Topton Jasper Lake Quad i225V Mini PC Report

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sko

Active Member
Jun 11, 2021
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Well if you paid 898Yuan for the N5105 barebones you paid about $62usd less than what I paid for mine on AliExpress.
If they also do injection shipping like most aliexpress sellers to circumvent local taxes/import fees/VAT then its an awesome deal! If you have to pay import fees and taxes (+ the customs clearance fee the postal service charges) then its roughly the same as aliexpress - maybe still a bit cheaper, but shipping time can easily be 8-10weeks longer until customs processed the parcel (at least for german customs - they work as fast as a glacier...).
Depending on the parcel service at the destination side, handling fees can be horrendous (e.g. EMS/GdSk for Germany - they charge ~35EUR only for the customs clearance PLUS additional shipping and handling fees within Germany!!).

Would be interesting to hear from somebody located in Europe what they experienced with jd.com orders.
 
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Covert_monkey

New Member
Jul 5, 2022
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It will be interesting to see how we go for heat now that we have one of each CPU.
yes it would, I'll keep you updated. But I dont think I will get any time before end of september to work on this.

If they also do injection shipping like most aliexpress sellers to circumvent local taxes/import fees/VAT then its an awesome deal! If you have to pay import fees and taxes (+ the customs clearance fee the postal service charges) then its roughly the same as aliexpress - maybe still a bit cheaper, but shipping time can easily be 8-10weeks longer until customs processed the parcel (at least for german customs - they work as fast as a glacier...).
Depending on the parcel service at the destination side, handling fees can be horrendous (e.g. EMS/GdSk for Germany - they charge ~35EUR only for the customs clearance PLUS additional shipping and handling fees within Germany!!).

Would be interesting to hear from somebody located in Europe what they experienced with jd.com orders.
This is my first order with JD so lets see how it goes.
 

Abscondo

New Member
Aug 23, 2022
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1
Looking for dedicated hardware for pfSense, and this seems to fit the bill.

To summarize from scrolling through a lot of pages it seems like I should:
1. Pick N5105, stay away from N6005 as a lot of these ship with ES chips. Or is this no longer a risk with the newest i226 units?
2. Pick a SSD that doesn't run too hot like the Intel 660p/670p series.
3. Avoid certain enclosures.
4. Change CPU-settings in BIOS and possibly pfSense to avoid overheating.
5. Remove and reapply thermal paste.
6. Consider a fan if temps are still high.

Please let me know if I missed or misunderstand something essential.

Currently wondering about these two:
1. Best price I would find at Aliexpress for N5105 i226 barebone. No cutout for fan. 160.32US $ 50% OFF|Fanless Soft Router 4 Intel i226 2.5G LAN Celeron N5105 Mini PC Quad Core 2xDDR4 NVMe HD MI VGA pfSense Firewall Appliance ESXi| | - AliExpress
2. Different enclosure with identical specs listed as an option in this thread. 191.45US $ 5% OFF|Upgrade The N5105 Softroute Mini-host /openwrt/pve/esxi Fansless Energy Saving Pc - Barebone & Mini Pc - AliExpress

Any reason not to go with option 1? Is the second enclosure likely better at handling heat? Identical besides the look?
 

xShARkx

Member
Jun 12, 2022
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Looking for dedicated hardware for pfSense, and this seems to fit the bill.

To summarize from scrolling through a lot of pages it seems like I should:
1. Pick N5105, stay away from N6005 as a lot of these ship with ES chips. Or is this no longer a risk with the newest i226 units?
We have no clue tbh, maybe the V4 version won't come with ES chips? We need to wait until someone buys a V4 with the N6005 to see if they are still shipping ES chips or not, but i would not risky it tbh :p

2. Pick a SSD that doesn't run too hot like the Intel 660p/670p series.
If you want to run it 100% fan less, then yes you will need to pick an SSD which does not run hot. And if you are going NVME, then you will need to add a heat sink to it and it still might not be enough, in other words, you might need a fan as well.

3. Avoid certain enclosures..
Tbh i don't think this is right! In other words, that you need to avoid some chassis at all costs cause they have bad temps...

