CWWK i5-1235U 6 port i226 report

[beisser]

those units dont have a speaker or anything else that produces sound, so thats not an indicator.
when i received my unit at first i thought it was broken too because the hdmi port didnt get initialized immediately.
turned out i was too impatient. after waiting a few more seconds the screen had a picture.
im not saying that your unit is not DOA, but beeping is not a proper indicator here.

do the nics have lights on when plugged in while the unit is connected to the powersupply?

 

[TheStefan]

I can confirm that on the first startup and/or after a bios upgrade there seems to be some kind of init that takes much longer than a normal boot.

 

[skimikes]

Well I also recieved mine today. Sadly I'm pretty sure it's DOA. Produces absolutely no sounds no beeps no nothing with or without ram and power led immediately turns off with only the HDD led constantly on. Looked into a thermal camera and as soon as I plug in the barrel jack ASmedia USB controller ligths up which kinda makes sence, since USB seem to get power all the time, and after I power it on only half of the CPU power phases seem to get warmer, suggesting something is rather wrong with the thing. Still complete lack of beeping is very odd. I'm pretty sure most mobo's beep at you when you have no CPU installed.

There is a delay at the first power on. I suspect it is memory training on the initial boot since I saw that behavior every time I flashed the BIOS and every time I tried different DIMMs. So you have to wait that out. If it doesn't power on at all, make sure you don't have a m.2 drive installed and then try and power it on. If the m.2 adapter is installed, try removing that and then see if it will power on. One unit I have (I think it is the N5105) is incredibly particular about which m.2 NVME drives it will power on with. Corsair? Nope. Teamgroup? Nope. SK Hynix? Yup. The power button won't even light up if a Corsair or Teamgroup drive is plugged in. I vaguely recall that someone explained this has to do with clocks. Try it with 1 stick of RAM and give it 3 minutes and see if you get anything.

 

[Hotcooler]

those units dont have a speaker or anything else that produces sound, so thats not an indicator.
when i received my unit at first i thought it was broken too because the hdmi port didnt get initialized immediately.
turned out i was too impatient. after waiting a few more seconds the screen had a picture.
im not saying that your unit is not DOA, but beeping is not a proper indicator here.

do the nics have lights on when plugged in while the unit is connected to the powersupply?

There is a speaker for sure. Behind the clear cmos button.

Long first boot is absolutely normal on any modern system it might even reboot once or twice - it's training memory. Here's how it looks for me, just the latest of the vids I sent to the seller. At the end you can see the LED behavior. I did tests with different ram, screens, ports (tried all including type-c). And no, network card do not link up.

The main indication that something is really wrong with it is the thermal imaging. (Well and the LED's).

This is how I see it, ASmedia USB hub with a visible hot spot on it (usb seems to work power wise). - GREEN
Working power phases - WHITE
Not working power phases - BLACK
Rather cold CPU - BLUE


And some closeups on the VRM

There is a delay at the first power on. I suspect it is memory training on the initial boot since I saw that behavior every time I flashed the BIOS and every time I tried different DIMMs. So you have to wait that out. If it doesn't power on at all, make sure you don't have a m.2 drive installed and then try and power it on. If the m.2 adapter is installed, try removing that and then see if it will power on. One unit I have (I think it is the N5105) is incredibly particular about which m.2 NVME drives it will power on with. Corsair? Nope. Teamgroup? Nope. SK Hynix? Yup. The power button won't even light up if a Corsair or Teamgroup drive is plugged in. I vaguely recall that someone explained this has to do with clocks. Try it with 1 stick of RAM and give it 3 minutes and see if you get anything.

Oh I've tried a bunch of things. First thing I did after it did not intially boot - remove SSD's, then removed the wifi to ssd adapter. Then tried with one stick of the other, then no sticks, then well.. thermal imaging

 

[skimikes]

There is a speaker for sure. Behind the clear cmos button.
View attachment 28424
Long first boot is absolutely normal on any modern system it might even reboot once or twice - it's training memory. Here's how it looks for me, just the latest of the vids I sent to the seller. At the end you can see the LED behavior. I did tests with different ram, screens, ports (tried all including type-c). And no, network card do not link up.

