Topton 12th Gen Alder Lake 2.5G Soft Router Intel i7-1265U/ i5-1235U/i3-1215U

[LatinTek]

Has anyone played with one of these yet and run OPNSense on it?? I'm seeing there are issue with the i226V like the i225 V1 and V2. Should we not be getting these?? Topton Intel i7 1265U

URL - Topton 12th Gen Alder Lake 2.5G Soft Router Intel i7 1265U i5 1235U 6x Intel i226 V Fanless Mini PC Firewall Appliance Proxmox| | - AliExpress

 

[Immortal]

I wonder about that too. Thou those are without a fan by default (it's optional by seller description) so its a bit concerning. On the other side i also wonder how would those compare to lets say units with Ryzen 5600u/5800u which seems to be a bit cheaper.

 

[LatinTek]

Yeah. I tried using the N6005 version but whenever I use IPS/IDS my bandwidth drops by almost half. Since I'm not savy enough to custom configure IPS/IDS i just turn it on and leave it at default. So then I wanted to test something and I used a Dell Optiplex 9020 SFF. I stuff a i350 T4 in it and same OPNSense config with IPS/IDS on my bandwidth stays at close to Gig speed up and down. Since I don't want to use such a HUGE machine I was hoping something like this new TOPTON box would be able to handle the bandwidth. I'm also hoping it might even support 2.5 Symetric when Verizon starts to provision that all over. A smaller footprint and less power and able to handle the IPS/IDS at 2.5Gbps would be super awesome. I was also looking at the Ryzen stuff too but since those are active cooled I didn't want to go that route. So I'm just wondering if this new offering would be the one to get.

 

[NoncarbonatedClack]

Yeah. I tried using the N6005 version but whenever I use IPS/IDS my bandwidth drops by almost half. Since I'm not savy enough to custom configure IPS/IDS i just turn it on and leave it at default. So then I wanted to test something and I used a Dell Optiplex 9020 SFF. I stuff a i350 T4 in it and same OPNSense config with IPS/IDS on my bandwidth stays at close to Gig speed up and down. Since I don't want to use such a HUGE machine I was hoping something like this new TOPTON box would be able to handle the bandwidth. I'm also hoping it might even support 2.5 Symetric when Verizon starts to provision that all over. A smaller footprint and less power and able to handle the IPS/IDS at 2.5Gbps would be super awesome. I was also looking at the Ryzen stuff too but since those are active cooled I didn't want to go that route. So I'm just wondering if this new offering would be the one to get.

What's in that 9020 for a CPU?
IDS/IPS is really heavy on CPU, so i'd think it more possible that the N6005 (pentium silver) wasn't up to the task.

I also wouldn't run an i7 passively.
At a bare minimum, repaste the cpu and see if that helps, if it is indeed temps.

 

[CLos]

Yeah. I tried using the N6005 version but whenever I use IPS/IDS my bandwidth drops by almost half. Since I'm not savy enough to custom configure IPS/IDS i just turn it on and leave it at default. So then I wanted to test something and I used a Dell Optiplex 9020 SFF. I stuff a i350 T4 in it and same OPNSense config with IPS/IDS on my bandwidth stays at close to Gig speed up and down. Since I don't want to use such a HUGE machine I was hoping something like this new TOPTON box would be able to handle the bandwidth. I'm also hoping it might even support 2.5 Symetric when Verizon starts to provision that all over. A smaller footprint and less power and able to handle the IPS/IDS at 2.5Gbps would be super awesome. I was also looking at the Ryzen stuff too but since those are active cooled I didn't want to go that route. So I'm just wondering if this new offering would be the one to get.

You could also just run Crowdsec on it without Suricata as it is not as resource demanding: https://homenetworkguy.com/how-to/install-and-configure-crowdsec-on-opnsense/

 

[LatinTek]

You could also just run Crowdsec on it without Suricata as it is not as resource demanding: https://homenetworkguy.com/how-to/install-and-configure-crowdsec-on-opnsense/

Thanks for mentioning that CLos. I will have to take a look at that.

