CWWK/Topton/... Nxxx quad NIC router

[sammyke007]

After reading +- of the latest 50 pages, I have arrived at the end!

My review:

I've ordered and received a Topton N100 4 ports 2.5Gb from AliExpress.
According to the pictures it's an X2E N100 model.
I've paid 162 euros without SSD and RAM, shipped to Belgium. Order placed the 10th of januari, order received the 15th of januari (only 5 days!!!).

The RAM I used is 16GB Crucial DDR5 4800mhz (CT16G48C4085) and costed me +- 45 euros.
The SSD I used is a Samsung 256GB NVME that I had lying around.

I've installed OPNsense baremetal as I believe a firewall is a firewall only. (I use HP EliteDesks 800 G4 mini's as wonderful Proxmox servers for HASS, zigbee, zwave, portainer, ...)

The motherboard is a BK-1264NP-4L

What I did after reading the last 50 pages:
1. changed thermal paste with some Arctic MX-4 to be sure. My N100 has an aluminium block between CPU and case. Pre-applied paste seemed to look very OK, not too much, not too less.

2. Adjusted these BIOS settings:
- Chipset > PCH-IO Configuration > SATA configuration > SATA Controllers Enabled ==> Disabled
- Advanced > IT8625 Super IO Configuration > Serial Port 1 & 2 Configuration > Serial Port Enabled ==> Disabled
- Advanced > PWRON After Power Loss > Always Off ==> Always On

That's all...

My OPNsense (config migrated from my old firewall) is running at +- 42°C without any fans. I have a USB 5V fan arriving later today and I've printed an adapter to attach it to the fins of my case. Just to be sure.
The 3d part: over here

Power usage with OPNsense ........ only 12W!

Very happy at the moment with this machine!

Edit: 120mm usb fan attached. Fan is set on the medium setting. The temp went from 42 degrees to 25 degrees (WOW) and power usage only went from 12W to 13W. Very happy!

Some pictures:

 

[TiltCity]

I've read the last 100 pages of this thread and I have to ask for help. I have a CW-X86-P5-V3-N305. I have tried the following sticks of RAM and have yet to find one that doesn't trip the 3 beeps post code. I have tried resetting the CMOS battery

1) Critical 32GB DDR5 CT32G56C46S5
2) Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 KF548S38IB-32
3) Critical 16GB DDR5 CT2K16G56C46S5

This is the second board I have ordered and had this problem. I am open to any and all suggestions on how to move forward.

 

[KevinR]

I've read the last 100 pages of this thread and I have to ask for help. I have a CW-X86-P5-V3-N305. I have tried the following sticks of RAM and have yet to find one that doesn't trip the 3 beeps post code. I have tried resetting the CMOS battery

1) Critical 32GB DDR5 CT32G56C46S5
2) Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 KF548S38IB-32
3) Critical 16GB DDR5 CT2K16G56C46S5

This is the second board I have ordered and had this problem. I am open to any and all suggestions on how to move forward.

This is relying on my memory of reading a lot of threads, so don't take it as gospel...

I've seen others struggle with faster ram, eg your 5600, as the lack of access to the embedded profile seems to leave the Chinese devices confused when the sodimm is faster than the N100/N305 supports. Recall that the cpus are only rated for 16GB at 4800.

If you could get it to boot at all then some have stabilised their system by slowing the bios memory settings down to 4400 or 4000 (roughly).

Some have stabilised their system by using a better psu. Depending where you bought your P5, the external power supply can be a very cheap unit. And none of the supplied ones are high grade. Someone even had a similar issue with one of their NAS motherboards recently using a fairly reliable full size PSU, and swapping out the ATX PSU fixed their problem! These cheap devices have sensitivities that more expensive NUCs might not; but better features at a far lower price.

Some sellers recommend either SK Hynex or Samsung RAM for these devices. Lots of people get success with Crucial, but some users do hit problems, though other components may be the root cause.

My only other thought is to track down a 16GB 4800 stick (even 2nd hand) for testing.

 

[TiltCity]

This is relying on my memory of reading a lot of threads, so don't take it as gospel...

I've seen others struggle with faster ram, eg your 5600, as the lack of access to the embedded profile seems to leave the Chinese devices confused when the sodimm is faster than the N100/N305 supports. Recall that the cpus are only rated for 16GB at 4800.

If you could get it to boot at all then some have stabilised their system by slowing the bios memory settings down to 4400 or 4000 (roughly).

Some have stabilised their system by using a better psu. Depending where you bought your P5, the external power supply can be a very cheap unit. And none of the supplied ones are high grade. Someone even had a similar issue with one of their NAS motherboards recently using a fairly reliable full size PSU, and swapping out the ATX PSU fixed their problem! These cheap devices have sensitivities that more expensive NUCs might not; but better features at a far lower price.

Some sellers recommend either SK Hynex or Samsung RAM for these devices. Lots of people get success with Crucial, but some users do hit problems, though other components may be the root cause.

