi development after 802.11n.

also intel wifi cards dont support ap-mode in general, even under other OSes:

Do Intel® Wireless Adapters Support Master or AP Mode?

All current Intel® Wireless Adapters are client-only devices and do not support the master or AP mode.

www.intel.com

 

[Diogenes]

In my setup I'm using proxmox. For network I have opnsense as a router and openwrt as access point for wifi.
I'm using MT7915e wifi card plugged into secondary m.2 slot via adapter.

adapter : adapter

I've bought wifi card on aliexpress from shop wallystech but I don't think they sell it anymore.



Wifi coverage wasn't great but it was good for me and overall setup worked great until I had problems with power (network ports started to switch on and off rapidly). Right now I've bought meanwell power supply but don't have time for setup the box again.

 

[peake]

Do you know of a compatible Wi-Fi card that can work as an access point?

I picked up one of these for an AP I plan to build. Haven't really tested it yet though. I think linux kernel support is still pretty new

There's also this absolute unit if you're trying for Wi-Fi 7 and can find a way to make it fit in the chassis lol

For the 6E module, I used an E to M key adapter because the AP module is 3052 and wouldn't sit cleanly in the system's 2230 E key slot; and with the heatsink attached it just barely fits under the bottom cover

 

[beisser]

this is the link for freebsd hardware support: FreeBSD 14.3 Hardware Notes

as you can see most of the stuff there is ancient and the only newer cards seem to be intel and some have issues (14.2. didnt have those cards yet, and current opnsense is based on 14.2).
on top intel cards dont support ap-mode, which is a requirement here.

mediatek based cards are not supported at all it seems. so the 2 cards linked above will likely not work.

 

[KevinR]

I'm thinking that @Diogenes and @peake are either using non-bsd subsystems or are using proxmon (or similar) to virtualise the asiarf cards, and then share them with the bsd based systems running in VM.

Naturally that will be slightly slower than being able to pass through the real device or run it natively BUT it would be a way to get the AP functionality into a soft router box, especially for those who want a one-box solution for portability or wattage reasons.

 

[iceman_jkh]

Can anyone tell me what's the most stable/best hypervisor to run on these boxes currently?
My preference is for "stability,reliability,security and (device) compatibility" over bleeding edge performance.

I've been running pfsense (baremetal) on my Pentium 8505 box and it's been rock solid, but I'd like to run Home Assistant (HA) on this box, so I'd need to move to a hypervisor (perhaps Proxmox?) so I can run both pfsense and HA.

I'll plug in the following USB devices to be used by HA/pfsense:

1. Zigbee radio [HA],
2. Z-Wave radio [HA],
3. Eaton UPS [pfsense] for NUTS server, and
4. Wifi nic [pfsense] (optional - only to debug LAN issues).

Any recommendations/distros (including which version) would be great!
Thanks!

 

[beisser]

i have the 8505 box and im running proxmox on it ever since i got the box. im running home assistant, opnsense and several windows vms on the machine.
some lxc containers as well. cant complain about stability at all.

 

[iceman_jkh]

i have the 8505 box and im running proxmox on it ever since i got the box. im running home assistant, opnsense and several windows vms on the machine.
some lxc containers as well. cant complain about stability at all.

View attachment 44033

Thanks for the prompt reply. That's exactly what I'm wanting to hear!

Was it hard to setup? I'm assuming I just following the instructions on the website?
Is there anything you'd do different, if you were installing again from scratch?

 

[beisser]

nah, just boot the installer and install it on the disk you want to install it on.
my recommendation is, if you have enterprise ssd's connected to the machine use ZFS.
so much better than anything else in regards to data integrity.

it eats non-enterprise-ssds quite fast though due to them lacking a critical feature (plp).
if you have cheap consumer class ssds i would recommend going with lvm and ext4 during the setup.

im using zfs since i have 2 sata enterpise ssds connected to my box (they dont fit inside, so they are mounted in a janky way under the box )

 

[iceman_jkh]

nah, just boot the installer and install it on the disk you want to install it on.
my recommendation is, if you have enterprise ssd's connected to the machine use ZFS.
so much better than anything else in regards to data integrity.

it eats non-enterprise-ssds quite fast though due to them lacking a critical feature (plp).
if you have cheap consumer class ssds i would recommend going with lvm and ext4 during the setup.

im using zfs since i have 2 sata enterpise ssds connected to my box (they dont fit inside, so they are mounted in a janky way under the box )

Good info.
I've got a Samsung 980 500GB NVMe (300TBW), so it's decent but not enterprise level.
I'll see if I can find a way to setup proxmox/etc to use RAM as much as possible, and minimise writes to disk.
Thanks again.

 

[slidermike]

i have the 8505 box and im running proxmox on it ever since i got the box. im running home assistant, opnsense and several windows vms on the machine.
some lxc containers as well. cant complain about stability at all.

View attachment 44033

Same for me. Proxmox with "forbidden router", guacamole, NginX reverse proxy and adguard. Rock solid and no cons IMO.

 

[beisser]

Good info.
I've got a Samsung 980 500GB NVMe (300TBW), so it's decent but not enterprise level.
I'll see if I can find a way to setup proxmox/etc to use RAM as much as possible, and minimise writes to disk.
Thanks again.

that drive should be good for quite a while (possibly several years) if you use lvm + ext4 for setup.
the consumer drives only get eaten with zfs due to how zfs writes data.

 

[iceman_jkh]

Same for me. Proxmox with "forbidden router", guacamole, NginX reverse proxy and adguard. Rock solid and no cons IMO.

Very interesting. Thanks.
I'm now considering offloading many of my management/critical dockers (HA, guac, uptimekuma, pfsense(+HAProxy)) onto the P8505 box and leaving the NAS to run the more intensive/experimental/entertainment stuff: Plex/Jellyfin, RSync, FTP/p2p, *arrs, Frigate, LLM, etc.

 

[deejfrmsth]

Just asking if anyone got the DDR5 version on this firewall appliance.

Did you have any issues with it being picky with the ram and nvme drives for it and if your bios has the same performance/settings as the DDR4 version?

 

[Drone971]

Just asking if anyone got the DDR5 version on this firewall appliance.

Did you have any issues with it being picky with the ram and nvme drives for it and if your bios has the same performance/settings as the DDR4 version?

I dont use it as firewall, but as server, but yes. I got it, and i got ram issues - i bought 2x24gb of ram (Crucial SO-DIMM 48GB KIT DDR5 5600MHz CL46) and i started crashing once or twice a day, memtest without problem. I then send the ram back, and got a new pair of the same memory. Again crashes all the time, again memtest ok. Then i switched to 2x(Kingston FURY SO-DIMM 16GB DDR5 4800MHz CL38 Impact) and all the crashes are gone, and it had not crashed in several weeks.
Bios has all the settings you might need. All the c-states settings, power limits etc...