Two questions before I get a Topton N100:
Is OpnSense stable on baremetal? I saw some early discussion that people were having issues and having to run it on proxmox.
Does the Topton N100 support turning back on after a power fail?
If you are referring to the x86-p5 version (
Topton X86 P5 Super Mini Router 12th Gen Intel N100 DDR5), I recently bought the latest model CW-X86-P5-V3-N305 on the kingnovy amazon shop. BTW I believe they are all manufactured by ChangWang hence the CW, even in the bios id prefix,
cwwk is the international shop.
My unit came with the CW-ALDNTB-1C2L AMI bios rom v.5.27 and there is an option (active by default in my case) in the Advance BIOS tab:
Advanced > IT8613 Super IO Configuration (not sure why they put the entry in here)
Restore AC Power Loss By IO [Power On|Power Off]
There is also a jumper cap that makes the unit to automatically power-on when the power cord is plugged-in. I disabled that as I use the unit as a media center. For the same reason I cannot answer your other - 1st - question.
I run mx-linux 23.2 with the xanmod-lts kernel on it. Even if that kernel is on the powersaving side, the cpus temperature rises quite quickly to 50~65°C, so I use the (in my case included) usb fan to keep it around 25~40°C. Maybe the aluminum case could be enough for the N100. I own another couple of consumer N100 mini-pcs and I never heard any cpu fan even while watching video streams.
If you are buying this exact model, I would advise you to buy the extra 4xUSB2.0 upgraded model. I ordered the 4xUSB panel two days ago, but of course the total cost is higher when bought separately.
Cheers!