Topton Jasper Lake Quad i225V Mini PC Report

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Snk B

Member
Jul 19, 2022
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I wonder if this will fix my issue seeing both Samsung 970 Eve Plus drives at the same time...
Now I just have to work out how to do the BIOS upgrade. My Chinese is rubbish.


Yep, as I suspected, it's actually the the PS5712TG from SDaPo Communication.
I think it would be valid to send an email to the manufacturer and check how this update is done.
This update seems to be on the right track to fixing some annoying issues.
 

xShARkx

Member
Jun 12, 2022
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MiniKnight

Well-Known Member
Mar 30, 2012
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  • Check if CPU is ES (engineering sample right?). It seems I need to install windows and use HWINFO. What value am I looking for? Is there a way to check this in pfsense?
I'd just point out that QS is not ES. QS is Qualification Sample. Those are chips that are almost always the same stepping as retail but they're marked QS so they don't sell for huge dollars on the secondary market. Many of us have ebayed QS Xeons and they're the same silicon as retail just marked QS and cheaper.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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I'd just point out that QS is not ES. QS is Qualification Sample. Those are chips that are almost always the same stepping as retail but they're marked QS so they don't sell for huge dollars on the secondary market. Many of us have ebayed QS Xeons and they're the same silicon as retail just marked QS and cheaper.
You are correct (well - mostly correct as that "almost" in almost always should have been bold, red and larger font).

Two issues though:
  • Those of us that purchase ES/QS chips on ebay do it with our eyes wide open and the seller disclosing the fact. We chose to take a risk. Sometimes the sellers don't disclose the ES/QS nature of the part and people get rightfully quite angry. This is Topton's problem here - they knowingly sold non-retail parts as retail. That is called fraud in every part of the world.
  • QS parts are still covered by Intel's confidential sales agreement. They are not "sold" to the vendor, they are provided under license. Technically these parts remain the property of Intel. They shouldn't be going into retail appliances.
 

LucidityCrash

New Member
Jul 18, 2022
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(lscpu) without isolating the "Authentic"
This is what I'm seeing in lscpu :

Architecture: amd64
Byte Order: Little Endian
Total CPU(s): 4
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 4
Socket(s): 1
Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 156
Model name: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Silver N6005 @ 2.00GHz
Stepping: 0
L1d cache: 32K
L1i cache: 32K
L2 cache: 1536K
L3 cache: 4M
Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 cflsh ds acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss htt tm pbe sse3 pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline aes xsave osxsave rdrnd fsgsbase tsc_adjust fp_dp smep erms fpcsds pqe rdseed smap clflushopt clwb intel_pt umip syscall nx rdtscp lm lahf_lm

And that is on a QS chip.

What is Topton telling you so far? At this point I've escalated it to AliExpress multiple times, and Topton seems to want to work with me, however it's frustratingly long between replies. I'm also not convinced they even really read the replies I wrote (I provided the information and queries as condensed and succinctly as possible), because often they will respond with something totally random similar to throwing a bunch of options out, none of which are satisfactory, or requires me to "wait" another few weeks or month.

Last night I got :
Sorry dear,you should know that the QS version of the CPU is very cost-effective and its price is also very cheap. The official version of the CPU is obviously much more expensive than the QS version, so the factory uses the QS version, and they produce this machine according to the needs of the market.

to which I replied that wasn't an acceptable answer :)

and then this morning I got :
Sorry dear for this,so what can I do for you now?

I asked them to send me what I paid for and was told to request a refund and return the unit. However I'm outside the 15 days and I can't request a refund. When I pointed this out they have gone radio silent :(

I'm not sure I can be arsed returning it or being without it as I've been using it as an OpnSense box since I got it and switching back to my old solution will be a bit painfull, I wonder if they will do a partial refund.

I worked out a "fix" to the poor cooling besided repasting which certainly helped, I popped one of the wifi antenna caps off and ran the cable of a 120mm fan through the hole to the cpu fan header. I've put 2 3mm nuts in one of the channels along the top and used some m3 machine screws to hold the fan on. The case is now cold to the touch at idle rather than fairly warm ... I'm struggling to believe the thermal sensor readings from OpnSense as they literally jump 10 degrees or more every refresh which doesn't really seem plausible to me ... infact just saw it showing 79C while the case is literally below room temperature and 5 seconds later down at 39C
 

bhigh

Member
Oct 5, 2016
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I asked them to send me what I paid for and was told to request a refund and return the unit. However I'm outside the 15 days and I can't request a refund. When I pointed this out they have gone radio silent :(
Can you file a dispute with PayPal or your credit card?
 

LucidityCrash

New Member
Jul 18, 2022
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Can you file a dispute with PayPal or your credit card?
Yeah, can still contact PayPal.

Been playing with it more today, doing some bios tweeking, tunable tweeking in OpnSense and adding the fan ( in addition to repasting the heatsink the other day) and the Idle temp is now down to 35-45C. I have to ask am I making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Yes they shouldn't be selling these, and certainly not without disclosing it, but do I really need to return it, I'm gonna be out of pocket the shipping costs till they refund me and I bet you I'll end up having to fight for the shipping to be refunded. Is it really that important ?
 

