They do appear to be already well built the cwwk units at least, but you might wish to slide a bright led torch and see if there is a gap between the cpu and copper plate or heatsink. I myself did not risk it, it really does take a few minutes to unscrew the screws and get to the mainboard.Yea, i could move this way, start it easy and then experiment when some spear time'll be available.
It's the ram/nvme drive installation easy or should i go for those proposed by them?
In virtualization mode, i could deploy a zabbix server to monitor things around.
Did you pull off/replaced the thermal paste?
Are the cwwk's shipments fast/reliable enough? Better than Ali?
I can't find a device with usb3 ports, am i missing something or there's not any?
If you check this thread here the last 20 or so pages, I posted some pics of the screws and mainboard its not the Newer N100 and N series lot but the cwwk N5105 6 nic version I got 2-3 months ago so should be similar somewhat. There is also a thread where I mentioned some power bios tweaks but check the 4 pages here also since the tweaks are even more improved on by Becks. Lots of other great info and pics on that other thread too.
I took my paste off since it was easy and re-applied with some artic silver paste and checked it left an imprint so the contact between heatsink and cpu was there but sometimes there can be a gap which is why others used copper plates and shims in-between or modded it be shaving off the mounting screw heights so it was a tighter fit. Cwwk units much lesser issue though.
Its tricky to say but maybe best to ask cwwk direct via chat, it varies country wise and some of us got the dreaded duty fee to pay which really does bump up the cost sadly which I got too. You may need to contact Ali and other companies to get details on that though. If you see the topton unit here think it list duty free, not sure how true that is.
Yeah I think the newer N100 and above do not have the usb 3.0 ports for now, you have to remember these are just the very first units within a 6 months or 1 years time we will probably be on revision 3-4 etc, I think the N5105 peaked and got the best it was gonna get around revision 4-5 and now there all moving over to the N100+ series since its better overall.