Topton Jasper Lake Quad i225V Mini PC Report

[VLMT]

I have ordered a TVI7309X ( https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100...o.order_list.order_list_main.5.73d21802L7bcoM ) and am now looking for a suitable WLAN adapter for the minipcie slot. I want to use Linux or Openwrt in access point mode in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band in AC or AX mode.

I have the same tvi7309x, I've bought Wallys MT7915 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004992184544.html for ESXi8+OpenWRT and it works well with high speeds. I've just removed wifi chipset radiator and cool it with fan. Also I've made a custom cover instead of factory, suitable for this fan. There are a photos

Spoiler: Photos

 

[merseburger]

I have the same tvi7309x, I've bought Wallys MT7915 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004992184544.html for ESXi8+OpenWRT and it works well with high speeds. I've just removed wifi chipset radiator and cool it with fan. Also I've made a custom cover instead of factory, suitable for this fan. There are a photos

Spoiler: Photos

View attachment 32954View attachment 32955View attachment 32944View attachment 32945

I found out about the WLAN module via the openWRT forum, but unfortunately my country is not listed as a destination country.

Which BIOS version do you have?

Have you set any special settings or is it running with default values?

What RAM modules have you installed in the mini pc and what kind of SSD do you use?

I calculated with too little hardware myself and will buy a 1TB SSD and 32GB RAM if I get a good offer.

 

[VLMT]

I found out about the WLAN module via the openWRT forum, but unfortunately my country is not listed as a destination country.

Which BIOS version do you have?

Have you set any special settings or is it running with default values?

What RAM modules have you installed in the mini pc and what kind of SSD do you use?

I calculated with too little hardware myself and will buy a 1TB SSD and 32GB RAM if I get a good offer.

My factory BIOS version was GF-1338NP-12-V13, date of build is 09/07/2022. After that, I decided to ask seller on aliexpress for newer version of BIOS but seller said that I shouldn't update bios. After that I've found 4 versions of bioses on chinese forums, compatible with 1338NP-12 board. Right now I'm using HSX-N5105-12-V1.4B-L3 version from 07/27/2023, microcode was also updated to 0x24000024 and system name was changed also, to CncTion N5105-4L, from Techvision tvi7309x.

I've just done a pci passthrough of this WLAN card to OpenWRT virtual machine, after that I've installed kmod-mt7915e to openwrt and successfully set up wifi, my iphone speed in iperf is about 900mbit, system is perfectly stable.

I ordered an empty box without RAM and SSD because i already had it, remains of my previous pc builds. One RAM stick, common micron ddr4-2400 8gb, and WD SN530 256gb. No issues with them.

 

[merseburger]

I made the mistake of ordering the box with a 128GB SSD and 16GB RAM. The built-in China NVMe SSD generates quite a lot of heat, peaking at 95 degrees under full load. The memory module (16GB) on the other hand doesn't seem to be that bad, memory chip manufacturer is Micron the brand also something Chinese. I will write to the manufacturer Wallys and ask if they can deliver it to my country.

I ordered the box on 01.11.2023 and was delivered on 22.11.2023 by DHL with a little customs duty.

My BIOS is from 04/20/2023.

I am hoping that the box will also run with 32 GB RAM.

 

[VLMT]

I made the mistake of ordering the box with a 128GB SSD and 16GB RAM. The built-in China NVMe SSD generates quite a lot of heat, peaking at 95 degrees under full load. The memory module (16GB) on the other hand doesn't seem to be that bad, memory chip manufacturer is Micron the brand also something Chinese. I will write to the manufacturer Wallys and ask if they can deliver it to my country.

I ordered the box on 01.11.2023 and was delivered on 22.11.2023 by DHL with a little customs duty.

My BIOS is from 04/20/2023.

I am hoping that the box will also run with 32 GB RAM.