What's in that 9020 for a CPU?
IDS/IPS is really heavy on CPU, so i'd think it more possible that the N6005 (pentium silver) wasn't up to the task.

I also wouldn't run an i7 passively.
At a bare minimum, repaste the cpu and see if that helps, if it is indeed temps.

Hey NoncarbonatedClack. It's an i7-4770 with 16GB RAM and 250GB SATA SSD. The Dell 9020 is actively cooled. I'm guessing with IDS/IPS running on the N6005 it was most likely too much for it. I don't want to run the 9020 as it defintely uses a lot more power than the N6005 TOPTON box. I'm just wondering if this new TOPTON or CWWK i5-1235U mini system will run full 2.5Gbps throughput with FULL IDS/IPS going and maybe 2 wireguard site to site VPNs running or would you need the i7-1265U. But now I'll take a look at CrowdSec that CLos suggested. Got some research to do... but I'm not a young feller anymore so it may take me some time to really get to that lol

 

[Immortal]

Depends on what do you mean by "FULL IDS/IPS". If you really use every rule available than no. Not even i7-1265U can do it while doing 2.5 Gbps at the same time. Suricata isn't build for that. Never was. Pretty much no IDS/IPS is meant to work like that and when forced its gonna kill pretty much any CPU if you throw enough rules and network traffic at it.


You should choose and pick rules you need and run those not just check everything and be done with it.

 

[LatinTek]

Depends on what do you mean by "FULL IDS/IPS". If you really use every rule available than no. Not even i7-1265U can do it while doing 2.5 Gbps at the same time. Suricata isn't build for that. Never was. Pretty much no IDS/IPS is meant to work like that and when forced its gonna kill pretty much any CPU if you throw enough rules and network traffic at it.


You should choose and pick rules you need and run those not just check everything and be done with it.

Yeah Immortal. I'm a novice network guy so configuring IDS/IPS makes me see stars lol. So I do enable everything but when I look at the rules I can see not all are checked. So I'm thinking it just out of the box default rules are active. I do agree though... I wish I still had the patience to go over all that stuff and testing but I don't even know how or where to begin. Even looking up videos I'm like... Huh lol so I'd rather be able to set it and forget it. Then maybe one of these days I'll get off my lazy butt and try to learn this stuff.

 

[JonasRokas]

I bought 3 of these for proxmox ceph ha and all of them fail mem tests on 20 memory sticks that I have tried, crucial/micron, tforce, and gskill. Topton won’t help with a solution and slow responses, bought thru AliExpress. It’s definitely a hardware or bios issue. The AMI bio is locked down so can’t change the memory timings, voltage, etc. I tried lowering the speeds without resolution.
Basically have 3 dead weights and loss of $1500.

 

[idle_user]

I bought 3 of these for proxmox ceph ha and all of them fail mem tests on 20 memory sticks that I have tried, crucial/micron, tforce, and gskill. Topton won’t help with a solution and slow responses, bought thru AliExpress. It’s definitely a hardware or bios issue. The AMI bio is locked down so can’t change the memory timings, voltage, etc. I tried lowering the speeds without resolution.
Basically have 3 dead weights and loss of $1500.

Have you opened a dispute through AE?

Topton should definitely be avoided as I'm experiencing memory test failures as well. They claim on their page that we should use name branded RAM, but as our testing have shown, the failures are still coming from either their hardware or bios.

I have yet to receive a non-automated response from them.

 

[JonasRokas]

I have opened a dispute with AE and yet to receive a response in the past 2 days, likely due to it being the weekend. Topton should definitely be avoided, if I had known I would have used the original supplier which is cwwk.
The issue is either overtemp due to thermal of cpu, power supply brick, and/or bios.

 

[idle_user]

I have opened a dispute with AE and yet to receive a response in the past 2 days, likely due to it being the weekend. Topton should definitely be avoided, if I had known I would have used the original supplier which is cwwk.
The issue is either overtemp due to thermal of cpu, power supply brick, and/or bios.

Yeah, I didn't know who the original supplier was I would have done the same. Really shouldn't have jumped on it blindly. Now paying the real price.