CWWK/Topton/... Nxxx quad NIC router

[Dostring]

I followed the same instruction from page 4. I am using Unraid, my power consumption with only USB flash and an SD card and only using LAN0 is about 6W. I have LAN1-3 all disabled completely. I have the Crucial 48GB memory stick.
Any usb peripheral or video output adds watts.
With 2 SSDs I am at 11W mark.

Isn't that in line with what I have seen? You have LAN0, RAM, usb+sd at 6 W and adding 2 SSD takes you to 11 W. I have LAN0-4, all usb ports, RAM 32GB Kingstone, 1 TB NVMe WD and have 9 W idle.

I did passmark yesterday and will post results later when at home but they were similar to others. I also did stress testing as per Becks and temperatures were surprisingly low. I've barely reached 50 C on the cpu and the drive hasn't moved from 59 C during the minute.

I've also tried to turn PCI devices power management to "auto" one by one from powertop. I started with unused LAN ports (but proxmox has them as physical interfaces). On changing second one, my console froze again and had to do hard restart. It is the same behaviour I saw when changing ASPM to auto in bios. I understand that that is not something you guys have seen and frankly I don't expect too much power savings from ASPM to investigate it further.

 

[Stovar]

.

 

[Stovar]

I got the CWWK i3-1315U model and have been wondering the same thing. AC went out for like 14 days this past summer and have a new one now but since Covid everything takes much longer now to get fixed. So others should think about cooling options for next summer too and for the future, just in case.

Someone made that cool 3D printer fan option for your model, mine wouldn't work with that, I really wish it would though
CWWK/Topton Mini PC Fan Mount by Shenaniganz - MakerWorld 99% someone posted it in this actual thread. It's so cool, I'm considering getting this style next just for this. Unless all the new CWWK ones will have copper with fans blowing on top, if they do they need bigger holes on top and the bottom.

I'd love to have that, my models bottom is horrible for airflow. Actually, thinking of drilling some holes or literally cutting a hole, it's that's bad.
I'm planning on running a lot of software off of mine at first, pretty sure after more research it's not going to cut it, but going to try.

The older ones actually had bigger holes on the bottom for fans to actually breath I noticed on AliExpress, the J4000 models IIRC.

I started a wishlist on Amazon so I could choose a few options. Bottom of mine has holes for 80x80 and it for sure fits 10mm inside there. Took out my digital calipers. Thinking of making a template and see if I can make a Noctua 92x92x14 mm fit. Put calipers in there and 15mm seems would work, but NVMe isn't installed yet. So 14mm is pushing it. But other 80x80x10mm fans are junk for the CFM's they move to the dBA.
I did order this below though, on my model have two odd Sata ports so CWWK included two sata cables that will work with this and will turn it into fan ports in case I don't use a 2.5" SSD. However, if any heat problems I'll go with an external AC fan solution. Most likely I will anyways, but wanted one.
CRJ 15-Pin SATA to Dual 3-Pin and 4-Pin PWM Sleeved Fan 12V Power Adapter Cable (amazon.com)

Bottom would have to be drilled.

Much easier obviously AC Infinity makes some nice stuff.
AC Infinity MULTIFAN S4, Quiet 140mm USB Fan, UL-Certified for Receiver DVR Playstation Xbox Computer Cabinet Cooling (amazon.com)
If you are planning on getting 2 or 3 of these micro firewalls or Mini PC's and putting them next to each other
AC Infinity AIRCOM S9, Quiet Cooling Fan System 17" Top-Exhaust for Receivers, Amps, DVR, AV Cabinet Components (amazon.com)


GDSTIME 140mm x 25mm 110V 220V AC Powered Fan with Speed Controller for DIY Cabinet Cooling Ventilation (amazon.com)

Delinx 120 mm Case Fan, Cooling Fan with Speed Control, USB 5V Power, Low Noise, Dust Filter, Quiet Motor, 1700 RPM - Double Fan (amazon.com)

Noctua NF-A9x14 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (92x14mm, Brown) (amazon.com) Bottom would have to be drilled.