Spectrum Nostalgia

New Member
Jul 20, 2022
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Newbie to the forums, I ordered one of the Topton units on the 27th June and it arrived yesterday, 19th July. First impressions aren't amazing, up until now the only thing I have purchased from Aliexpress are Barrow watercooling fittings.

First impressions are let down because of the power adapter. I ordered the barebones N6005 with a UK power adapter, received this travel adapter and power adapter.

IMG_20220720_213410 (copy).jpg

Can't say I am overly comfortable about the idea of using them, day in day out on a firewall, which will be running when I am not at home and coming back to find the thing as caused an electrical fire.

I've got some Crucial 2x 4GB 2666MHz memory and a 250GB M2 drive arriving tomorrow - guess I will try it then with a mini PC power supply I have, but definitely going to order a better power adapter for the new firewall.
 
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Jeggs101

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Dec 29, 2010
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These Atom socs are designed for like 105C tcases. Even 80C is fine.

We've now got 19 of these and they've been running fine even in 32C ambient without re-doing thermal paste.

I just wanted to get real here. If they're QS but retail stepping that's not ideal and OK. But these are actually working just fine within specs for us.

Atom's aren't the same as consumer CPUs when it comes to temps.
 

xShARkx

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Jun 12, 2022
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These Atom socs are designed for like 105C tcases. Even 80C is fine.

We've now got 19 of these and they've been running fine even in 32C ambient without re-doing thermal paste.

I just wanted to get real here. If they're QS but retail stepping that's not ideal and OK. But these are actually working just fine within specs for us.

Atom's aren't the same as consumer CPUs when it comes to temps.
You mean celeron, since these are celeron and not atom cpus... Or are you talking about another model which uses atom cpus?
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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These Atom socs are designed for like 105C tcases. Even 80C is fine.

We've now got 19 of these and they've been running fine even in 32C ambient without re-doing thermal paste.

I just wanted to get real here. If they're QS but retail stepping that's not ideal and OK. But these are actually working just fine within specs for us.

Atom's aren't the same as consumer CPUs when it comes to temps.
I can live with the QS part - but still feel like it is somewhat fraudulent for them not to disclose this part.

Running the SOC hot is OK too. I wouldn’t worry about hitting 80c on it regularly with the 105c Tcase. No issue there.

But the SoDIMMs running that hot are a problem. They will drop bits and possibly fail.

The NVMe running that hot is an issue too, though you can mitigate this by using a low-scale drive that doesn’t get as hot. It is still a concern.

For those who got the “newer” case bottom plate a 40mm quite fan makes this box quite usable. Though if you bought it as a “silent” fan less system - or for industrial use where fans raise other issues - then it is not suitable for purpose as advertised.

In the end I decided to keep mine. Running with a small fan, located in a hot garage, doing its intended job quite nicely.

Just the same - I won’t be doing business with Topton in the future nor will a recommend others do either.
 

LucidityCrash

New Member
Jul 18, 2022
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First impressions are let down because of the power adapter. I ordered the barebones N6005 with a UK power adapter, received this travel adapter and power adapter.

View attachment 23616
Ouch ... I got a proper 12v, 5a (60W) power brick that has a UK kettle lead.

These Atom socs are designed for like 105C tcases. Even 80C is fine.

We've now got 19 of these and they've been running fine even in 32C ambient without re-doing thermal paste.

I just wanted to get real here. If they're QS but retail stepping that's not ideal and OK. But these are actually working just fine within specs for us.

Atom's aren't the same as consumer CPUs when it comes to temps.
You are correct but when the case is actually too hot to hold for more than a few seconds you do have to wonder :).
Interestingly with OpnSense (freebsd) my temps when using the coretemps module were all over the place with defaults - jumping 20C in seconds which I don't think is physically possible, but after some tweeking it now seems to be a lot more sane.

I've done some BIOS tuning, (https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...e-quad-i225v-mini-pc-report.36699/post-340441) but setting L1 to 8W and L2 to 10W

I then put a load of tunables in:
dev.hwpstate_intel.0-3.epp=99
*hw.acpi.cpu.cx_lowest=C1
*hw.ibrs_disable=1
machdep.hwpstate_pkg_ctrl=0
hw.igc.rx_process_limit=-1
hw.igc.max_interrupt_rate=32000
dev.igc.0.fc=0

* it was one of these 2 that seemed to make the temperature sensors sane, my gut feel is it limiting the lowest cstate to c1 - I suppose I should experiment to confirm :)

For those who got the “newer” case bottom plate a 40mm quite fan makes this box quite usable. Though if you bought it as a “silent” fan less system - or for industrial use where fans raise other issues - then it is not suitable for purpose as advertised.
I got the this but I'm using a 2.5" SSD which blocks this ... I'm happy enough with my 120mm solution :)
 
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Jeggs101

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Dec 29, 2010
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@PigLover I'm in agreement on QS, but QS isn't ES so I'd be OK if it were just disclosed. We're using low speed cheap drives and 1 SODIMM to mitigate. These run fine even 1ch ddr4 2666. That'll also lower temps.

