Topton Jasper Lake Quad i225V Mini PC Report

[ca-uk]

I think if they had a case with a thinner copper block and heatpipe, or perhaps a direct contact thick heatpipe that could spread the heat quicker over the large aluminum heatsink, it could be passively cooled for extended high CPU usage. Dunno how much it would add to the cost, but it can't be more than $20 or so. I'm planning on experimenting on that when I get my N5105 unit soon.

Here's a nice visualization on how much faster a heatpipe works than just copper. Everyone knows it's faster, but it's so much faster than I expected:

They're talking about using copper tubes in this new one on the CWWK blog.. 畅网发布英特尔第12代U系列大小核混合架构迷你主机 (translate to english if needed!)

 

[rub1k]

They're talking about using copper tubes in this new one on the CWWK blog.. 畅网发布英特尔第12代U系列大小核混合架构迷你主机 (translate to english if needed!)

Very interesting, thanks for sharing that!

I was just reading this other news post on there about thoughts and prototyping a new board (green PCB for now, production will be black). Interesting blurb at the bottom about going with only one memory (DDR5) slot and space for a 32GB eMMC drive they may use in some configurations. Google Translate copy/pasta of last 2 paragraphs:

Summarize! Alder Lake-N has a total of 9 PCIe channels, 4 network ports occupy 4 PCIe, and all use UDE 2.5G network card heads with filtering. The M.2 NVMe hard disk seat occupies 4 PCIe, these two are PCIe3.0 x4 elastic signals, (why it is called elastic signal, this version of M.2 we design more distinctive, prepare x1\x2\x4 signals in advance Split function, in the future we will make a more distinctive M.2 adapter board, that is, support M.2+SATA interface to support up to 6-8 disks, and can make M.2 into x4 with integrated dual 10G optical ports The adapter board provides more ways to play), and the other 1 PCIe is assigned to M.2 WiFi. In the future, this M.2 WiFi will also support the use of the adapter board to expand into NVMe hard disk signals. A total of 9 signals are all used up.

In terms of memory, this platform only supports DDR5 memory, and only supports a single one. Other functional TF transposons are retained as before, supporting guides and data. Careful netizens may find that when we show the back of the motherboard, there is an extra piece of material. Yes, this is a 32GB EMMC hard drive particle. In the future, some models of our motherboard will come with 128G/256G/512G solutions for everyone. Select, the board size direction is based on the size of the N5105-V5 version.

 

[DomFel]

For those who have the CWWK V4+ (I think), with the cooling holes on the bottom, have you found a 80x80x10 fan that is quiet and works well that you could recommend, please?

i ordered 2 of these, will post some feedback when they arrive. No power adapter needed.
Some boxes only have support for 80x80, Noctua unfortunately makes them 25mm thick, can't be used in our boxes.

 

[tusk9541]

They're talking about using copper tubes in this new one on the CWWK blog.. 畅网发布英特尔第12代U系列大小核混合架构迷你主机 (translate to english if needed!)

That is very similar to what I was thinking. Those are the higher power 15-55W Alder Lake CPUs with at least 1 high perf core though. Hopefully they also make it an option for the lower power CPUs.

But also, I'm not sure if people are really having thermal issues? Cause the ones I've seen mentioned either the paste wasn't applied well, or the copper block was not making good contact. I've also seen some complain about thermal issues but their CPU temps were like 67°C... That seems far from the throttling temp. Maybe the current heatsink is just fine for 6005/5105?

 

[ppiixx]

The motherboard of the below kickstarter project looks like the CWWK board mentioned in this thread:

Fully Customizable Home Cloud Storage with Remote Access NAS

Linux OS | Max 142TB Storage | 5xHDD | 4xSSD | TrueNAS | WiFi 6 | 4x 2.5GbE | Intel CPU | SD+MicroSD Card Reader | 4x 10Gbps USB Ports

www.kickstarter.com

Interesting. Sure does look like the CWWK/topton nas board, but their board diagram has a U2 port which the current boards don't have.