View attachment 33218


Or was just thinking of getting this

Delinx 12V Fan Power Supply,PC Fan Speed Controller,100-240vAC to 3-12vDC 24W Adjustable Fan Power Adapter,with Fan Splitter Cable,DC Female to 2 x 3/4 Pin, Multi-Functional (amazon.com)

Then getting two Noctua outside fans with grills. Since mine has a small one on top I would just get a 120mm one on top to help the CPU one out maybe.

On the bottom I would get a 140mm or maybe a 200mm ( expensive though ).

Noctua NF-A20 PWM chromax.Black.swap, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (200x30mm, Black) For Desktop (amazon.com)


Noctua NF-A14 PWM chromax.Black.swap, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (140mm, Black) : (amazon.com)
Noctua NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM, Quiet Fan, 4-Pin, 1200 RPM (140mm, Grey) (amazon.com)

Noctua NA-SAVG2 chromax.Black, Anti-Vibration Gaskets for 140x25mm Fans (Set of 3, Black) (amazon.com)

APEVIA G-140MM Apevia 140mm black fan grill 2 in 1 pack - Retail (amazon.com)
Noctua NA-FG1-14 Sx2, Fan Grills for 140mm Fans (Set of 2, Black) (amazon.com)

Or if go with 120mm ones may use these dust covers that snap on both ends. Obviously with all of these things saved I have no clue.

Obviously with all of these things saved I have no clue what direction I'm going to go but for sure I am going with some extra fan system. Heat kills every man made thing. Want this one to last, even if I pass it on to a relative or something with just pfSense or OPNsense only and something like Tailscale where I can update it.

Got my ram in and getting my CPU paste today.

Wathai 2 Pack 120mm PC Fan Dust Filter Cover Computer Mess (amazon.com)

Got this for my router on Prime Day and it can run really low and silent so I do like the idea of these:
WDERAIR 4x120mm Router Cooling pad Flat Fan with Variable Speed Controller for DIY Electronics TV Box Cabinet Computer Game Equipment Cooler : Electronics (amazon.com)

Sounds like you got things figured, but imo rather then drilling and modding and going the whole way, why not just strap an 120mm Noctua onto one side and then check temps out and see how it goes?

If you really wanted you can even strap another silent noctua 120mm fan on the other side and almost have 2 noctuas sandwiched in-between the mini pc and cool it. You can also get the usb to fan adaptors or noctual USB 120mm fans and strap it via metal cables or wiring just for trial and error.

You don't even need to get fancy with the testing, run the cooling with 1 or 2 fans and you can open the cover panel up and quickly skim your finger on the parts (ram, nvme, wifi card etc) see if its hot or not just be careful when you do this and make sure its off.

We can see from that post just a page or 2 ago, a member mentioned he had an fried nvme drive due to heat build up but he was using a wireless card which are also known to run on the hot side especially the 6e cards, different for everyone naturally but heat is always the enemy and more so with mini pcs imo so it doesn't hurt to have to form of active cooling.

 

[francesc0]

EDIT: I replaced the RAM and it appears to be working fine now.

I purchased an N100 from Topton on AliExpress from this link. I heard they used Crucial for RAM/SSD, so I purchased the 16GB RAM / 512GB SSD option for a total of only $248. I loaded Proxmox with two VMs--OPNsense and HAOS. CPU usage was in the teens or less, memory usage was low. Thermals were unusually high and the device was very hot to the touch.

It worked for a couple days, then it began crashing once a day. I ran memtest86 on the RAM and it passed the first test, then rebooted during the second test, and passed the third test. I also tested the SSD with CrystalDiskInfo which received a healthy result. As far as I can tell, the SSD and RAM are in fine working condition, although they are both from companies I've never heard of (SK hynix ram and Huadisk SSD).

I noticed the thermals were at 81c during the memtest, so I assumed the issue was overheating and placed a small box fan next to the unit and left it there overnight. The box was cool to the touch and thermals were down to ~40c at idle (previously in the 70s at idle). When I woke up, the device had crashed and again was unresponsive. The thermals were still at 40c right before the crash.

I attempted to reinstall Proxmox, however it then booted into the UEFI Interactive Shell after install. Tried the install again and it crashed immediately. I tried to boot to the BIOS but it crashed immediately.

