CWWK/Topton/... Nxxx quad NIC router

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splifingate

Member
Oct 7, 2023
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Foxandxss said:
Spent two weeks just with hard.
Click to expand...
*cough*

It took me over a day to get to success, and that was with all your obvious cookie-crumbles!

Quite a feat, Fox :)

That being said...

I've a NF-F12-5V PWM sitting atop my unit, and it's connected via USB.

There is no foreseeable torture on this unit, and my temps are extremely low.

Did you verify that the MB fan connector is 12v (opposed to 5v, as I had originally surmised)?
 
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Foxandxss

Member
Aug 14, 2023
41
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8
splifingate said:
*cough*

It took me over a day to get to success, and that was with all your obvious cookie-crumbles!

Quite a feat, Fox :)

That being said...

I've a NF-F12-5V PWM sitting atop my unit, and it's connected via USB.

There is no foreseeable torture on this unit, and my temps are extremely low.

Did you verify that the MB fan connector is 12v (opposed to 5v, as I had originally surmised)?
Click to expand...
The v2 of the CWWK machine (n100-n305 with 4 ports, AKA CW-AL-4L v2), the one with a sata port inside has two fan connectors (one on the ram side for the system and one on the cpu side for the cpu) and both are 12v, 4 pin. By default they will respond to system temperature and the other to the cpu. Unless you override it with fancontrol.
 
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Stovar

Active Member
Dec 27, 2022
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Stovar said:
tried the gigabyte and now new patriot nvme and zero power on display from this replacement cwwk board, both nvmes work on the other faulty motherboard so it looks like this new replacement board has a faulty nvme slot.

Was thinking if an bios update may resolve some nvme compatibilities but doesn't feel like it.

Very strange, will ask cwwk what next to do.
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Done more further testing with my nvme drive issues.... ill keep it short.

These N5105 and N100 Topton and Cwwk systems are so fussy with nvme brands! I thought I cant be the only one that has experienced so much issue and there was 1 post here with my same issue here and he had the crucial p3 nvme.

2 branded nvmes all failed on my cwwk N5105 (gigabyte and patriot) and the gigabyte nvme failed on the topton N100.

If you get no display/power on, remove the nvme and re-try without the nvme to see if it powers on/displays at least, I found an very old 6-7 year old nvme intel 600p nvme and it works fine on both cwwk/topton.

I also think this may be true with minipcie devices, I have 3 wireless cards and none of them get detected in windows 10/11 no detection/missing drivers even in device manager on either cwwk or topton units, but one issue at a time I could be wrong on that one.

Bios updates may help the nvme detection/support but unable to test this.
 
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Mike9474593

Member
Aug 5, 2022
99
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Octopuss said:
Does it matter whether I choose CWWK or Topton?
I'm looking at units with case type C and N100 CPU.
I guess the internals are identical?
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Topton/KingNovy just does sell these units, changwang manufactures them. Internals are identical, accessories may be different. I got some very bad PSU with wrong outlets from Topton, missing adapters (eg fan). And service, shipping speed and after sales was very bad from Topton. I ordered 3 times there and had all three times issues: broken device, broken PSU, wrong PSU, slow shipping, fake tracking number, not respecting what we agreed on shipping terms. Not gonna order at Topton/Kingnovy and similar named stores again. Only at cwwk.net or on Ali on CWWK Store or CWWK PC Store.
Others may have different experience with Topton, but for me they are no go.
 
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Octopuss

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Jun 30, 2019
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Czech republic
Some more questions came to my mind.

1) Shall I order from Ali or directly from their website? Is there any difference?

2) Shall I be careful with memory? The specs say the thing is compatible with 5200/5600MHz memory, but is it really?

3) I still feel like 4xLAN variant is a waste of money. Has anyone ordered one of the dual port units recently and made note of the cooling system? Is it any better than the older stuff by chance in terms of the gap, the copper block flatness and stuff?
I think I might get away with a smaller unit, considering it would mostly idle most of the time. I don't use any VPN or any special stuff, just plain pfSense routing in a small household.
 
