CWWK/Topton/... Nxxx quad NIC router

[konmai]

Hello everyone, I have a problem with my CW-AL-4L-V2.0 board. the second m2 port does not recognize my SSD. The WiFi to NVMe adapter including the SSD runs perfectly on another board. Do I have to set something in the bios so that the card/ssd is recognized? Or is the wifi port broken?

Thank you very much for your answers

 

[MadPup]

Hello everyone, I have a problem with my CW-AL-4L-V2.0 board. the second m2 port does not recognize my SSD. The WiFi to NVMe adapter including the SSD runs perfectly on another board. Do I have to set something in the bios so that the card/ssd is recognized? Or is the wifi port broken?

Thank you very much for your answers

Have you looked thru this thread? I seem to remember someone explaining how to do it. There might be something in BIOS and/or jumper settings.

 

[Drabon]

Has anyone found a working Windows 10/11 audio driver for the Cwwk x86 P5 i3-N305 development board with expansion board? Iam searching since a few days and even a hardware ID search results in less than satisfactory hits.

EDIT: Found the driver with a janky solution. I installed drivermax and this super suspicious program actually did what Intel and Microsoft couldn't do.
EDIT2: to be more precise first you have to manually select the audio device in the manager. search driver from the list. select audio controller. scroll down to intel and choose the one with the "r" in the name. it will install with problems but now it is an intel audio device. with that done go to drivermax and now the program will be able to pull the correct driver. after that there is still some non configured device but the sound is working.

 

[naslurker]

Hello everyone, I have a problem with my CW-AL-4L-V2.0 board. the second m2 port does not recognize my SSD. The WiFi to NVMe adapter including the SSD runs perfectly on another board. Do I have to set something in the bios so that the card/ssd is recognized? Or is the wifi port broken?

Thank you very much for your answers

Hi, i just had the same issue. both SSDs were recognised when installed on 4xNVMe adapter card, but when using the main NVMe slot on the motherboard plus the wifi to nvme slot, the wifi to nvme one was not recognised.

Solution that helped me:

I went to the page of the mini pc i bought (same as yours): 12th Gen Intel Firewall Mini PC Alder Lake i3 N305 8 Core N200 N100 Fanless Soft Router Proxmox DDR5 4800MHz 4xi226-V 2.5G
and downloaded bios from ”bios and drivers“ button. it has 2 folders, i choose “12th-generation AlderLake-N Pioneer four-play series-V2”, inside the folder it has bios that has the same name as can be seen on your motherboard (see picture) “CW-AL-4L-V2.0 (N100…”
out of the two bioses inside the folder, i choose this one, that supports up to 5 m.2 slots: “CW-AL-4L-V2.0(N100-N200-I3-N305-V2 5x M.2 Version)2023.11.08.iso”


After that i updated my bios using this video instruction:

Side note: when researching this, i got a bit confused by seeing in this forum that people had for example same BIOS version (the number at the bottom when in bios), but had different outcomes, for some everything worked great for some not. Now it explains it, since cwwk have basically 2 different bioses with the same version number.

 

[naslurker]

Also, i saw someone providing guide on settings in bios for low power consumption. They said PCIe lines 9,10,11,12 were NICs and that you can in theory disable those you dont use. But somehow when i disable 11 or 12 - the problem with wifi to nvme not appearing comes back. I assume that those are actually for wifi slot then? how does one then determine which one is for nics? Since im planning to use only one nic port?

UPD: disabling PCIe lanes 2,3,4,7,9,10 doesnt seem to have any effect on NIC ports. I can still plugin the cable to any port and it still lights up. Disabling 1,11,12 results in some or all of ssds not showing up If you have 2 ssds with H-adapter installed
Is there any other way to disable not needed NICs?
UPD2: I confused light indicator glowing on NIC with it being completely working. when i disable all lanes stated above and boot into ubuntu, it doesnt have connection to the internet. So you can actually disable them and to find out which one of them is your NIC connection you disable them one by one and boot into ubuntu to see if you have internet.

 

[konmai]

Thank you a lot. You made my day.

 

[buedi]

Hello everyone,

I am still only half way through this Megathread, but I think the discussion is mostly about these devices here:
Quad NIC N100

But yesterday I found another one from Topton which is much cheaper and on the first look, is more appealing to me, because it has a Console port. But then I wonder what downsides it might have or if someone has this specific model:
Quad NIC N100 with Console Port

They seem to have the same CPU and the same 4 i226-V NIC ports and support DDR-5 Memory. But the latter one has a Console port which is something I would like to see on a device I am using as a Firewall and might sit in a corner where I do not want to put a Screen to when I have an issue. Hooking up a Notebook with a Console cable is much more convenient for a "headless" device.
Also the latter unit is much cheaper and now I wonder if someone has one of these and what the downside to the former device might be? Because currently the cheaper one makes the impression that it is the better device but then there is the price difference of about 60 bucks that makes me suspicious ;-)

Edit: Tried to fix the links.

 

[unmesh]

But yesterday I found another one from Topton which is much cheaper and on the first look, is more appealing to me, because it has a Console port. But then I wonder what downsides it might have or if someone has this specific model:
Quad NIC N100 with Console Port

Does it have a BIOS GUI over the serial port? I have a Lanner network appliance that I'm looking to upgrade that has this feature.

 

[buedi]

Does it have a BIOS GUI over the serial port? I have a Lanner network appliance that I'm looking to upgrade that has this feature.

