CWWK i5-1235U 6 port i226 report

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LostnIL

New Member
Aug 21, 2023
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@fta

First and foremost, thank you for all the work you've done on this piece of hardware. -- I purchased the CWWK 1235u 6x 2.5gb nic unit after watching the STH video on it.

At any rate, I have a question if you would be so generous as to answer. I see you've released a modified bios, thank you, I'm familiar with that process but the script you mentioned to give the unit a performance boost, where is that entered? I am running Proxmox 8.04 on the unit.

Thanks in advance,
 

slidermike

Active Member
May 7, 2023
120
46
28
@fta

First and foremost, thank you for all the work you've done on this piece of hardware. -- I purchased the CWWK 1235u 6x 2.5gb nic unit after watching the STH video on it.

At any rate, I have a question if you would be so generous as to answer. I see you've released a modified bios, thank you, I'm familiar with that process but the script you mentioned to give the unit a performance boost, where is that entered? I am running Proxmox 8.04 on the unit.

Thanks in advance,
@LostnIL
try here
 

LostnIL

New Member
Aug 21, 2023
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I can't get the BIOs to update. -- The issue, I am sure, is that I am not re-creating the ISO correctly. When I download the stock iso I can't change anything in it because it is write-protected as an ISO. So I extract the stock ISO to a folder, replaced the .bin file, and then re-create a bootable ISO from that folder but when I try and boot from the USB it never loads the flashing program.

Does anyone have any insights or instructions on how to re-create the ISO in Linux (LinuxMint)?

Edit* Never mind. I figured it out.
 
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LostnIL

New Member
Aug 21, 2023
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Good Evening.

I am running Opnsense on the cwwk 15-1235u 6 port i226 and I have a gigabit fiber connection and I am getting nowhere near gigabit speed. -- Is there anything else that needs to be done to achieve gigabit throughput?

Edit Somedays I feel like technology hates me. This issue turned out to be a bad patch cable. I replaced it and I am getting gigabit speeds now.
 
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Dopamin3

New Member
Aug 30, 2023
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I just ordered the i5-1235U directly from CWWK on Amazon, pairing it with TEAMGROUP Z440 2TB (3600TBW?!?!) and 2x32GB Crucial CT2K32G4SFD832A. Nothing in hand yet but should arrive in around 2 weeks. Plan on flashing the modified BIOS from post 4 and installing Proxmox VE 8.0. Besides changing some BIOS settings is the script from post 10 still recommended on PVE 8.0?
 

Tzvia

New Member
Sep 5, 2022
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Oh boy I think this is my first post here... been lurking a bit. I've had one of those Qotom kabylake I5 boxes for maybe 3 years now running PFSense, been looking at these new ones as a bare metal PFSense box. Talked myself out of doing an i5 again (overkill), so bought the 8505 6-i226 Hunsn branded CWWK. Question (issue?) is that I would like to unlock the bios and set speedshift, so grabbed the ISO and the modded BIN file from the links here. Used Rufus 4.2 and burned the ISO to a new memstick, then replaced the BIN with the renamed BIN file found here. Booted to BIOS and made sure that the BIOS lock setting was UNLOCKED. On boot it gives me a 'any key to continue...' I hit a key and it reboots lather rinse repeat. Doesn't seem to see the modded BIN... I hate flashing bioses, even after decades of never having had an issue with any, I always get nervous... so instead of messing more with it, thought I would ask here WTF am I missing? (probably a 'UE' as we say...user error) :rolleyes:
 