At this point I believe there is likely a fault in the CPU or motherboard. I was going to try replacing the SSD and/or RAM, but based on the test results that seems like a futile effort. If anyone has any ideas here I'd love to hear them. I'm pretty sure the box is just dead, but if there's a way to fix it that would be the ideal solution.

At this point my plan is to open a return and refund request on AliExpress due to the item being defective and receive a full refund. There doesn't appear to be a return and replace option as far as I can tell, and at this point I'd likely prefer to get one from CWWK, even though I got a huge discount ordering on Black Friday. I have never returned anything on AliExpress before and have been dreading this process after reading numerous awful experiences here and on reddit.

Does anyone have any advice on how to go through the return process on AliExpress? Will they send me a prepaid shipping label? It seems like the return shipping is often where things get complicated.

EDIT: I replaced the RAM and it appears to be working fine now.

 

[Hasentear]

Hi everyone, great forum, great thread, read all ~70 pages the recent days! Thanks for all the information so far!

Thoses little boxes seem to be quite interesting, though it appears to me the case/form factor is just to small for what the hardware is capable of. If size would be increased by 20% in all three dimensions (+70% in volume), the device would still be "handy", but dissipation of heat would be much less a challenge. Are there any fanless alternatives? Maybe some DIY solutions?

I read here about setups with 8 cores, 48 GB of RAM and 5 SSDs with 4TB each. A lot of people use big towers with far lower specs for their everyday work... Amazing times!

So while power consumption on idle/low load is important economical wise for sure, I am more concerned about stability and reliability under stress/full load. If I backup some TB via USB3, I can't accept a bit flip, even when some processes cause very high CPU load.

Would some people like to share their experiences with heavy duty workloads, like massive USB3 transfer, significant traffic over the NICs and some quite busy VMs all AT ONCE? For hours?

 

[thepsyborg]

5- Any reason not to buy the five port Fengshang model?

The 2- and 4-slot M.2 NVME breakout boards are exclusive to the 4-NIC version, if more, slower storage is something you care about having the option for.

 

[SanFable]

Hello,

Wow, I'm impressed finding this topic.

I'm moving soon to my new house and I'm thinking about creating network in a "more advanced way".

Internet speed will be 2Gbps download, 600Mbps upload from ONT 2.5Gb

I'm thinking about CWWK router with n100/n305 but I'm not sure which to choose.

on CWWK I would like to have:
- Proxmox and in it:
- Home assistant (This will expand because I love IoT gadgets lol)
- pfsense or opnsense with DHCP server (not sure which one will act better, I heard something about pfsense utilizing only one core)
- wireguard VPN
- dynamic dns
- Pi hole for blocking ads
- maybe network shared drive
- maybe PLEX
- maybe some kind of a NVR recorder just for 1/2 ip cameras at around fhd resolution

That's what I got in my mind for now,

Questions:

Which hardware would be sufficient for list above? I heard that n100 is barely working with pfsense at 1Gbps, I will have 2Gbps, in real, for now, only one PC is equipped with 2.5g, but my network will have about 30 devices, for WIFI I have orbi pro mesh ax6000.

Looking into future, 8 cores from n305 would be great to assign in proxmox, but its really expensive...
RAM, uh, 32gb DDR5 is too expensive but I think I will allocate 16gb easily.

I have got already Asrock J4125 board with 2x16GB SODIMM (laptop) RAM But I was using it only as a NAS with ZFS.
I don't see any alternative hardware where I could utilize 2x16GB RAM with similar performance/Watt ratio

I'm looking for power efficiency too, Around 10W at idle I would like to see.

Did anyone loaded proxmox with that plenty of things and that fast ethernet? will it work?

 

[cpcompany]

Just taken delivery of a topton N100 from Ali. Looking forward to puttong OPNsense on it. I’ve ordered a thermal paste and will re-apply that. I’ve ordered MX4. Hopefully that’s ok?

also what is used to monitor component temperatures and what is acceptable and what is dangerous? (Im not installing proxmox).

 

[Becks0815]

heard that n100 is barely working with pfsense at 1Gbps

n100 opnsense as vm in proxmox, 1gbit, while routing data through the machine at full speed I had 22% cpu usage.