My only other thought is to track down a 16GB 4800 stick (even 2nd hand) for testing.

Thank you for the reply, I'll look into this

 

[Stovar]

Managed to get all 4 nvme drives recognized again by adding them one by one to expansion board and booting after every added drive. Did not change order of the drives. What could cause this?

In my case I believe that updating the firmware of each of my drives or trying to press the board enough so it fits correctly so far has solved for me. But I'm scared of opening the device again and the disconnections returning.

How has the stability been for both of you in the last few weeks?

I was not aware of this issue, have yet to unbox and set mine up but it is worrying to know the drives may just vanish.

Have you tried it in windows 11 for stability?

I might just do that and use storage spaces to set up a bunch of disk with my 4 nvmes and see if its stable for a few weeks.

 

[KevinR]

While checking the CWWK website I noticed they've done a tweak to the X86-P5 series. They've dubbed it X86-P6. Nominally it's just an upgrade from N100/N305 to the slightly faster N150/N355. There might be other changes though as the other P generations differ by more than just cpu. It's out in all three flavours: cased 2-lan 1xM2, open 4xM2, and cased 4xM2.

They've done a similar tweak on the 2xSPF+2XLAN device.
Also the Purple and Monster NAS motherboards.

 

[Stovar]

Does anyone by chance know if you can buy these 4 long silver screw feet separately? Its the ones that come with the Cwkk P5 mini nas

 

[slybunda]

iv seen those screws before on raspberry pi cases and on the de10 nano fpga mister project boards.

 

[cheesyandy]

After reading +- of the latest 50 pages, I have arrived at the end!

My review:

I've ordered and received a Topton N100 4 ports 2.5Gb from AliExpress.
According to the pictures it's an X2E N100 model.
I've paid 162 euros without SSD and RAM, shipped to Belgium. Order placed the 10th of januari, order received the 15th of januari (only 5 days!!!).

The RAM I used is 16GB Crucial DDR5 4800mhz (CT16G48C4085) and costed me +- 45 euros.
The SSD I used is a Samsung 256GB NVME that I had lying around.

I've installed OPNsense baremetal as I believe a firewall is a firewall only. (I use HP EliteDesks 800 G4 mini's as wonderful Proxmox servers for HASS, zigbee, zwave, portainer, ...)

The motherboard is a BK-1264NP-4L

What I did after reading the last 50 pages:
1. changed thermal paste with some Arctic MX-4 to be sure. My N100 has an aluminium block between CPU and case. Pre-applied paste seemed to look very OK, not too much, not too less.

Excellent write up, this is exactly my setup. Only difference is that I am getting 50-60C with no fan. I replaced the thermal paste with Arctic MX-6 but looking at your photos I didn't realise the aluminium block can be removed. Did you apply thermal grease between the block and the case? I'm wondering if thats why my temps are higher?

 

[olivier2831]

I've not read (yet) this 137 pages long thread but I'm looking for help to find a way to install Debian on a G30M-N100 instance. (see https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/how-to-install-debian-on-a-topton-g30m-n100.46786/).
If you know a successful way to access BIOS (or more generally install alternative OS) with other Topton box, please, do not hesitate to share there.

 

[Stovar]

iv seen those screws before on raspberry pi cases and on the de10 nano fpga mister project boards.

Did some googling got fairly close but they look a bit too think for the hole entry. Its ok I have bought a laptop style cooler with fan on the bottom, its just to give some bottom clearance and air flow on a passive 8845hs mini pc.

 

[slybunda]

3d print them?

 

[tomik]

Fixed, now the expansion board works.

It was indeed a bios problem, i talked with cwwk support and explained what was up, they sent me a bios revision 20240515 (stock came with 20231110), and now disk installed into any slot of the board are detected in bios and in proxmox. Here the main difference in the two bios:

STOCK 20231110, marked as F1 CW-ADLNTB-1C2L

View attachment 36908

View attachment 36909

NEW BIOS 20240515, marked as F3 CW-ADLNTBX-1C2L

View attachment 36910

View attachment 36911

This is the only difference that i can see for now, port 2-3-4 are not shadowed anymore. In the Advanced Options is not needed to switch to M.2 to CEMx4.

Another minor difference is the boot spash logo that is not AMI anymore but sais CWWK.

Here the link provided by CWWK with the new bios X86-P5 最新4*m.2 bios.iso

Hi there,

I flashed BIOS with the file provided and is still seems to play up. Upon powering it off and on it will only see one drive (there are 3 installed). Another time there are 3 drives visible. I emailed CWWK for support 2 days ago bot so far no answer.

I also have another issue with the system cooling fan. When system is powered down, the fan spins at maximum rounds and doesn't stop. I wondered if it's a wrong cables order on the plug but it seems to be ok (blue, yellow, red, black). Does anyone guys have similar problems?