fta

Active Member
Feb 19, 2017
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Oh boy I think this is my first post here... been lurking a bit. I've had one of those Qotom kabylake I5 boxes for maybe 3 years now running PFSense, been looking at these new ones as a bare metal PFSense box. Talked myself out of doing an i5 again (overkill), so bought the 8505 6-i226 Hunsn branded CWWK. Question (issue?) is that I would like to unlock the bios and set speedshift, so grabbed the ISO and the modded BIN file from the links here. Used Rufus 4.2 and burned the ISO to a new memstick, then replaced the BIN with the renamed BIN file found here. Booted to BIOS and made sure that the BIOS lock setting was UNLOCKED. On boot it gives me a 'any key to continue...' I hit a key and it reboots lather rinse repeat. Doesn't seem to see the modded BIN... I hate flashing bioses, even after decades of never having had an issue with any, I always get nervous... so instead of messing more with it, thought I would ask here WTF am I missing? (probably a 'UE' as we say...user error) :rolleyes:
Just a guess, but it sounds like it is not set to boot from USB. Can you select the USB stick when you go into the boot manager (it's F11 during boot if I remember correctly)?
 

Tzvia

New Member
Sep 5, 2022
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Just a guess, but it sounds like it is not set to boot from USB. Can you select the USB stick when you go into the boot manager (it's F11 during boot if I remember correctly)?
Thanks for the reply and suggestion.
Yes I made sure it was booting the stick by doing boot override in the BIOS, and it did a quick countdown "hit any key within 5 seconds or esc to exit" after booting the stick. And I did try as well with my NVME removed so there was no other boot choice. It's as if there were no BIN file... Won't be able to try again till tomorrow morning, family will lynch me LOL...

So looking at the instructions at the CWWK site one step says to copy the BIN to the root folder... should I be doing that?
 

Dopamin3

New Member
Aug 30, 2023
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Thanks for the reply and suggestion.
Yes I made sure it was booting the stick by doing boot override in the BIOS, and it did a quick countdown "hit any key within 5 seconds or esc to exit" after booting the stick. And I did try as well with my NVME removed so there was no other boot choice. It's as if there were no BIN file... Won't be able to try again till tomorrow morning, family will lynch me LOL...

So looking at the instructions at the CWWK site one step says to copy the BIN to the root folder... should I be doing that?
Did you get to EFI shell? Assuming you did all you have to do is issue what the "auto.nsh" does which is:

cd CW-12TH
cd bios
1.nsh
 

mickee

New Member
Mar 7, 2023
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@netspeedy Did you ever resolve your noise/sound issues?

I'm having similar issues myself, but i have the i5-1240P.
I recorded the noise here: CWWK i5-1240P Noise.mp3

And it's making the noise on both stock bios and fta's bioses, I've tried all the versions (2023-06-08 and 2023-02-07).
Ii've tried removing the NVME's and it's still making the noise.

I've emailed CWWK which is where i bought it from directly, but haven't gotten a response yet.

The thing is that my motherboard doesn't even have a speaker. So i'm starting to loose my mind here...
 

Tzvia

New Member
Sep 5, 2022
29
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Did you get to EFI shell? Assuming you did all you have to do is issue what the "auto.nsh" does which is:

cd CW-12TH
cd bios
1.nsh
Yep booted the EFI shell, gave myself a crash course on the commands (Windows I know...MAC a tiny bit, but everything else...), switched to the USB drive then to the 'CW-12TH/bios' subfolder. Did list the directory, saw the BIN file and 1.nsh and a few other files (readme, fpt...). Ran 1.nsh and got this error:
"FPT -F 6067009_CW_LOGO.BIN
Script Error Status: Unsupported (line number1)"

This box is the 6 i226-v, 8505 chip HUNSN branded CWWK (even says CWWK on the boot screen) in the case with the tall fins on top. Has 16gigs of Crucial ram, 500gig WD Blue MVME and that funky 'second NVME' adapter in it... nothing odd. Maybe I will remove that adapter and the WD drive and try again when the family won't skin me alive. Thanks for the help.
 

elyl

New Member
Aug 27, 2023
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Attempting to install Proxmox 8 on the i7 version of this machine, which arrived today. System seems to reboot after selecting "Install Proxmox VE" (graphical or console). Power button goes off then on and machine reboots. Is there some workaround I'm missing to get it installed? On modded BIOS.

EDIT: Issue was, I had my dock plugged into the USB-C port so I could get video/kb/m without plugging in everything individually. Plugged them all in separately direclty and it's working now.
 
