Qotom Q10922H6 - Fanless N100, 2x10GbE, 4x2.5GbE

[RomanB]

Here's a youtube video with some good advice for effectively cooling a Samsung SSD.

I tried it, but it didn't improve things a lot. And I attached 1mm copper heatsink.
So if I ran stress-ng which isn't supposed to use nvme, it was still warming up to around 72°C, then it was going down to around 56°C and never went lower than that. Before stress-ng the temps were 30 something degrees.
So I ordered this heatsink and it almost fits but not completely. I think I will use angle grinder to remove a few mm of height. It won't look as pretty, but I don't care.

This heatsink improved nvme temps quite significantly: from ~72°C to ~59°C right after stress-ng test.
Then I went further and re-pasted CPU. Stock paste and heatsink:

What I did:

You can see I also just slapped 2.5mm thermal pad instead of a thinner stock one. The pad is Upsiren and Thermal paste is Noctua NT-H2. I have to say that I didn't enjoy applying this thermal paste at all. And I am not sure if this is a perfect application, but after spending a lot of time trying to make it better I started to have a strong feeling that I am overthinking it and it should be fine as it is.
These changes improved things a lot. Running "stress-ng --matrix 0 --tz -t 30m && sensors"
(I don't know why I can not paste console output here, I just can't post a reply, receive an error message from the forum)
Before re-paste: +82.0°C CPU / +58.9°C NVMe
After re-paste: +71.0°C CPU / +52.9°C NVMe
-11°C and -6°C on NVMe. These temps look much more acceptable and can be considered normal as far as I can tell.
The conclusion: re-paste is mandatory, stock paste is trash.
I've also ordered two radiators as one user mentioned they attached it to their box and that improbed temps, so I'll try playing around with these as well. But I have to say that I am quite pleased with the weight of these radiators.
Also I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out if I can attach a fan to SYS_FAN header on the motherboard. Yes, you can attach a fan and control it via BIOS. Yes, it supports PWM. The fan should be 5V, although it will run with 12V fan as well. On the other side of the motherboard I also found CPU_FAN header, I suppose it should work as well. But it looks like I might not need a fan at all, although I wouldn't care if it would have to run with a fan and I wouldn't mind at all spending 1W additional to make this box cool.
Regarding the second M.2 slot: no, you can not use an adapter and use it to install a second NVMe. Or at least that's my conclusion after research and receiving a direct answer from the seller.

The Samsung 970 PRO 1TB is an older drive model, and uses a DRAM cache, which supposedly uses more energy than DRAM-less. It's possible that switching to something DRAM-less and with a more modern controller might run cooler.

I am now using Samsung 970 Evo Plus. Yeah probably so and I spent some time trying to choose the best NVMe in terms of thermal performance and power consumption. I ordered Lexar NM790. I don't remember exactly why tbh, but I looked at many drives it should run quite cool and in terms of power consumption... It's usual, but if you play with "L1 APSM" in BIOS it should not be much different from Samsung in terms of idle power consumption, at least that's what I see here. Anyways, should be a fine NVMe that runs a bit cooler. But the Samsung apparently are good at idle power consumption.
When this Lexar arrives I'll repeat tests with it and maybe with the fan that must arrive as well.

 

[blunden]

I thought I had scored a second one of these with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD for $150 (including 25% VAT). Turned out to be a pricing error unfortunately.

Regardless though, there is an AliExpress sale event going on right now so you can still get a pretty decent discount.

 

[frosty5689]

Just ordered aN305 version hoping with Promox VE the 10Gbit virturalized NICs in pfSense would be fast enough for 3Gbps WAN routing.

Will handle LAN 10Gbit routing with a 10Gbe Switch.

 

[blunden]

Just ordered aN305 version hoping with Promox VE the 10Gbit virturalized NICs in pfSense would be fast enough for 3Gbps WAN routing.

Will handle LAN 10Gbit routing with a 10Gbe Switch.