I don't think that it's a SSD-related issue. So this is a reason why I decided to add active cooling into my PC. Because before Wifi installation, cheap wd sn530 was fried until 80C without any significant load, just because CPU heats up a case, case heats up all contents in box. Even without Wifi module which has 4-8W TDP. So I've installed a small fan 60x60x10, set revs to minimum (to reduce noise) and finally temps are 50C for SSD and 64-66 for Wifi chipset during common use and 70-72 under high load.

I think this box will run with 32gb because people reporting that this box can run with 64gb ram. Micron is a top-tier memory (US origin) and also a chips-maker, not just assembler, Crucual brand is Micron's brand also. My Micron memory module was factory installed in Dell Optiplex PC before.

 

[Stovar]

I have the same tvi7309x, I've bought Wallys MT7915 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004992184544.html for ESXi8+OpenWRT and it works well with high speeds. I've just removed wifi chipset radiator and cool it with fan. Also I've made a custom cover instead of factory, suitable for this fan. There are a photos

Spoiler: Photos

View attachment 32954View attachment 32955View attachment 32944View attachment 32945

OpenWRT virtual machine, after that I've installed kmod-mt7915e to openwrt and successfully set up wifi, my iphone speed in iperf is about 900mbit, system is perfectly stable.

Bit of a newbie query, I was under the impression wireless nics are not that great with these mini pcs be it openwrt (which I use) pfsense etc
many good folks over on the openwrt forums felt its always better to get a good access point since its easier and more reliable. I was looking a while back for some wifi 6e or 7 cards but it appears no real decent support or options yet.

Are you finding your home devices are stable during wireless connection?

And is it simple enough to grab that Wallys MT7915 nic and Kmodmt7915e mod on openwrt and set up wireless?

 

[VLMT]

Bit of a newbie query, I was under the impression wireless nics are not that great with these mini pcs be it openwrt (which I use) pfsense etc
many good folks over on the openwrt forums felt its always better to get a good access point since its easier and more reliable. I was looking a while back for some wifi 6e or 7 cards but it appears no real decent support or options yet.

Are you finding your home devices are stable during wireless connection?

And is it simple enough to grab that Wallys MT7915 nic and Kmodmt7915e mod on openwrt and set up wireless?

Yes, I use it for almost 5 months and no issues were occurred. Literally, flawless like my previous access point (industrial Cisco with IOS)
In case of VM installation, yes, just inserting card to minipcie slot, attaching antennas, doing pci passthrough in esxi or proxmox (tested both, but esxi is more reliable), installing module for openwrt and it just works.

If you're searching for financial-reasonable solution and you don't need to combine multiple roles in one device - don't think that it is what you want, for saving money it's better to buy standalone wifi 6e access point. But my idea is to combine hypervisor (ESXi), router (mikrotik CHR), wifi AP (openwrt), separate NAS software with attached USB-HDD and another software like DNS, Home assistant, etc... in one compact device and it performs well.

 

[Stovar]

Yes, I use it for almost 5 months and no issues were occurred. Literally, flawless like my previous access point (industrial Cisco with IOS)
In case of VM installation, yes, just inserting card to minipcie slot, attaching antennas, doing pci passthrough in esxi or proxmox (tested both, but esxi is more reliable), installing module for openwrt and it just works.

If you're searching for financial-reasonable solution and you don't need to combine multiple roles in one device - don't think that it is what you want, for saving money it's better to buy standalone wifi 6e access point. But my idea is to combine hypervisor (ESXi), router (mikrotik CHR), wifi AP (openwrt), separate NAS software with attached USB-HDD and another software like DNS, Home assistant, etc... in one compact device and it performs well.

thanks good to hear its reliable that was my main concern, I do have an unifi AC pro but its 10 years old and wifi 5 only so getting a bit long in the tooth but its rock solid and reliable.

I might just hold off and see if wifi 6e/7 cards come around, think the prices are going to take years for wifi6e/7 gear to come down in price.

 

[Mur77]

Hello everyone. Everyone stubbornly wants to reduce the temperature, sawing, drilling, refining. And they persistently buy boxes without the possibility of installing a fan. Pay attention to the bottom of the box, there should be 1) Ventilation holes, through 4 holes for the fan 2) A small hatch for the output of different wires, SATA for example. Pay attention

 

[merseburger]

Can anyone here recommend a 1 TB SSD for passive operation?