Not sure where they are getting the lanes for that from with a N6005!

edit: from the KS comments:

We have used one PCIE lane and converted it to four SSD M.2 through the ASM2812X chip. On the motherboard, there is a U.2 connector other than the two M.2 connectors

 

[Ipse]

I know what putty is; I just never saw any options specific to a windows program appear in a BIOS...

the port is a standard rs232 over rj45 i assume - as said I get the full console output, only keystrokes are not registered by the unit.
Usually this is because of mismatching flow control, but default is disabled and that's whats set at the BIOS and emulator. I also tried explicitly setting -fn although screen doesn't enable it by default and It works OOTB with just "screen /dev/ttyU0 115200" with any other gear - only the topton unit will not register any input...
Also tried with FC enabled on both ends, but as said: no combination of parameters will give me keyboard input.
I'm currently suspecting either a non-standard wiring (RX pin) or a defective port.


EDIT:
Mystery solved - the pinout is different to cisco and most other gear using RJ45 serial ports. Coincidently, pin 6 is also TX on the topton, that's why I got console output, but the RX pin is at pin 5, not 3 (cisco et al).
Found an old Allied Telesyn cable while searching through my cable collection for something with a soldered DB9-connector where I could crimp on an RJ45 connector, but that cable worked 'as is' so I'm using that for now...


TL;DR
The RJ45 serial pinout for those units is NOT identical to (most) network gear!
At least the important pins (RX/TX, GND) seem to correspond with Allied Telesyn:
View attachment 24107

I hope I'm not alone trying to connect a USB serial cable to the RJ45 console port.
Here's what I have done so far (with little to no success):
- bought a Cisco USB serial console cable from AliExpress (Cisco console cable)
- purchased an RJ45 Open connector that allows me to reconnect wires without soldering (RJ45 connector)
- cut the Cisco cable and flipped the Tx wire as above, 3 to 5
- installed USB serial drivers, the port shows as COM4
- plugged the cable, set Putty to 9600,8,N,1 and nada

I rebooted the pfSense appliance hoping that it will spew out something and it did, a bunch of garbage that looks like baud rate mismatch.
Played with the baud rate (38400, 115200) without luck.
My keystrokes DON'T seem to be registered by the console (same as @sko above) so here's my question for the gang here: what IS the correct RJ45 pinout for the console (blue motherboard, first or second gen) and the baud rate?

 

[DomFel]

Is anybody experiencing an IO Delay between 0.6-1.5% in a box with the N5105 in Proxmox?
Can't really find out where the problem is.

 

[kliguin]

Is anybody experiencing an IO Delay between 0.6-1.5% in a box with the N5105 in Proxmox?
Can't really find out where the problem is.

Never seen it below 3%

 

[antenagora]

Is anybody experiencing an IO Delay between 0.6-1.5% in a box with the N5105 in Proxmox?
Can't really find out where the problem is.

+1
iowait is very high for an nvme drive system. I did a couple of tests (different kernel versions, different brand and size of nvme drives, single/ dual memory and with different speeds, various changes in the bios settings, disabling nvme and working only with sata) and nothing solved the issue. My system doing nothing is stable at 3%.
I suspect a bios issue.
I own a 5105 i226 from cwwk latest version, arrived on 12/23/2022 that apart from the very high iowait seems to be perfect and well assembled, no cpu gap.

 

[DomFel]

+1
My system doing nothing is stable at 3%.
I suspect a bios issue.

Same, except my IO is between 0.5 and 1.6.
I'll come back with some feedback if I manage to find the issue in the bios

 

[hammonds]

Just received a n6005 cwwk v5 unit and was pleasantly surprised to find a fan adapter in the box

 

[antenagora]

Just received a n6005 cwwk v5 unit and was pleasantly surprised to find a fan adapter in the box

I asked for a fan and they gave a decent one with the adapter to connect it on the motherboard. Buying from them was a little more expensive but e everything was fine, shipped to italy in about a mounth.

 

[dobber]

Same, except my IO is between 0.5 and 1.6.
I'll come back with some feedback if I manage to find the issue in the bios

With my N6005 it is 3% io delay without any VM:s at all. Fresh install.
Samsung NVME PM961. Also tried a hynix ssd, with the same result. Same with EXT4 and XFS.

In my previous gen5 i5 setup I had below 0,1% almost all the time and I've seen setups with 5105 cpu go well below 1%.

Maybe a bios or kernel issue.

 

[Salerg]

With my N6005 it is 3% io delay without any VM:s at all. Fresh install.
Samsung NVME PM961. Also tried a hynix ssd, with the same result. Same with EXT4 and XFS.

In my previous gen5 i5 setup I had below 0,1% almost all the time and I've seen setups with 5105 cpu go well below 1%.

Maybe a bios or kernel issue.