 

[FingerBlaster]

Anyone here used the "13th gen soft router" with the i5-1240p and sfp ports? I don't see a lot of mentions on this CPU. Is it just a bad value compared to some more traditional mini pcs? I'm interested in some more power for proxmox ceph cluster.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806076803755.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.5735c38cuWkJGi&algo_pvid=cc1cae9c-0c13-43cf-8885-03a52fb705bd&algo_exp_id=cc1cae9c-0c13-43cf-8885-03a52fb705bd-0&pdp_npi=4@dis!USD!935.22!579.84!!!935.22!!@210318bb17026558103342414e0e66!12000036519490409!sea!US!0!AB&curPageLogUid=4W8rpaOgp8cR

 

[Mike9474593]

Anyone here used the "13th gen soft router" with the i5-1240p and sfp ports? I don't see a lot of mentions on this CPU. Is it just a bad value compared to some more traditional mini pcs? I'm interested in some more power for proxmox ceph cluster.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806076803755.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.5735c38cuWkJGi&algo_pvid=cc1cae9c-0c13-43cf-8885-03a52fb705bd&algo_exp_id=cc1cae9c-0c13-43cf-8885-03a52fb705bd-0&pdp_npi=4@dis!USD!935.22!579.84!!!935.22!!@210318bb17026558103342414e0e66!12000036519490409!sea!US!0!AB&curPageLogUid=4W8rpaOgp8cR

STH has reviewed these: 8x 2.5G and 2 SFP+ + 4x 2.5G. Conclusion is somehow mixed. Maybe the 13th gen is different?
Edit: There is a thrad about the unit: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/cwwk-6-port-router-intel-u300-i3-1315u-i5-1335u-i7-1355u.42079/

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/topton-4-port-2-5g-and-2-port-10g-10th-gen-core-units-and-8-port-2-5g.40533/

Edit: linked wrong thread.

 

[serveuser]

Are there any Proxmox users here who have CW-ADLN-6L six-port N305? I installed Kingston FURY Impact KF556S40IB-32 32GB memory and two Samsung 990 Pro NVMes. I did full memory tests twice - all without errors. N305 is cold when idle (~26-34 C). BIOS 5.27 08/23/2023

FreeBSD 14 works great - no complaints at all.
Windows 11 works great - no complaints at all.
VMware ESXi 8.0u2 works great - no complaints at all.

But I'm having problems with all versions of Proxmox that I've tested. With all versions, spontaneous freezes occur either on the host OS in Proxmox, or bugs and freezes in guest systems (Ubuntu 23.10 and 22.04.03 LTS). I'm using ZFS RAID1 mode, ashift 12.

After a 10+ hour successful memory test, I loaded proxmox and it crashed just after a few minutes. I loaded the BIOS to see if I could change any settings to improve stability. I saw the watchdog settings in the BIOS and decided to configure it, which, as expected, led to a cyclic reboot in such a way that I couldn’t even get into the BIOS settings.

I unscrewed the unit cover to see how to reset the CMOS settings, but did not immediately find the CMOS memory reset button and decided to simply remove the battery. But to do this I had to remove the memory module. After I put everything back together and started it up, I don't experience any problems at all.



It looks like this problem has been resolved, but I don't understand what contributed to the solution.

 

[MicroGenius]

Glad I found this thread, great discussion and information.
Quick backstory for help with any recommendations!

I recently threw together a unraid build with a dell micro 11th gen i7. I have a 5 bay hdd enclosure with pass through SATA. The bay is powered by a 300w flex PSU. That PSU also powers a NZXT fan controller for the HDD enclosure. between the dell micro and the enclosure, my idle power is about 35-40 watts with drives spun down. Not great, not terrible.

This lead me here. I found the P5 and it seems close to perfect for my needs but I would like to verify something. The 2280 m.2 will accept my sata 6 port adapter but my only other option for a cache drive is using one of the 2 onboard sata sockets?

Also, has anybody ran on of these with a pico PSU adapter? I'm pretty set on using 1 PSU for both the mini pc and my external HDD enclosure.

 

[SanFable]

Also, has anybody ran on of these with a pico PSU adapter? I'm pretty set on using 1 PSU for both the mini pc and my external HDD enclosure.