 

[VLMT]

Hello everyone. Everyone stubbornly wants to reduce the temperature, sawing, drilling, refining. And they persistently buy boxes without the possibility of installing a fan. Pay attention to the bottom of the box, there should be 1) Ventilation holes, through 4 holes for the fan 2) A small hatch for the output of different wires, SATA for example. Pay attention

Sure, next time I'll buy something that was designed for fan cooling out of box. I thought that n5105 is cold CPU and can't heat whole case, but I was wrong. Anyway, if already bought, it's not bad, in my case, i've drawn a plot and gave it to man who have lazer cut machine and he made this cover for me for 4$.

Can anyone here recommend a 1 TB SSD for passive operation?

In your case I will recommend 2.5 sata ssd and deal with heat dissipation through detachable cover (for example, via slim thermal pads). Of course if you don't plan to use internal active cooling in future because there is no place for both fan and 2.5 ssd. I won't recommend M.2 in this case because it's not possible to cool it properly. Even my cheap WD sn530 256gb heated up to 70-75C.
As alternative solution I can propose to downclock CPU or decrease it's TDP to prevent case overheating.

 

[hmw]

Can anyone here recommend a 1 TB SSD for passive operation?

SK Hynix P31 1TB - it's got good thermal characteristics

But you're better off with a 2.5" SATA SSD, pref one with a metal housing

 

[merseburger]

So I will definitely be actively cooling my mini PC soon. I have ordered a 40x40mm Noctua fan. Now I have to see how I can get the hole in the floor as cheaply as possible. For the power supply I thought that I will use the 12V from the SATA power connector, I ordered an adapter on eBay from China.

It would be best if someone could make and send me a suitable adapter for a fee.

Furthermore, the supplied power supply was not of high quality, it whistled and made noise when no load was applied. After a few e-mails I was told to buy one in my home country and I was refunded the costs.

 

[VLMT]

So I will definitely be actively cooling my mini PC soon. I have ordered a 40x40mm Noctua fan. Now I have to see how I can get the hole in the floor as cheaply as possible. For the power supply I thought that I will use the 12V from the SATA power connector, I ordered an adapter on eBay from China.

It would be best if someone could make and send me a suitable adapter for a fee.

Furthermore, the supplied power supply was not of high quality, it whistled and made noise when no load was applied. After a few e-mails I was told to buy one in my home country and I was refunded the costs.

You can buy PWM fan and control it using 4pin interface on it, also configure it using BIOS, setup curve or static PWM value. It's hidden on cpu side and using standard laptop connector. I've attached a picture but notice that our PC use 12V instead of 5V but connector looks the same. To ensure that pinout is correct, you can check it with multimeter - GND, 12V as usual, PWM will look like as various voltage 0-5V depending on PWM value 0-255.

Also notice that it can be impossible to fit something thicker than 10mm. I bought 60x60x10mm PWM fan on Aliexpress but think that it can fit 80x80x10mm fan.

Also, at first I thought about fitting a laptop turbine inside it and locate exaust near side grill but all laptops fan rated as 5V, not 12V as in our PC. I successfully have burnt one turbine (but took a connector from it lol).

 

[merseburger]

You can buy PWM fan and control it using 4pin interface on it, also configure it using BIOS, setup curve or static PWM value. It's hidden on cpu side and using standard laptop connector. I've attached a picture but notice that our PC use 12V instead of 5V but connector looks the same. To ensure that pinout is correct, you can check it with multimeter - GND, 12V as usual, PWM will look like as various voltage 0-5V depending on PWM value 0-255.

Also notice that it can be impossible to fit something thicker than 10mm. I bought 60x60x10mm PWM fan on Aliexpress but think that it can fit 80x80x10mm fan.

Also, at first I thought about fitting a laptop turbine inside it and locate exaust near side grill but all laptops fan rated as 5V, not 12V as in our PC. I successfully have burnt one turbine (but took a connector from it lol).