My line of thought is that there are a lot of users whom are having issues with temps even with the FAT chassis and just by stressing the CPU alone... I also don't think that everyone who have reported bad temps in this thread, have checked to see if there is a gap between the CPU\GPU DIE and the copper\aluminum block and from what i can see, this seems to be the main reason for bad temps.

Why do i think this?

Cause the N5105 is not suppose to need a lot to cool it and cause i see reports of users who got the slim chassis which comes with less mass and an aluminium block but they still have good temps(N5105 at 50 to 60 C under load). Also other users actually saw this gap, put something to close it(copper sheets) and the temps became good! Or even others which used a high viscosity thermal paste like the K5-Pro and it lowered something like 20 C or more.

So far from what i can see is that bad temps are mainly caused by:

1 - Bad contact between the CPU and GPU DIE and the copper\aluminium block, in other words, there is a big gap between them.
2 - Bad thermal paste from the factory
3 - Bad thermal paste application from the factory
4 - The use of High performance NVME SSD which is generates a lot of heat.

4. Change CPU-settings in BIOS and possibly pfSense to avoid overheating.
Some users are adjusting the bios settings to achieve lower temps + lower power consumption, while others are not doing anything! Its completely up to you and if you are awarded with one of these appliances which has bad temps.

5. Remove and reapply thermal paste.
Yes, this is a must tbh! In other words, you should replace the factory thermal paste with a really good quality one like kryonaut, K5-Pro and etc.

6. Consider a fan if temps are still high.
If you are going to use a hot NVME SSD then yes, you might need to add a fan.

Please let me know if I missed or misunderstand something essential.

Currently wondering about these two:
1. Best price I would find at Aliexpress for N5105 i226 barebone. No cutout for fan. 160.32US $ 50% OFF|Fanless Soft Router 4 Intel i226 2.5G LAN Celeron N5105 Mini PC Quad Core 2xDDR4 NVMe HD MI VGA pfSense Firewall Appliance ESXi| | - AliExpress
2. Different enclosure with identical specs listed as an option in this thread. 191.45US $ 5% OFF|Upgrade The N5105 Softroute Mini-host /openwrt/pve/esxi Fansless Energy Saving Pc - Barebone & Mini Pc - AliExpress

Any reason not to go with option 1? Is the second enclosure likely better at handling heat? Identical besides the look?
The first one is the V1 motherboard but with the new the i226 NIC + the oldest fat chassis + old bottom cover(no vents, no place for a 40mm fan and etc), while the second link is the V4 which has a newer chassis + newer bottom cover(vents, a place for a 40mm fan and etc) + newer motherboard with the following improvements:


 

Mike9474593

Member
Aug 5, 2022
98
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Currently wondering about these two:
1. Best price I would find at Aliexpress for N5105 i226 barebone. No cutout for fan. 160.32US $ 50% OFF|Fanless Soft Router 4 Intel i226 2.5G LAN Celeron N5105 Mini PC Quad Core 2xDDR4 NVMe HD MI VGA pfSense Firewall Appliance ESXi| | - AliExpress
2. Different enclosure with identical specs listed as an option in this thread. 191.45US $ 5% OFF|Upgrade The N5105 Softroute Mini-host /openwrt/pve/esxi Fansless Energy Saving Pc - Barebone & Mini Pc - AliExpress

Any reason not to go with option 1? Is the second enclosure likely better at handling heat? Identical besides the look?
As @xShARkx already mentioned I wouldn't go for option 1.
Two USB ports are simply not enough, even on a headless systems. Installing an OS already needs 3 ports, keyboard, mouse and USB key.
Some v1 and v2 (v2 = Changwang board with 4 USB Ports) have issues with crackling noise in C-states (mine does also a bit when enabling C-states in OPNsense). Not heard anything about this with v3.
The v3 upgrades are useful, I prefer a second m.2 slot instead of a miniPCIE for the wifi-card, USB-C and additional display outputs are also fine.
I have no heat issues with fatty N6005 v2 after re-aplying thermal paste and polishing/flattenig the cooper plate (40° in idle without C-states enabled, about 65° under full load).
 