Even though pfSense and OPNsense performance seems to be a bit worse than Linux based router/firewall distributions in KVM (and on bare metal too based forum and Reddit comments, at least without special tuning), I would be expect it to easily handle 3 Gbps routing. You'll likely have room to grow as well.

After all, the weaker N100 handles 10 Gbps no problem in Linux with software flow offloading (and 8 Gbps or more without it) based on earlier results in this thread and elsewhere.

 

[frosty5689]

Just arrived in 4 days shipped through DHL Express to Canada. 82 CAD in shipping and 40 CAD of taxes + DHL broker fee

Not sure if it is because mine is N305 but there's a bottom fan.

 

[blunden]

Not sure if it is because mine is N305 but there's a bottom fan.

Interesting. Yes, it's probably because you ordered the N305 version, as the N100 seems to work fine passively cooled. I don't think @RomanB got a fan like that with his N305 unit though.

 

[frosty5689]

Interesting. Yes, it's probably because you ordered the N305 version, as the N100 seems to work fine passively cooled. I don't think @RomanB got a fan like that with his N305 unit though.

Must be a recent revision... They still list N305 as fanless. It does run a lot cooler, but will need to repaste and change thermal pad as it still throttles at max load.

The fan is a PWM 4 pin. There's no specs and just a black sticker though (not sure if there's specs underneath the black sticker)

Fan is 60mm x 60mm, the bottom plate also have holes for 40mm x 40mm.

Fan header is not standard but its a common looking JST connector?

 

[blunden]

Must be a recent revision... They still list N305 as fanless. It does run a lot cooler, but will need to repaste and change thermal pad as it still throttles at max load.

Yeah, their cases are modular with swappable front, back and bottom plates. I've seen them make a change like that on one of their other models too.

They are an OEM manufacturer, so perhaps they've had both options available for those customers all along. Some might need them fanless to minimize dust ingress in workshops etc. while others might prefer better cooling. Or perhaps it's simply a silent revision for the most power hungry option, like you said.

 

[frosty5689]

Yeah, their cases are modular with swappable front, back and bottom plates. I've seen them make a change like that on one of their other models too.

They are an OEM manufacturer, so perhaps they've had both options available for those customers all along. Some might need them fanless to minimize dust ingress in workshops etc. while others might prefer better cooling. Or perhaps it's simply a silent revision for the most power hungry option, like you said.

Would be nice if the N355 option is available for ordering on Aliexpress.

Oh well..

Is there actually a SATA controller or is the BIOS and apparent spot for a 2.5in drive just placeholders?

 

[blunden]

Would be nice if the N355 option is available for ordering on Aliexpress.

Oh well..

Is there actually a SATA controller or is the BIOS and apparent spot for a 2.5in drive just placeholders?

Qotom are easy to deal with over on Alibaba as well, or you can simply email them and buy it that way. I had some discussions with them that way before buying my N100 unit. I agree that AliExpress is easier though, and AliExpress has sales events so I ultimately bought it there too.

I don't know if there is a SATA controller. Are there any SATA ports on the motherboard? If not, it doesn't really matter. The CPU might have a SATA controller built-in though, I'm not sure.

 

[frosty5689]

I took mine apart and repasted the TIM from the aluminum chassis to the copper heatsink as well as the TIM from copper heatsink to the N305 die.

Just comparing before and after with prime95 max heat.

Before some cores would hit 95c and throttle. Now the hottest core is 85c.

I used Thermal grizzly kryonaut

I also replaced the thermal pad with some thermalright 2mm. I measured the stock pads using a caliper, it seems to be less than 2mm maybe they are 1.5mm?

Not sure how to monitor temps of the NICs but from the side looks like contact is good.

 

[blunden]

I took mine apart and repasted the TIM from the aluminum chassis to the copper heatsink as well as the TIM from copper heatsink to the N305 die.

Just comparing before and after with prime95 max heat.

Before some cores would hit 95c and throttle. Now the hottest core is 85c.