Just want to confirm that for me with the N5105 I see the same in proxmox. Actually now that I take a closer look; on average it seems to be 3% but seems to jump between 1% and 6% constantly.

There is no major increase when putting load on the system. It is 3% average always.

I have been running the N5105 for 11 days now using the latest proxmox and Linux 6.1.0-1-pve kernel. No problems with any container (pfsense and some others).

 

[Stovar]

Not used Proxmox before but would one be able to do Windows 10/11 with basic web surfing, light office task and 4K YT playback and use a firewall software be it pfsense, opensense, openwrt at same time?

I would be using Mullvad VPN on all home devices also, I think that maybe too much.

 

[oneplane]

Not used Proxmox before but would one be able to do Windows 10/11 with basic web surfing, light office task and 4K YT playback and use a firewall software be it pfsense, opensense, openwrt at same time?

I would be using Mullvad VPN on all home devices also, I think that maybe too much.

Barely. The GUI and windows services would eat 2 entire cores before you'd even get started doing anything.

 

[casulo]

Intel N100 already at aliexpress. Will be a matter of few months (weeks?) till the first firewalls coming with it.

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/1005005121749531.html?algo_pvid=89fb892b-6f0d-42de-80e9-e2282865b1cf&algo_exp_id=89fb892b-6f0d-42de-80e9-e2282865b1cf-4&gatewayAdapt=Pc2Msite

 

[BobS]

Greetings. Apologizes in advance, I am currently on about page 43 of this thread and am going to continue through, but wanted to jump the queue a little and ask if there is a roundup of the best BIOS settings or what should be changed, if anything, for one of the N5105 - i226v "New" 4 port version? I believe the mobo revision is 3.0 and if I recall, BIOS was from 08/2022.

I am running PF Sense directly installed. No proxmox as I didn't really need this to be anything other than a FW.

I did a few things like lap and polish the copper slug as well as nic heatsink, I also ended up sanding the black coating away on the chassis and polished that part and applied some new TIM and pads. I'm seeing idle-ish temps around 45c and am going to do one more inspection and MB post sanding, if needed, once I get some new paste in. The stuff I used was decent, but kind of old and I didn't really like the consistency.

Anyway, thank you all for posting, and thanks STH crew for the awesome site and content! On to page 44

You didn't state where you installed the pad but it doesn't sound like it's doing much for you. I have the N6005 version and got my idle temps down to 34°C. I made a post here that tells what I used:

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/hunsn-model-rj03l-w-n6005-v5-w-4-i226v-nics.38464/

The problem is mainly the gap between the CPU and copper heatsink - as you probably already know. While my solution uses a copper shim and some Artic Silver ceramic paste, I wondered if a good quality thermal pad would be better. I tried some unknown .5mm pad initially and had temps in the mid 40's. So I ordered some OwlTree pads (4" x 4", .5mm, 1mm and 1.5mm thickness) rated for 12.8w/mk to try - just to experiment with.

They just arrived a day ago so I'll hopefully get time to try them out soon. Plan is to replace the thin copper shim (with paste on two sides) with the 1mm thermal pad between the case and copper heatsink and use paste between the CPU and copper heatsink. That pad should suffice enough to make up for the gap, If temps go back up to the 40's, I'll reinstall the copper shim and ceramic paste and call it good.

This little experiment is to just prove to myself if a good quality pad can do as good or better than paste. I doubt it but gives me something to play with.

BobS

 

[Stovar]

Intel N100 already at aliexpress. Will be a matter of few months (weeks?) till the first firewalls coming with it.

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/1005005121749531.html?algo_pvid=89fb892b-6f0d-42de-80e9-e2282865b1cf&algo_exp_id=89fb892b-6f0d-42de-80e9-e2282865b1cf-4&gatewayAdapt=Pc2Msite

Probably come within weeks my guess, Looks like they replace Celerons and Pentium brand for 2023 and onwards.

N100

N200

I think this is the new way intel are scaling their cpus? lower base frequency of around 1ghz with ability to boost to 3-4ghz, but I do wonder with that 6 watts base frequency figure, what would be the wattage at 3.4 or 3.7ghz.... Id guess 25-30 watts.

Do wonder if its worth anyone just waiting for the N100 over the N5105, might be able to save a few watts.

 

[sqrwv]

Same TDP as N5100 that has a 1.1Ghz base freq and 6W TDP.
I'm sure there's a performance increase, but can't guess the power consumption at full load, probably the 25-30W you say.