The main indication that something is really wrong with it is the thermal imaging. (Well and the LED's).

This is how I see it, ASmedia USB hub with a visible hot spot on it (usb seems to work power wise). - GREEN
Working power phases - WHITE
Not working power phases - BLACK
Rather cold CPU - BLUE
View attachment 28427

And some closeups on the VRM
View attachment 28425View attachment 28426



Oh I've tried a bunch of things. First thing I did after it did not intially boot - remove SSD's, then removed the wifi to ssd adapter. Then tried with one stick of the other, then no sticks, then well.. thermal imaging

Just out of curiosity, who did you order your unit from? Topton? cwwk store on AliExpress? cwwk.net? Someone else? My Topton units all functioned but all needed repasting. I don't think I would order from them again. Even though it is a little more, I'll stick with cwwk(.net) until they burn me.

 

[Hotcooler]

Just out of curiosity, who did you order your unit from? Topton? cwwk store on AliExpress? cwwk.net? Someone else? My Topton units all functioned but all needed repasting. I don't think I would order from them again. Even though it is a little more, I'll stick with cwwk(.net) until they burn me.

YSJMNPC Official Store on Aliexpress.

But honestly I don't think store matters at all, they are all produced by CWWK I imagine, and then just ordered by random stores here and there for resale. And considering my interaction with the seller, that basically relayed messages to I imagine CWWK support on alibaba/taobao or something, where he got the goods from (to no real effect, too. They still blame the ram, despite their own video on how it should look like the thing is beeping like crazy, while mine is completely silent) confirms this thought in my mind.

(there was a screenshot of that image on the page, but it's just the seller pointing out that the messages in the red box were not him, but him relaying what was said to him by CWWK support)

So I don't think store matters in the slightest, just the after sale customer experience might vary a bit. I'm for example currently stuck in the "manage to convince the seller that I'm not brain dead, and that what I show them radically differs to what they show me in their own demo videos", and knowing the Aliexpress dispute system, when dealing with complex things it's a good idea to convince the seller you're right first.

So today I'm planning a big video production with a bunch of ram (hynix, samsung and micron) and bunch if displays filmed on two cameras e.t.c. So all the your "ram sucks" and your "display sucks" are out of the question hopefully. And will probably insert their own video in there with the PC beeping ram error, while mine is silent... Basically - adventures await.

If today is unsuccessful, will probably just order another one, alert the seller to the fact that I'll be pushing for a refund with a return instead of replacement and play the game a bit more, I just kinda planned a bunch of updates to other stuff that depends on this thing working, so dragging it all out is annoying to say the least.

While cwwk(.net) is an option for sure, it's.. more annoying due to where I live and it being shopify based, high potential for delivery issues at the moment, so in that regard Aliexpress is a lot more convenient for me, but comes with its own set of annoyances when it comes to complex things being DOA.

 

[Hotcooler]

To update. Turns out China people do know a thing or two about the thing they made... and it is working after all. Sad that they cant really communicate it that well.. ButI guess my unit was either designed or assembled on monday after chinese new year or something... Because my power LED is... RED. And well.. beeper does not work, while it does in their videos and mentioned in the manual..

Also it's EXTREMELY picky about the ram (probably a function of bios tuning quality), from two sticks of random chinese hynix based ram - none work (both work fine in my Asus G14), a stick of random chinese micron based ram does not work either (works in G14), a proper micron stick does not work too (also works in G14) and only the Samsung stick works in it (and it came with G14)... TF is that. So I guess I'll go update the bios and see if that improves things at all.