That would have been my next question if someone here says he has one of those A serial port only makes sense to me if you can manage a device from boot to OS and not only when the OS is running already. I hope someone can tell us

 

[Eric_on_Fire]

I purchased the Yanling Nano N1242 and the motherboard appears to be YL-ALN4L, and I can't seem to get any NVME to recognize when inserted in the M.2 M-key slot. I've tried deactivating everything that seems reasonable in the UEFI BIOS, including power savings, but to no success. I see references to challenges with getting multiple NVMEs to recognize above, but I only need one single drive. MemTest86 passes the memory. Of note, this unit has a Channel Well KPL-060F-VI 60w PSU, which should be pretty solid. The only jumper seems to reset the BIOS. BIOS version is reported to be V1.00 9/14/2023 00:13:23. Ideas?

edit for future reference: Yanling confirmed that the M.2 2280 M-keyed slot only supports SATA, it does not support NVMe.

 

[sos_nz]

Is there a preferred version of these N100 routers in terms of quality & cooling?

The N100 I bought 11 months ago (https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005005593329224.html) has lost its ability to output anything over HDMI/DP.

It's otherwise working fine & has been a great OPNsense router, but I'd like to have the option to run a display for troubleshooting, reinstall OS etc, so I'm thinking of picking up another, similar box (not the same brand - burnt once etc).

EDIT: I've just purchased this one....seems as good as any other, and the price is right. Will be good to have a back up, given the centrality of a router to the SOHO: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004360072281.html

 

[MadPup]

Is there a preferred version of these N100 routers in terms of quality & cooling?

The N100 I bought 11 months ago (https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005005593329224.html) has lost it's ability to output anything over HDMI/DP.

It's otherwise working fine & has been a great OPNsense router, but I'd like to have the option to run a display for troubleshooting, reinstall OS etc, so I'm thinking of picking up another, similar box (not the same brand - burnt once etc).

EDIT: I've just purchased this one....seems as good as any other, and the price is right. Will be good to have a back up, given the centrality of a router to the SOHO: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004360072281.html

The very first post shows 3 types of case and talks a little about their relative cooling performance. In my experience, even the best doesn't cool enough for sustained loads. You could add a fan inside/outside the case but these cases aren't really designed for active cooling. In my load testing I found that even if the CPU doesn't get overly hot, the memory and NVMe drive can. If was was to buy an n100 based mini pc for general use it, would be actively cooled by design.

 

[sos_nz]

If was was to buy an n100 based mini pc for general use it, would be actively cooled by design.

Me too...although since this is just routing bare metal OPNsense, the temps passively cooled have been fine, as far as I can tell.

 

[giffyy]

I have N100 with @tdatta 1.5Edited.bin
Project Version BK-1264NP Ver 1.5
Build Date 09/28/2023 17:23:35
Version 2.22.1287

My CPU is still caped at 800MHz, I dont know what settings in BIOS i need to play around with to get CPU frequency fully unlocked.
can anyone please share their BIOS settings or point me to the right direction.

I followed this guide for BIOS settings and power tuning. TOPTON N5095/N5105/N100 opnsense & proxmox powersave tuning - windgate

 

[skynet137]

first time posting, long time lurking. After following this thread for year now, I ended up purchasing the N100 device from WooYi Store below. Device is on its way and I am just getting ready for the setup. I purchase this device with no NVME or RAM.

WooYi Store - N100

Just looking for some advice, I am planning on buying following items to setup my this device. Plan is to run Proxmox bare metal and OpnSense in VM.

RAM - Crucial RAM 16GB DDR5 4800MHz CL40 Laptop Memory CT16G48C40S5
NVME - Crucial P3 1TB PCIe Gen3 3D NAND NVMe M.2 SSD, up to 3500MB/s - CT1000P3SSD8

I am looking to install some sort of active cooling and need help.
- What are the fan options/solutions available for this unit?
- Is there any BIOS available for this unit? I often see posts about cwwk BIOS.

Thank you!

I have the same model(N100), with the same ram and nvme. After adding upper and lower(ram and nvme) 120mm fans the temperatures are very good. It works very well, it is very stable. Ambient temperature almost 30 degrees. It has a connection mini for a fan on the board but I use the 2 fan 120mm 12v to 5v USB from the mini pc .

Proxmox+pfsense+adguard+pihole+Home Assitant




idle



with some load

 

[buedi]

EDIT: I've just purchased this one....seems as good as any other, and the price is right. Will be good to have a back up, given the centrality of a router to the SOHO: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004360072281.html

When you have it, could you tell me if the COM / Console ports works on power on, so you can use it for the BIOS and not only when the OS has been bootet up? It would then be fully managable via Console... that is what I am interested in. Thank you in advance

 

[sos_nz]

When you have it, could you tell me if the COM / Console ports works on power on

Yup, will do. It's on the plane from China as I type this, so hopefully will be here in about a week or so.

 

[MadPup]

I have N100 with @tdatta 1.5Edited.bin
Project Version BK-1264NP Ver 1.5
Build Date 09/28/2023 17:23:35
Version 2.22.1287

My CPU is still caped at 800MHz, I dont know what settings in BIOS i need to play around with to get CPU frequency fully unlocked.
can anyone please share their BIOS settings or point me to the right direction.

I followed this guide for BIOS settings and power tuning. TOPTON N5095/N5105/N100 opnsense & proxmox powersave tuning - windgate

How have you verified that it's capped at 800 MHz?

 

[giffyy]

How have you verified that it's capped at 800 MHz?

in proxmox shell:
stress-ng --cpu 4 --timeout 90s

watch -n0.05 "cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep MHz"

so I am putting load on all CPUs and all 4 shows 799-800MHz.

 

[giffyy]

if someone can share their BIOS settings from tabs bellow, on working N100 box with proxmox and OPNsense (VM) that will be really helpful. Thanks.

1: ADV > CPU Configuration
2: ADV > Power & Performance > CPU - power management control