I used Thermal grizzly kryonaut

I also replaced the thermal pad with some thermalright 2mm. I measured the stock pads using a caliper, it seems to be less than 2mm maybe they are 1.5mm?

Not sure how to monitor temps of the NICs but from the side looks like contact is good.

Nice! The Aquantia NICs have temperature sensors and show up when you run the sensors command in Linux. The Intel NICs don't.

 

[frosty5689]

Nice! The Aquantia NICs have temperature sensors and show up when you run the sensors command in Linux. The Intel NICs don't.

Will have to see if Promox VE can see the temps... Currently benching thermals in Windows 11.

Just finished memtest86+ earlier with 32GB crucial 5600MHz sodimm. Got 6 passes stable

 

[blunden]

Will have to see if Promox VE can see the temps... Currently benching thermals in Windows 11.

Just finished memtest86+ earlier with 32GB crucial 5600MHz sodimm. Got 6 passes stable

In Windows, I would assume that HWINFO64 would be able to read the temperature of the NIC too.

 

[frosty5689]

In Windows, I would assume that HWINFO64 would be able to read the temperature of the NIC too.

Probably had a temp. Not that useful to measure until I set it up with 10Gbps switch and client to run some iperf tests

 

[blunden]

Looks like your unit may not be as bad as mine, where temps were getting up near 70°C. I think you would probably see some difference if you replaced the thermal pad, but may not be necessary.

After I finally got my new switch so that I could give the Qotom PC its full 10 Gbps, the temperature jumped up to 70-72°C. Looks like I'll have to open it up and do the thermal pad swap too.

 

[frosty5689]

After I finally got my new switch so that I could give the Qotom PC its full 10 Gbps, the temperature jumped up to 70-72°C. Looks like I'll have to open it up and do the thermal pad swap too.

Is the temp from the aqc113c NICs?

I saw a big improvement to CPU thermals from thermal paste swap.

Honesty didn't pay too much attention to the NIC temps before swap.

They are happily sitting at around 60c in a very badly ventilated Network Media Enclosure

 

[blunden]

Is the temp from the aqc113c NICs?

I saw a big improvement to CPU thermals from thermal paste swap.

Honesty didn't pay too much attention to the NIC temps before swap.

They are happily sitting at around 60c in a very badly ventilated Network Media Enclosure

Yes, it's from the sensor in the AQC113 NIC when connected at 10 Gbps. At 2.5 Gbps, it usually stayed at 58-60°C so the link speed definitely makes a difference.

 

[anomalocaris]

Must be a recent revision... They still list N305 as fanless. It does run a lot cooler, but will need to repaste and change thermal pad as it still throttles at max load.

The fan is a PWM 4 pin. There's no specs and just a black sticker though (not sure if there's specs underneath the black sticker)

Fan is 60mm x 60mm, the bottom plate also have holes for 40mm x 40mm.

Fan header is not standard but its a common looking JST connector?

I'm considering this machine in its N305 or N355 version, but I'm a bit concerned about fan noise since it will live in my office.

How noisy do you find this fan? Is there room for an adapter to a regular fan connector in order to replace it with a Noctua or something?

 

[frosty5689]

I'm considering this machine in its N305 or N355 version, but I'm a bit concerned about fan noise since it will live in my office.

How noisy do you find this fan? Is there room for an adapter to a regular fan connector in order to replace it with a Noctua or something?

I didn't see any listing selling the N355 variant, maybe they will list it once it is available. Possibly a supply issue.

The fan is PWM so it isn't always on and doesn't get loud enough to be annoying for me...

That being said, I only had it on near my server so YMMV if you put it in your office.

The fan header is a JST 1.25mm 4pin. I'm not sure if the pinout is the same as PWM but you could get a JST 4pin to PWM adapter and repin it to use a Noctua fan.

I'm not sure about the fan voltage as the fan had no specs, probably 12V? Could ask qotom support and they should answer.

Worst case is you cut the fan header and buy a 4pin JST w/ wires and solder it on your replacement fan.