Also since I offered to do a proper magnum opus of testing, this was my reaction after about 12 minutes of filming with 3 cameras haha (first like 9 mins were showing the setup and testing each stick in the G14). :

The setup for anyone curious:

 

[beisser]

like i said my unit is also completely silent. no beeping whatsoever
i never noticed that red led either (but i just looked i have it as well).
for me the powerled is the blue laser of doom inside the powerbutton.

as for memory, i must have gottenincredibly lucky then because i bought some random "memoria" sticks from aliexpress and slapped them inside my unit and they worked immediately, even though (as mentioned earlier) i had to wait forever until the device initialized in the beginning (i only have an hdmi screen).

my ssd also worked from the start (i bought a fanxiang 1tb nvme drive from aliexpress as i had good experience with the 256gb model in another topton unit).
i also tried a kingston nv2 which also worked.

edit: i just checked with dmidecode. my memory is not memoria, but Puskill (another of those aliexpress brands). cant find out what type of chips are on the sticks though (could be samsung, micron or skhynix i guess).

 

[Hotcooler]

like i said my unit is also completely silent. no beeping whatsoever

I guess baggage of prior experience along with having toys like thermal imaging really sque ones perception of "peculiarities" of funky low volume devices... But man... that LED and the non-functional speaker and half the VRM asleep really pointed me in the "this thing is totally effed up" direction.

P.S. Bios update did absolutely nothing about RAM compatibility. As did enabling some more memory training settings.

 

[skimikes]

I guess baggage of prior experience along with having toys like thermal imaging really sque ones perception of "peculiarities" of funky low volume devices... But man... that LED and the non-functional speaker and half the VRM asleep really pointed me in the "this thing is totally effed up" direction.

P.S. Bios update did absolutely nothing about RAM compatibility. As did enabling some more memory training settings.

I just always buy Samsung memory for these devices. I have Mushkin and Teamgroup and they work, as well, but Samsung is about as JEDEC standard as you can get.

My 8505 has 3 LEDs - Power, HDD, and...power. Why it has a power LED on the front and one on the back, I can't say. As @beisser says, that blue power LED on the button is a raging inferno. If you point that thing at aircraft, the FBI will come for you.

Mine has a speaker, but it is barely audible and is so quiet it could almost be mistaken for coil whine. I only ever hear it chirp after I have updated BIOS or swapped memory.

 

[Hotcooler]

If anyone is interested, I've done some.... modifications.

To start paste seems good, delta between CPU temps and the side of the case is only 4*C. The temps overall... well.. its one hell of a hotbox, especially now that it has a 10gb ethernet in it haha.

Overall install looks like so

but since that I've replaced the heatsink on the NIC (it was not stock already at that point, but was clearly not up to the task either) and well... bodged another one on top of it, which actually does do decently well, considering.

After 40mins of 2.5g iperf + 4k youtube decode in probably software (167% CPU usage would suggest so) in a closed case and on the side, but no bottom airfow due to sitting on the table. Temps were looking like so (no fan installed).


Overall it's ok, it'll have some airflow probably in the place it'll eventually be installed, so we'll see if I can get away with it totally passively cooled.

Thermal images:


Will play a bit with the bios, undervolting via loadline e.t.c. and then will probably go on with the install and testing in the actual space it'll be in.

 

[iceman_jkh]

If anyone is interested, I've done some.... modifications.

Nice work. Which CPU and NIC (link?) do you have?

 

[Hotcooler]

Nice work. Which CPU and NIC (link?) do you have?

It's a 1215u + this AQC107 NIC (https://aliexpress.com/item/1005005072420460.html). I would strongly advise to try and find the Innodisk EGPL-T101 since it's based on a node shrunk AQC113C (probabably like 2.5 times less power consumption) and has a much smaller daughter board with the RJ45 which will allow you to keep the ability to install the stock fan. Or some other similair card if those exist, sadly I could not find anything reasonably priced that would not be an incredible pain in the arse to deal with.

-------------

Tried installing it into a space it'll be in, that also triggered a thought that... I dont actually need the switch there any more, since I'll have this thing.. And no, the tiny amount of airflow from the switch below did not do much good aka temps bad.