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Snk B

Member
Jul 19, 2022
61
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As @xShARkx already mentioned I wouldn't go for option 1.
Two USB ports are simply not enough, even on a headless systems. Installing an OS already needs 3 ports, keyboard, mouse and USB key.
Some v1 and v2 (v2 = Changwang board with 4 USB Ports) have issues with crackling noise in C-states (mine does also a bit when enabling C-states in OPNsense). Not heard anything about this with v3.
The upgrade of the v3 are useful, I prefer a second m.2 slot instead of a miniPCIE for the wifi-card, USB-C and additional display outputs are also fine.
I have no heat issues with fatty N6005 v2 after re-aplying thermal paste and polishing/flattenig the cooper plate (40° in idle without C-states enabled, about 65° under full load).
From what you said earlier, this seems to be a good option for you: 2.5g mini roteador macio celeron n5105 quad core 2 * ddr4 nvme ssd 4 intel i225 nics tpm hdmi2.0 dp tipo c pfsense firewall roteador pc| | - AliExpress
 

Vollans

New Member
Aug 10, 2022
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2. Pick a SSD that doesn't run too hot like the Intel 660p/670p series.
6. Consider a fan if temps are still high.
If you've got the case with the mounting points for a 40mm fan, it's a cheap add to install a small 5v or 12v fan and power it off the SATA power connector. As belt-and-braces I went for a small Noctua fan and added a heat sink to the SSD. For the small cost it seemed daft not to. Temps have been no problems with the WD SSD as a result.
4. Change CPU-settings in BIOS and possibly pfSense to avoid overheating.
Yup, chances are that the BIOS has junk default settings with no consideration of what the actual power needs are, etc. Might also be worth changing the CR2032 battery, if it has one, as mine wasn't retaining settings.
5. Remove and reapply thermal paste.
Definitely. It'll probably have either have poor/poorly applied thermal paste or not great thermal pads. It's an easy job to dismantle, remove the paste and pads, and go for something a bit more substantial. With the gaps between components and chassis being fairly large and variable, looking at the thermal pads particularly, and the lack of enough gunk between copper block and chassis on mine, go for something that should be applied thickly like K5-Pro.

My CPU is now sitting between 39C and 44C the vast majority of the time with very rare peaks to about 70C.
 

Ipse

New Member
Aug 21, 2022
8
4
3
This needs to be a balance of thermal mass and rate of dissipation, doesn't it? If you can't increase the dissipation rate by using forced air speed across the surface area, then you are only left with increasing the surface area; which is more fins or spreading the heat out more efficiently via the contact material or heat pipes. It's something I had planned to have a look at when the new unit comes.
I can't figure out why I'm running at 42C idle and 95C under stress test then instantly drop back to 45C...clearly the thermal contact is imperfect. I ordered a 40mm x 7mm fan from Aliexpress...i'll be retired and the house burnt down from the pfSense appliance by the time it gets here :)
I also ordered a 4010 with ball bearings in case it also fits inside.

Dumb question: which is the best airflow direction? I did something similar to an Android TV box and I'm actually blowing air IN. But any computer case has fans blowing out extracting hot air from the case - which I feel won't do any good in this case. Worst case, I get to cool the NVME SSD and memory directly if I blow the air in.
 
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Vollans

New Member
Aug 10, 2022
14
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3
I can't figure out why I'm running at 42C idle and 95C under stress test then instantly drop back to 45C...clearly the thermal contact is imperfect.
Er, yes. :) Mine now will only rocket to about 70C under stress.
Dumb question: which is the best airflow direction?
I set mine to blow in directly onto the RAM and SSD, as the fan is on the bottom and cool air there, and there are vents at the top sides for mine, and that's working.
 
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dazagrt

Active Member
Mar 1, 2021
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I can't figure out why I'm running at 42C idle and 95C under stress test then instantly drop back to 45C...clearly the thermal contact is imperfect.
It might get shouted down, but if you are unsure use a thermal pad!
Also, getting into the habit of pre-assembling with something like Blu Tack Blu Tack - Wikipedia to do a crush-test as if you were blueprinting a race engine to measure tolerances, is easy, cheap and saves any concerns about the contact shape and clearances at a later stage.