@xShARkx these are Atom line. Atom = E core. Celeron that's a marketing name that some Atoms get.

@LucidityCrash "You are correct but when the case is actually too hot to hold for more than a few seconds you do have to wonder" I don't. Most commercial Atom based fanless systems are too hot too touch when in operation. You're using a standard gamers use, not the standard for embedded devices. No need to wonder. I'm sure a few have gotten systems with such bad thermal paste that maybe they're overheating. But we've gotten 18 in four orders and they're all working fine in spaces without aircon.

I'm just saying if you're using gamer temps or how hot a fanless system like this is to touch, you're using the wrong standard
 

bhigh

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Oct 5, 2016
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Been playing with it more today, doing some bios tweeking, tunable tweeking in OpnSense and adding the fan ( in addition to repasting the heatsink the other day) and the Idle temp is now down to 35-45C. I have to ask am I making a mountain out of a mole hill.
At some point you have to ask if the time spent tweaking and tuning is worth the savings vs. better supported hardware. I just created a thread looking at some options. https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...tectli-vs-netgate-vs-opnsense-hardware.37044/

First impressions are let down because of the power adapter. I ordered the barebones N6005 with a UK power adapter, received this travel adapter and power adapter.
I think this is pretty common. I ordered a ZX01 mini PC (N5105) and it came with an EU adapter. The seller forgot to include a travel adapter and fought the dispute when I asked them to send a US adapter. It wasn't until I filed a dispute with PayPal that they finally sent the correct part.

These Atom socs are designed for like 105C tcases. Even 80C is fine.
The SoC isn't the problem, it's the ram and SSD. The i5-1135G7 system I ordered heated the SSD to 85+, well past its operating range.
 
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AinT83

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Jul 17, 2022
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I have one of the v3 N5105 units and am seeing a strange behavior that the system will not boot without a monitor attached to one of the outputs. I’m using an HDMI dummy plug at the minute as a workaround but seeing high idle temps which I suspect is because the iGPU is being kept active all the time due to the dummy. In a regular system I’d attribute this to “halt on boot error xxx” but I don’t see that exposed anywhere in the BIOS. Anyone else seeing similar issue or have an idea for what setting in the bios could disable it?
 
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ramst3r

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Jul 14, 2022
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The ethernet controller doesn't need cooling, and a lot of boards don't have any sort of active or passive cooling. You could put thermal pads on the chips if you're concerned about it.
Thanks. I'll leave it be then. I really don't know anything about this stuff so have no reason to be concerned. I haven't noticed cooling on any other MBs either so begs the question why they stuck a chunk of aluminium adjacent to them.
 

Stephan

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Apr 21, 2017
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These Atom socs are designed for like 105C tcases. Even 80C is fine.
The chip itself may be, but the capacitors around it are not. Just read any datasheet of an electrolytic capacitor. Any run of the mill cap is rated for 2000 hours at 85 deg C. So if you let your chip cook its surroundings, that is what you get. 83 days within spec, after that below spec and falling. That is how you get early or soonish death of a system. There are more expensive 105 deg C versions which last 4x longer. For every 10 deg C lower than 85, lifetime roughly doubles. At 45 deg C, an imho normal idle temperature such a system should have, you are looking at 2*2*2*2=16 x 83 days of within-spec lifetime, or 1333 days or ~3.5 years.

There may be some more margin because the caps are possibly cooled through the PCB in a thermal gradient that is formed within the device. Also critical capacitors could deliberately have been over-spec'd by the designer to prolong the device's usable life. Unknown by how much. Crashes and errors will creep in earliest if you load the device heavily with a compute job.
 

ReturnedSword

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Jun 15, 2018
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Yes, in industrial embedded deployments, high quality solid state capacitors, better VRM/power delivery IC, and a method to sink the heat into the chassis to try to keep as much heat away from the drives and RAM are a huge must. In addition, industrial embedded systems tend to use industrial SATA drives/modules or eMMC rather than NVMe drives, as well as industrial spec memory modules. Not that any of that would help in the abysmal thermal design of these Jasper Lake/Tiger Lake firewall appliances. Aside from lower production volume, the aforementioned are the main cost drivers and reason for cost premium. Just because a SoC is an embedded one doesn’t mean that the platform was designed for embedded situations.

The situation we have here is just another example of Chinese companies making something look passable, yet once a closer look is taken the innards fall flat. Fake “carbon fiber” and fake plastic “passive cooling fins” on some other mini PC offerings drive this point home. I really hate it when Qotom and Protectli are mentioned as they don’t make their own designs. They just rebrand as well, and charge a big premium for “testing,” which I don’t believe for a second. Granted there are ODMs that are more conservative in design, such as Yangling (Protectli ODM). This may end up “better.”

So overall knowing all the downsides, do the pros outweigh the bad for that price point? Or, the real question may be “can I tolerate the shortcomings for the price?”