Here's an example of a steady state idle, while keeping the 10G link up (as pretty much everyone here, it's running proxmox with 6.2 kernel, but no VMs at the moment).

enp1s0-pci-0100
Adapter: PCI adapter
PHY Temperature:  +88.9°C
MAC Temperature:  +87.5°C

acpitz-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
temp1:        +27.8°C  (crit = +105.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0:  +40.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:        +36.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 4:        +39.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 12:       +39.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 13:       +39.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 14:       +39.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 15:       +39.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

nvme-pci-0200
Adapter: PCI adapter
Composite:    +47.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +82.8°C)
                       (crit = +84.8°C)
Sensor 1:     +46.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +65261.8°C)

So yeah, I'm thinking of an external fan (so I dont have to mangle the bottom plate yet) and see how that goes + eventual remooval of the swith since well.. why the hell I bought a thing with 7 Ethernet ports otherwise.. I might eventually need an sfp port but that's still rather unlikely and poe I actually got it for for the most part satisfied by the other switch I got and nothing ended up connecting to this one.

Test install looked like so:


Will probably install it port side up, since I plan to remove the switch.. Also I'll probably end up printing a cover for the addition RJ45, since hand held dremelling did not end up that great to say the least haha, not that I care that much.. but.. it's kinda meh..

 

[beisser]

i tried a couple of external usb powered 120mm fans from amazon and boy do they all suck.
they all had different noise issues (vibrations, scratching, whining), so i returned them all and went with a pwm powered 120mm fan i had laying around and connected it to the pwm header on the mainboard.

its running at such a low speed that you can watch it turn and its inaudible.
the airflow is good enough to keep the following temperatures during stresstesting (see attached screenshot).

withjout the fan the cores hit 100 degrees celsius immediately and start throttling.

i can recommend such a fan if you have the space available for it.

 

[Hotcooler]

i tried a couple of external usb powered 120mm fans from amazon and boy do they all suck.
they all had different noise issues (vibrations, scratching, whining), so i returned them all and went with a pwm powered 120mm fan i had laying around and connected it to the pwm header on the mainboard.

its running at such a low speed that you can watch it turn and its inaudible.
the airflow is good enough to keep the following temperatures during stresstesting (see attached screenshot).

withjout the fan the cores hit 100 degrees celsius immediately and start throttling.

i can recommend such a fan if you have the space available for it.

I dont actually have any issues with the core temps. I'm trying to cool down the NIC. So.. I've decided to mangle the bottom plate after all.

Did some more cut outs after the photo over the M.2 area though. But realistically speaking stock fan is.. anemic. While great sound wise, it does not really move any air. I'll probably replace it with something that actually moves *some* air, since the temps are... well.. not great.

BTW 8010 fan options are severely lacking at least locally, pwm ones especially, I'll probably just get ID-Cooling IS-27i cooler and swap the fans with it.

Any way, here's the steady state temps when doing 10gbps iperf3 bidir with 6 threads.

enp1s0-pci-0100
PHY Temperature:  +87.1°C
MAC Temperature:  +85.4°C

Core 0:        +48.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 4:        +51.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 12:       +50.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 13:       +50.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 14:       +50.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 15:       +50.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

nvme-pci-0200
Composite:    +47.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +82.8°C)
                       (crit = +84.8°C)

And here's the idle steady state.

enp1s0-pci-0100
PHY Temperature:  +84.1°C
MAC Temperature:  +82.5°C

Core 0:        +38.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 4:        +38.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 12:       +40.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 13:       +40.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 14:       +40.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 15:       +40.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

nvme-pci-0200
Composite:    +45.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +82.8°C)
                       (crit = +84.8°C)

Overall.. too damn high. It'll probably be a little less when I remove the switch, since it does provide somewhat pre-heated air. But it also provides *some* airflow.. so who knows.

P.S. Actually temps of the nic are very strange.. for example now it idles at 88.2 so... no idea apart from more cooling would be nice.
P.P.S actually fan is capable of decent RPM.. it's just that the PWM connector only provides 5 volts. 12v available nearby, set it to 100pwm will see how it goes.
P.P.P.S Preliminary results suggest that making a fan move air improves things:

enp1s0-pci-0100
PHY Temperature:  +62.8°C
MAC Temperature:  +61.3°C

Core 0:        +33.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 4:        +37.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 12:       +38.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 13:       +38.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 14:       +38.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 15:       +38.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

nvme-pci-0200
Composite:    +37.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +82.8°C)
                       (crit = +84.8°C)

 

[fta]

i tried a couple of external usb powered 120mm fans from amazon and boy do they all suck.