 

[dinjo]

Anyone has difference list between topton N100 X4D vs X4E

Edit - Found that X4E has one additional 4g Sim slot and uses a different aluminum thanks to chatgpt

 

[IdleSlipper]

I am in the UK and attempted to purchase the GST90A12-P1M adapter for the n305 from a electronics supplier. However, the vendor declined the sale citing CE/UKCA compliance concerns.

This appears to be a misunderstanding. While older datasheets (e.g., GST90A-SPEC 2016-03-16) may not explicitly list UKCA certification, the latest information on the Mean Well website (GST90A-SPEC2024-10-30) clearly indicates UKCA compliance.

This situation likely stems from the post-Brexit transition, where CE marking is no longer valid in the UK, and UKCA marking is now required. source:Product Notice: Leading the standard power supply market, MEAN WELL announces all its standard products have complied with UKCA -MEAN WELL Switching Power Supply Manufacturer

Anyone else in the uk using an alternative power adapter able to share which they are using and where they bought it from, i intend to run mine 24/7.

 

[dinjo]

Ok after lot of questioning using different GenAI models i got this info on TopTon Models , there is not much difference but if someone wanted the diff it can be helpful.

Feature	Common Features	X4D	X4E	X4B/COM	P5	X4C	X4C-XL	X2E
LAN Ports	4x 2.5G Intel i226-V	Same	Same	Same	Same	Same	Same	Same
USB Ports	2x USB 3.0	+ 2x USB 2.0	+ 4x USB 2.0	+ 4x USB 2.0	+ 4x USB 2.0	+ 6x USB 2.0	+ 6x USB 2.0	+ 6x USB 2.0
RAM Support	DDR5 4800MHz	Same	Same	Same	Same	Same	Same	Same
Storage	1x M.2 NVMe + 1x SATA	Same	Same	Same	Same	Dual M.2 NVMe PCIe slots	Dual M.2 NVMe PCIe slots	Dual M.2 NVMe PCIe slots
SIM Slots	None	1x 4G/3G	1x 5G + 1x 4G/3G	1x 4G/3G	1x 4G/3G	None	None	None
Display Ports	HDMI + DP	Same	Same	Dual HDMI	Same	HDMI + DP	HDMI (2.1) + DP (1.4)	HDMI (2.1) + DP (1.4)
COM Ports	None	RJ45 Console	RJ45 Console	Dual RS232/RS485	RJ45 Console	RJ45 Console	RJ45 Console	RJ45 Console
Cooling	Fanless	Standard fins	Standard fins	Longer fins for better dissipation	Standard fins	Aluminum fins	Aluminum fins with optional fan	Aluminum fins with optional fan
Special Features	None	Basic model	Premium connectivity	Best heat dissipation	Compact design	Entry-level compact design		High-performance compact design
Thermal Performance		Good cooling performance		Best cooling, lower temperatures		Standard cooling		Better cooling with optional fan

The one thing i could not figure out is why people mostly opt for CWWK instead of TopTon despite so many issues in past thread i dont much noise for topton models

 

[pigr8]

Hi there,

I flashed BIOS with the file provided and is still seems to play up. Upon powering it off and on it will only see one drive (there are 3 installed). Another time there are 3 drives visible. I emailed CWWK for support 2 days ago bot so far no answer.

I also have another issue with the system cooling fan. When system is powered down, the fan spins at maximum rounds and doesn't stop. I wondered if it's a wrong cables order on the plug but it seems to be ok (blue, yellow, red, black). Does anyone guys have similar problems?

mmm nope, it works perfectly here since months, sorry never had fan issues btw.

 

[DougQuaid]

Depending on CPU that you select you should set PL1 and PL2 to the same value. Yes this will effectively disable turbo boost but at the same time you will have control of both the performance AND powerusage and by that heat produced.

For a N100 I would go for 6W (value 6000 in the BIOS) and for a N305 (or the newer N355) I would go for 15W (value 15000 in the BIOS) which matches the TDP defined by below datasheets:

certainly do not limit the N100 to 6W, that TDP value is pure nonsense from intel, setting it to 6W will lock the cpu to 400MHz (and even then it will have higher power consumption under all-core load) and will make the whole system totally unusable.
Realistically, the cpu eats around 12W in single core load at 3.4GHz and over 25W in all-core load at 2.9GHz. I assume that the N305 has even higher power consumption, since it has twice as many cores.

 

[mtdv]

Anyone else in the uk using an alternative power adapter able to share which they are using and where they bought it from, i intend to run mine 24/7

I haven't tried to buy the GST90A12-P1M, but DigiKey were quite happy to sell me the 60 and 40 watt counterparts

https://www.digikey.co.uk/en/products/detail/mean-well-usa-inc/GST60A12-P1M/10659858

https://www.digikey.co.uk/en/products/detail/mean-well-usa-inc/GST40A12-P1M/10659924

 

[jauling]

The DC IN on these cases are pretty much all DC5.5x2.1mm, right? I had ordered a POE splitter with this spec plug, but the plug seems too small for the jack in the chassis. I may have a splitter defect.