CWWK/Topton/... Nxxx quad NIC router

[newsboost]

Hi everyone. Yesterday, I just received my "2023_Alder_Lake_12th_Gen Intel_i3_N305_8_Core_4xi226-V_2.5G" Mini-PC from KingNovy (which I think is a brand under Topton, because in the bottom there's a picture of TOPTOP and "About Us: Why choose Topton"): - link: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005381681392.html - it came preinstalled with OPNsense and measured power consumption was around ~20 W'ish and the temperature increased to around 47 deg.C after a while and the chassis became more hot than I expected, considering it's sold as a "fanless system". It's my impression that during high workload, the temperature will increase even more...

In the video

, at around 13:40 min:sec, the guy talks about bad quality and the need for thermal re-pasting. Furthermore, I can see I could've paid a bit more to get WiFi (antennas), AC WiFi (antennas) for US $10, AX WiFi6 (antennas) for US $30, internal 4010 cooling FAN for US $9. My questions:

1) Can I buy any cooling FAN which is marked "4010" and expect it to work (e.g. from amazon) or do I have to buy this specific cooling fan and have it shipped all the way from China/Hong Kong again (prefer to buy it closer, if any "4010" fan works)?
2) If I open up the case, I guess it's easy enough to install the cooling fan myself?
3) Do I need to consider buying and redoing the thermal paste?
4) If I have to buy the 4010 cooling fan from aliexpress, I'm considering also buying 1-2 antennas. Is "WiFi" the same same as "AC WiFi" antenna?

Hope someone can help an aliexpress mini-pc newbie here with these questions, thanks!

 

[flips33]

Can you place a screenshot, i realy dont have that opion.

The main BIOS Screen has:

Main | Advanced | Chipset | Security | Boot | Save & Exit

Navigate to the "Boot" menu, and the first option is "Beep function"

 

[flips33]

it came preinstalled with OPNsense and measured power consumption was around ~20 W'ish and the temperature increased to around 47 deg.C after a while and the chassis became more hot than I expected, considering it's sold as a "fanless system". It's my impression that during high workload, the temperature will increase even more...

20W seems high for a mostly-idling system. I have an N305 on order, but right now I only have the N200 and it idles around 9W (including 2 x nvme)

I would start by checking power management settings in OPNSense/BIOS:

If you enable PowerD (System --> Settings --> Miscellaneous) and set it to "Hiadaptive" or "Minimum", depending of you Hardware, you can save a lot of power.

I did this and enabled all the power saving in my BIOS (C6 etc.) and the power draw of my OPNsense Router fell from ~21W to ~13W.

reddit.com/r/OPNsenseFirewall/comments/i9fa75/opnsense_hardware_power_consumption/

Even if no improvements are to be had, 47 degrees is not an unreasonable temperature to be running at, and keep in mind that the chassis is acting as a CPU heat sink. If you take the cover off a desktop machine, you will often find the heatsink to be quite hot to the touch, particularly under load. This is normal.

I'm considering also buying 1-2 antennas. Is "WiFi" the same same as "AC WiFi" antenna?

Just to make sure you are aware, you also need to buy an m.2 wifi adapter. Whether you get a Wifi5 (AC) or Wifi6 (AX) adapter will determine what the most suitable antenna is.

 

[scorpid]

Hello, how can I make POE?
And the second question, does this mini-PC have a WOL? And how does it boot after power is restored?

 

[flips33]

Hello, how can I make POE?
And the second question, does this mini-PC have a WOL? And how does it boot after power is restored?

I don't see any way this can be powered by PoE, or provide PoE power to other devices.
WoL = haven't tested
Boot after power is restored - Mine powers on after power loss/restore even if the computer was turned off. Fairly certain this was default and didn't require BIOS settings change.

 

[scorpid]

I don't see any way this can be powered by PoE, or provide PoE power to other devices.
WoL = haven't tested
Boot after power is restored - Mine powers on after power loss/restore even if the computer was turned off. Fairly certain this was default and didn't require BIOS settings change.

Thanks !

 

[AnthonyUK]

For this CWWK N100 - how much RAM is max, 16 or 32?

Intel states the max supported is 16Gb but these say 32Gb and people have successfully tested that they work fine.

Personally I have no need for 32Gb and would not like to exceed CPU manufacturers limit.

 

[Radix]

Got my TopTon N100 with 4 ports earlier in the week and loving it so far. Very nice little unit - quiet as a mouse and cool to touch. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005499530921.html is the one I ordered and added a 32GB Crucial DDR5 SODIMM and a Crucial P3 1TB nvme m.2 SSD.
I notice the price has gone up on AliExpress considerably - I paid $335 and now it's $506 for the same thing - not sure why.

I've installed Proxmox 8.0beta1, OPNsense 23.1 and PiHole so far to play with and it's been pretty flawless.

 

[Peacecamper]

Has anybody of you ordered straight from CWWK? Any experience with their store? 290 USD for the N305 barebone seems like a good deal: Intel 12th generation N series 8-core new member N95/N100/N200/N305 fanless mini host soft router

 

[B0rg]

32 GB i have running in that unit.

 

[B0rg]

Has anybody of you ordered straight from CWWK? Any experience with their store? 290 USD for the N305 barebone seems like a good deal: Intel 12th generation N series 8-core new member N95/N100/N200/N305 fanless mini host soft router

Yes, i order there N100 unit on Thursday and got it monday, blazing fast.

 

[B0rg]

The main BIOS Screen has:

Main | Advanced | Chipset | Security | Boot | Save & Exit

Navigate to the "Boot" menu, and the first option is "Beep function"

I dont have that option

 

[ohm]

I dont have that option
View attachment 29827

What's your device model and BIOS version?

 

[B0rg]

I flashed it because the HDMI was not working, so support give me a N100 firmware update but didnt help.

 

[Peacecamper]

Yes, i order there N100 unit on Thursday and got it monday, blazing fast.

Thx. Pulled the trigger on an N305 unit.

 

[scorpid]

I want to buy a Meanwell power supply. How many watts to choose? Now my choice is 40 watts

 

[ohm]

I flashed it because the HDMI was not working, so support give me a N100 firmware update but didnt help.
View attachment 29828

Looks like you have an earlier version without the Beep function option.

 

[flips33]

I dont have that option

Just so you don't think we're making this up...



Check not only the BIOS version but the date - there are two versions of 0.01 with different dates.

I have this, the later version of ADLN 0.01 - 04/04/2023

 

[B0rg]

ahhh thank you, yes the dates are not the same! Ill ask support to send me the correct version.

 

[Esports_are_for_losers]

Ordered the i3 N305 (no mem or ssd) from the topton store on ali express and it arrived yesterday. Just under 2 weeks from order to arrival in California.

Added a 2TB Samsung 970 Evo + SSD and a 32 gig Samsung DDR5 module.

Unit took a min an a half on first boot (Assuming memory training) but after that it powers on to bios screen instantly. No problems with HDMI or anything else.

Installed proxmox 8 (Which just left beta yesterday. Ships with the 6.2 kernel that works better with these new cpus). Proxmox 8 iso didn't like my usb cd emulator, but I made a usb stick with rufus and installed without a fuss. Enabled IOMMU and was able to pass through two of the nics to an OPNSense VM without a fuss.

Didn't have time to do any testing beyond that but this weekend I'm going to migrate over my Omada controller CT, setup a container server and migrate over my network centric docker containers, and switch routing over to the OPNSense VM. I'll report back how everything goes.

Thanks for the work and exploration of everyone else in this thread.