I went sort of down the same path. I wanted to hook up a USB fan, but all of the options out there have externally controlled speeds, which means you have to always run at the speed you will need at the hottest temps. Since it's already connected over USB, I should be able to control it from the host. Alas, I could find nothing that does this so I ended up creating a custom PCB to do it. It works really well. I can monitor temps and set the fan duty cycle from 0-100%. I'm using a Noctua NF-A14 fan.

 

[iceman_jkh]

My temps are much better (30-50C) since flashing fta's hwp BIOS (using completely default settings) and setting Powerd=off and a specific set of system tunables.

Because I'm running pfsense 23.01 on baremetal (not virtualised) I'm on FreeBSD13 and found that I should use settings for 'Intel SpeedShift' rather than PowerD. Link: PfSense - Intel Speedshift system tunables.



I'm not clear why the second part of the cpu.freq_levels is undefined (see "-1") but I seem to be making progress overall.



I didn't follow fta's BIOS settings, as I wasn't sure where to change the TCC, TCC offset, etc. (given the post referred to changes across BIOS/script). I suspect some of the above system tunables are achieving a similar thing to the script however, and am posting this here for others who might be running pfSense directly (note: only v23 and v2.6 CE use FreeBSD13).

 

[beisser]

I went sort of down the same path. I wanted to hook up a USB fan, but all of the options out there have externally controlled speeds, which means you have to always run at the speed you will need at the hottest temps. Since it's already connected over USB, I should be able to control it from the host. Alas, I could find nothing that does this so I ended up creating a custom PCB to do it. It works really well. I can monitor temps and set the fan duty cycle from 0-100%. I'm using a Noctua NF-A14 fan.

View attachment 28573View attachment 28574

that is quite cool i would say unfortunately i dont have the skills to create something like that.
hotcoolers statement with the 5 volts explains why my 120mm fan is running so slowly (which is awesome).
the speed does change under load (so pwm is really working), but the fan stays inaudible.

in hotcoolers situation a fan on the top would likely not help with his hot nic, so my idea would a construction that replaces the bottom plate essentially with a frame to hoold a external 120mm fan (which blows into the m.2 slots and mainboard.

it should be able to easily provide sufficient airflow to keep that nic cooled while also indirectly cooling the cpu though the backside of the mainboard a bit.

downside is that it makes the device a lot taller and requires something else to keep the device a cm or so away from the wall so that the fan can actually draw air. the vesa mount wouldnt be usable anymore with such a huge fan.

 

[Hotcooler]

that is quite cool i would say unfortunately i dont have the skills to create something like that.
hotcoolers statement with the 5 volts explains why my 120mm fan is running so slowly (which is awesome).
the speed does change under load (so pwm is really working), but the fan stays inaudible.

in hotcoolers situation a fan on the top would likely not help with his hot nic, so my idea would a construction that replaces the bottom plate essentially with a frame to hoold a external 120mm fan (which blows into the m.2 slots and mainboard.

it should be able to easily provide sufficient airflow to keep that nic cooled while also indirectly cooling the cpu though the backside of the mainboard a bit.

downside is that it makes the device a lot taller and requires something else to keep the device a cm or so away from the wall so that the fan can actually draw air. the vesa mount wouldn't be usable anymore with such a huge fan.

I thought about that, but at that point IMO it's easier to remove the bottom panel, replace with the fan, and mount some wall mounting bracket to the fins or the side of the unit.

Otherwise I'm currently happy with the result (~62-63*C), so I'll continue the install e.t.c. And we'll eventually see how it does under actual load + if anything else needs to be done.

 

[Hotcooler]

In an unrelated benchmarking note, if anyone is interested how power unlocked i3-1215u compares to power-unlocked N100 vs 15w undervolted 8250u in 3dmark:

TS: Result
FS: Result

Overall N100 is fairly neat to be honest, especially when dual NIC PC with 8gb ram was like.. 130$ delivered.