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Tzvia

New Member
Sep 5, 2022
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Yep booted the EFI shell, gave myself a crash course on the commands (Windows I know...MAC a tiny bit, but everything else...), switched to the USB drive then to the 'CW-12TH/bios' subfolder. Did list the directory, saw the BIN file and 1.nsh and a few other files (readme, fpt...). Ran 1.nsh and got this error:
"FPT -F 6067009_CW_LOGO.BIN
Script Error Status: Unsupported (line number1)"
OY... Should have guessed... In case anyone else has the same issue after making the boot stick using Rufus. I had grabbed a new 64gig stick to make the boot/flash disk. Then I replaced the BIN with the modified one here. No go, error msg and dump to shell. I decided to use a smaller stick, 32gigs, as a test, again using Rufus. I got a popup from Rufus straight away on starting the write, to burn all into the EFI partition Y/N that wasn't presented to me when I used the 64gig stick. I said 'Y' then used that stick and it flashed the bios. Now I see the extra choices and need to pick around here to see where to begin. I only have a limited amount of time before everyone else gets up on Saturday and Sunday or the family will disown me LOL. So I gotta have a game plan on what to set. Using PFSENSE on bare metal- I have already disabled POWERD and added dev.hwpstate_intel.{X}.epp in the tunables (testing set at 50).
 

minds-eye

New Member
Sep 10, 2023
3
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1
Ordered a CWWK i5-1235U from Amazon which appears to be direct from CWWK as far as I can tell... Barebone @ $416 after 11% off sale.

The current plans I have for this fanless little beast is Proxmox VE with OPNsense. Replacing my Ubiquiti ERL after many years.

May have missed it in this thread or in the STH article, but is there a mobile SIM card slot in these for failover, or would the TF (microSD) card slot possibly work for this? If not, is there a solution to add one, either external or internal?
 

beisser

Active Member
Mar 20, 2023
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it doesnt have a sim card slot. you would probably need to use a m.2 slot for some after market options.
the tf slot is purely storage.
 
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lolen09

New Member
Jun 9, 2023
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Ordered a CWWK i5-1235U from Amazon which appears to be direct from CWWK as far as I can tell... Barebone @ $416 after 11% off sale.

The current plans I have for this fanless little beast is Proxmox VE with OPNsense. Replacing my Ubiquiti ERL after many years.

May have missed it in this thread or in the STH article, but is there a mobile SIM card https://tantv.kz/ slot in these for failover, or would the TF (microSD) card slot possibly work for this? If not, is there a solution to add one, either external or internal?
To add a mobile SIM slot, you will need an external modem. Perhaps Peplink Max BR1 or Ubiquiti 4G LTE AirLink LR
 
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minds-eye

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Sep 10, 2023
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To add a mobile SIM slot, you will need an external modem. Perhaps Peplink Max BR1 or Ubiquiti 4G LTE AirLink LR
Thank you! Had no idea Ubiquiti had an LTE modem, sounds like a great option. I'll look into it.

Edit: Hmm damn... it's limited to AT&T. Unfortunately I have Google Fi.

I've been looking around a bit for the last couple days. This seems like this might be a good option for $65:
HUAWEI E3372-325 LTE/4G https://a.co/d/2Oukov8

Edit: Decided against the E3372 after reading about pain points people have with 'HiLink' vs 'stick' modes. Seems like a craps shoot on Amazon which firmware you end up with. Good blog post here on how to deal with that issue... Didn't want to hassle with it though. Went with a Netgear instead, which was still a decent price (Amazon Renewed) at $80 NETGEAR 4G LTE Broadband Modem (LM1300) https://a.co/d/bKuCdSU.

I believe this should be compatible with Google Fi and this upcoming i5-1235U Proxmox + OPNsense build.

The Netgear Nighthawk M6 5G seems like a faster and better option, but too pricey for this use case, although it would be cool to be able to grab it for work trips rather than hotel wifi... then leave my wife and kids with no failover...... :rolleyes: :D
 
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