Could this one possibly fit?

 

[VLMT]

Could this one possibly fit?

No. I took connector from cooler from Lenovo G570/G575 laptop. But be careful with pinout (i just didn't remember it exactly, did i changed something or not)

 

[TvdH]

My CWWK N305 arrived! It's the model with the 4x NVME expansion card and with the red USB on the front.
Packed it up with 48GB of ram and 5x 4TB SSD's, and was ready to go! That's where the fun part endend...

I'm having a hard time configuring the system BIOS for use with Proxmox. Especially the ASPM part. When I set ASPM to auto on all root ports, the system is unstable, would not even boot into Proxmox. Disabling ASPM on root port 2 and 12 makes the system bootable, but is missing 2 of the SSD's. Disabling ASPM on all root ports again, makes all SDD's show up.

If I have ASPM just disabled on root port 2 and 12, the two not detected SSD's are visible with

lspci -v

but are showing the following error:

03:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Shenzhen Longsys Electronics Co., Ltd (...)
        Subsystem Shenzen Longsys Electronics Co., Ltd. Device 1602
        !!! Unknown header type 7f
        Memory at 80e00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Kernel modules: nvme

04:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Shenzhen Longsys Electronics Co., Ltd (...)
        Subsystem Shenzen Longsys Electronics Co., Ltd. Device 1602
        !!! Unknown header type 7f
        Memory at 80d00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Kernel modules: nvme

I do have ASPM-force enabled in GRUB though:

`GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet consoleblank=15 pcie_aspm=force"`

BIOS detects the NM790 SDD's just fine, and short controller test in BIOS passes.
Seems like this board (or the SSD's) are having a hard time with ASPM on Auto???

 

[kliguin]

@TvdH Is due to the expansion card, the NVMe port sharing doesn't seem to smart. My 2 port NVMe N305 got the same issue with the second NVMe slot (WiFi PCIe). When ASPM is on there is no writeable disk, same results as you. What I did for my 2 disk node, disable ASPM for port 12.

 

[virtual]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here. I've been lurking around because I own a Jasperlake ULX, Intel N5105. My BIOS: Core Version 5.19, Project Version: MW-NAS-N5105 Ver:1.0 (28.03.2023). The Motherboard has imprinted on it: MW-NVR-N5105V10 (I read something about not updating the bios depending on this).

I'm setting up Proxmox and when I try to pass in my SATA controller via IOMMU (VT-d on intel cards) my BIOS has apparently everything related to it enabled: VT-d is enabled and Memory Remap (not sure if related but this is also enabled: IGD VTD, IPU VTD, IOP VTD). The Chipset/SystemAgentConfig(SA) states that VT-d is "unsupported", which if what I read around here is true it could be a bug from my BIOS and it should still work? but my Proxmox does not recognize IOMMU yet (my grub: "quiet intel_IOMMU=on" and added the modules changes for vfio, I don't think this is the issue here?).

So my question is, should I somehow find a newer BIOS that could properly enable VT-d (I have no idea where to find these BIOS updates) or should I just forget about IOMMU and pass my components manually?

Thanks in advance, I'm learning a lot right now and I really appreciate this post!

Edit: it turns out that by installing Proxmox on Raid1 on two NVMe drives for redundancy disables grub and then all IOMMU settings should go into "/etc/kernel/cmdline". Since that wasn't working out for me I decided to install proxmox on just one NVMe drive.

 

[Stovar]

Has anyone noticed with their mini routers based off i225 and i226 network ports regardless of router software, any network disconnections on their hard wired network cable devices such as PCs?

I had a glitch sometimes on my openwrtx86 setup, noticed 1-2 devices sometimes the network goes up and down it sounds awfully similar to what Windows PC users get with their i225/i226 network nic cards. It happens for a few seconds and then vanishes. I need to do some more testing, could be my windows or nic or cable since its an 15 metre cable run.

****edit appears software related issue with Windows 10 drivers, been working fine for over 3 weeks with fresh Windows 11 installation***