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blunden

Active Member
Nov 29, 2019
496
158
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Octopuss said:
3) I still feel like 4xLAN variant is a waste of money. Has anyone ordered one of the dual port units recently and made note of the cooling system? Is it any better than the older stuff by chance in terms of the gap, the copper block flatness and stuff?
I think I might get away with a smaller unit, considering it would mostly idle most of the time. I don't use any VPN or any special stuff, just plain pfSense routing in a small household.
Click to expand...
The production cost of the extra NICs are likely very low (Intel's recommended price for 1000 units of i226-v is $2.87 each) so manufacturers won't spend a bunch of money to create a separate SKU for people who don't need the 2 extra NICs. They'd rather make a more versatile unit.
 
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Schmiddi

New Member
Jan 5, 2024
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After two days usage of n305 I am thinking about seeling it ^^
It was fun to setup Proxmox, OPNsense, but only with this service load the power draw never goes under 15W and keeps peeking to around 23W. I already followed Becks settings inside BIOS, but didnt see much of affect.
My plan was to self-host some service I actually use in the oracle free cloud so Im not dependet and make it more secure.

But I really dont like the power draw, I thought I could push it beneath 10W, it seems like power limits in BIOS do exactly nothing for me :/
 
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Stovar

Active Member
Dec 27, 2022
174
74
28
Octopuss said:
Some more questions came to my mind.

1) Shall I order from Ali or directly from their website? Is there any difference?

2) Shall I be careful with memory? The specs say the thing is compatible with 5200/5600MHz memory, but is it really?

3) I still feel like 4xLAN variant is a waste of money. Has anyone ordered one of the dual port units recently and made note of the cooling system? Is it any better than the older stuff by chance in terms of the gap, the copper block flatness and stuff?
I think I might get away with a smaller unit, considering it would mostly idle most of the time. I don't use any VPN or any special stuff, just plain pfSense routing in a small household.
Click to expand...
If you can Topton through amazon imo is safer, if you don't get a good unit or issues you got that 30 days amazon return at least and overall amazon support is pretty much top level.

Cwwk, probably better to check directly there main site here, check if you don't have to pay custom duties ect also (they have live chat sometimes or email them) aliexpress can get hit with custom duties depending where you are from.

In the past many preferred cwwk due to their less hardware issues, bios updates and overall support which is still true even till today but naturally the pricing maybe a tad higher.
 
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oeiknearf

New Member
Aug 30, 2023
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Schmiddi said:
After two days usage of n305 I am thinking about seeling it ^^
It was fun to setup Proxmox, OPNsense, but only with this service load the power draw never goes under 15W and keeps peeking to around 23W. I already followed Becks settings inside BIOS, but didnt see much of affect.
My plan was to self-host some service I actually use in the oracle free cloud so Im not dependet and make it more secure.

But I really dont like the power draw, I thought I could push it beneath 10W, it seems like power limits in BIOS do exactly nothing for me :/
Click to expand...
I dont know about the n305, but my n100 has been running at below 10w consistently after playing with becks recommendations for a few weeks.
And thats with proxmox, all nics active, homeassistant, pfsense and a few simple lxc (Measured at the wall).
Worth noting that on my machine the main power saving was achieved with the pcie aspm settings, which do not stick. I could only make them stick after setting each one in one go and hitting restart. Any tweak in the bios and they are gone again and i am back at 13-5w
 
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Schmiddi

New Member
Jan 5, 2024
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@oeiknearf
Many thanks for your advice, did same as you discribed again and now my n305 uses between 4W-9W running OPNsense and one LXC on Proxmox so far. Commonly jumps to 16Watts with peaks up to 21Watts. Thats okay for me!
 
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johndoe12345

New Member
Jan 16, 2024
1
0
1
Hi,

I recently purchased the 6x i226-V 2.5G Firewall Router 12th Gen Intel i3 N305 from TopTon and had a few questions for other owners. It has been running fine with OPNsense but I have noticed a difference in temps on cores 5/6/7/8 of anywhere from a few deg C to 20c hotter. I have reapplied heatsink paste there appears to be reasonable contact between CPU die and the copper heat block.

The other oddity I've noticed is when running stress tests from Ubuntu live I can only get all cores to boost/run at 1600mhz. Outside of a full stress test I do see cores hitting 3.8ghz although not for long. I was expecting all 8 cores to hit 3.2ghz boost speeds? (Would be nice to do proper thermal testing) Is it possible I have an odd bios setting? (Have tried default and adjusting some things)

Outside of those it's been fine. Ordered from aliexpress arrived quickly and no customs fees (UK). I actually ordered the n100 but they sent a n305. Way more than I need but I won't complain.

Thanks,
Tom
 
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