I was using for about year Pico PSU https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32630896191.html with Asrock J4125 in 3d printed case, it was pretty efficient but - this is chinese thing, I was afraid to run chinese PSU 24/7 connected to expensive server - not the real money but let 3.3/5v change to 12 because of chinese PSU and all NAS data might be gone?

Once I ended by providing 12v from motorcycle to my asus zenbook usb port because of fake AMS1117 voltage regulator on arduino lol
(laptop/usb port survived!, just laptop went black/turned off)

 

[cpcompany]

Running a Memtest on the Topton N100 from Ali and it's not showing the CPU temp. Is that normal?

 

[thys]

Just wanted to check in on this topic. Have been reading a lot here about the various minipc's and have ordered this N100. This one is sold by Topton and WooYi and has brandings G30W-N100 and BK-1264NP-4L.

https://aliexpress.com/item/1005005101414655.html

https://aliexpress.com/item/1005006036859811.html

Really excited about this one. Also one of the few with the simcard slots. Power usage (after tuning, aspm enabled) in idle proxmox is 5w from the socket. Power supply is a (fake?) Delta 12V 4A one. It does not run hot so that is a good sign. Idle temp is 28c and on high load it gets up to 50c which is quite good considering this one probably has the worst thermal design if you look at the case.

The stock BIOS was very limited in settings. All PCIe pages removed etc. I've taken the tips from @fta in the i5-1235U topic and have made a custom BIOS with these pages unlocked. Also wanted to share it here if anyone else is running into these limitations.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bf9lGb-0g5VF7VMxW9dX9a5Tzm_vVwQq/view

Usage is fully at own risk!!

For me it is very stable also with ASPM enabled. So again very happy with this (cheap) unit!

 

[Dostring]

An update from me. I've managed to install and configure my 4 port N100 as a router and after an endless couple of minutes it received IP address and started working. I was worried to exchange my original TP Link but LAN network was working straight away and it took a while but internet followed. I've received also a IPv6 address and will need to learn more about networking using that.

So far, I am using 3 ports (2 for LAN until my switch arrives), have OPNsense VM and debian container with Technitium DNS/DHCP. No traffic to speak of, just browsing or idle and my router is on 12 W. I had better idle power without the container and previous OPNsense install but I had to reinstall after I couldn't figure out how to migrate my LAN to different subnet (with the cables I had). Although I chose the same options in OPNsense so it might be just that container w/ Technitium. If I am in a good mood I might return to power optimization (disable usb & graphical output, I won't try pci again). One more question - is 66 deg Celsius in line with what you guys see for NVMe temperature (while doing nothing)?

Now, I need to install wireguard. I had a wg-easy docker container but it might be easier to use plugin in OPNsense and install wireguard UI container.

 

[Maor]

Isn't that in line with what I have seen? You have LAN0, RAM, usb+sd at 6 W and adding 2 SSD takes you to 11 W. I have LAN0-4, all usb ports, RAM 32GB Kingstone, 1 TB NVMe WD and have 9 W idle.

I did passmark yesterday and will post results later when at home but they were similar to others. I also did stress testing as per Becks and temperatures were surprisingly low. I've barely reached 50 C on the cpu and the drive hasn't moved from 59 C during the minute.

I've also tried to turn PCI devices power management to "auto" one by one from powertop. I started with unused LAN ports (but proxmox has them as physical interfaces). On changing second one, my console froze again and had to do hard restart. It is the same behaviour I saw when changing ASPM to auto in bios. I understand that that is not something you guys have seen and frankly I don't expect too much power savings from ASPM to investigate it further.

ASPM should save ~1W per SSD. Unfortunately ASPM is broken for lines 2, 3 and 4 on the breakout board for me, I am waiting for other owners to test this.
CWWK did not reply to me on the ASPM issue.

 

[Dostring]

ASPM should save ~1W per SSD. Unfortunately ASPM is broken for lines 2, 3 and 4 on the breakout board for me, I am waiting for other owners to test this.
CWWK did not reply to me on the ASPM issue.

How can you say it is broken? Did you have similar issues like I did (machine froze)? I am reluctant to play with it some more since it already serves as my router but if I could tell before it freezes I could try again.

 

[cpcompany]

how are people managing to view CPU temperatures while running Memtest? Mines doesn't show the temp, only the clock speed. (Topton N100 Model C).