* Note: A handy tip if using Blu Tack to measure contact, put just a smear of vegetable oil on only one surface before doing the test, that way it will release cleanly and is an easy clean-up.

Dumb question: which is the best airflow direction? I did something similar to an Android TV box and I'm actually blowing air IN. But any computer case has fans blowing out extracting hot air from the case - which I feel won't do any good in this case. Worse case, I get to cool the NVME SSD and memory directly if I blow the air in.
True, circulating hot air around a case is not ideal but oddly enough forcing air on onto a surface is more effective at heat transfer than relying on convection currents or potential difference, even if it's warm air. The real answer is that you need to do both.
Even if you need to make some ducting out of cardboard or a cut-down small plastic juice bottle to ensure the hot component gets a singular flow of air, as in server cases.

If you have a 3D printer the world's your oyster!

 
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TH_user

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Aug 22, 2022
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dazagrt

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Mar 1, 2021
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If time is an issue in your build the below unit shipped barebones in one day.

22 August ordered
23 August shipped
24 August tracking updated

Delivery is Thailand so that may impact shipping as well.

Gee I don't know man ...

Free Shipping
From China to Brisbane via AliExpress Standard Shipping
Estimated delivery on Oct 12
 

sko

Active Member
Jun 11, 2021
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Regarding NVMe drives:

I replaced the crufty old Samsung SM951 with a low-power WD SN530 today. Power consumption went down ~1.5W at idle (from ~20.5 to 18.8W) and max by over 4W! (27.8W -> 23.6).
But most importantly - the CPU temps dropped from high-80s/low-90s with all NICs enabled and under light load down to ~65°C!! (24-25°C room temperature)

It is also amazing that the PoE splitter actually handled that 27.8W peak; although it always gets pretty warm. But it seems this thing has a bit of a safety margin built in.
Of course I'm not planning to run it above the rated 24W, that's why I ordered the low power NVMe to have a bit more headroom.

All figures are still without any power saving tweaks to the BIOS (e.g. CPU power limits)! So I can still shave off a few 1/10 Watts if needed via those settings.
 
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dums

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Aug 14, 2022
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I can see that you are wanting to not having to spend money on a low powered NAS box on its own. You want to use this fanless PC to run as a NAS by attaching hard drives to it. In theory, you can have a 3.5" HD enclosure with 8TB on it and attach it to this PC. But in my experience with 3.5" HD enclosure, it needs its own power adapter as well as having quite abit of noise due to the fan of the enclosure and the spinning disk. If you don't need much as storage space then the large 2nd nvme drive (2TB for example) would be the perfect solution. If you need to have a few disk drives, I would go with having a dedicated NAS box on its own and attach it to your network or to the fanless PC. If you don't care about noise and messy look, you would have more options for sure.
I do admit that my first attempt at 3D is not going to win any design awards, but messy? In my book it can't be messy if it's square (see attached photos) :) And it's certainly cleaner than separate NAS box with separate ethernet and power cables (besides NAS with 2.5Gig interfaces aren't going to be cheap).
Now I have single 14 TB HDD in external enclosure attached to my home router via eSATA interface. It's mostly used for backups + media streaming and is not heavily used. Router is configured to spin-down HDD if it idles for longer that 5 min. External enclosure has no active cooling, but never runs really hot (hdd is rated to work up to 60C, and I think it never reaches that). So my plan is to provide decent passive venting and avoid using fan.
I don't think building 14 TB nvme storage would be economically feasible (I'm not even sure that nvme storage of that capacity is for sale). So I'm stuck with HDDs.
This leaves me with 2 problems:
1. I'm not sure if mini PC can provide enough power to feed 14 TB 7200 rpm disk. I've verified that internal power connector provides both 5V and 12V. Also I've ordered 60W MeanWell power supply. If internal power connector would prove to insufficient to run HDD, I plan to use 12V->5V step down converter and feed HDD directly from DC power input.
2. Event enterprise grade HDDs eventually fail, so I would like to have at least RAID1. Since mini pc has only one SATA connector I've ordered M.2 -> SATA converter. If converter proves to be functional, I'll have an option to build RAID1 or even RAID5.
 

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