Topton Jasper Lake Quad i225V Mini PC Report

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xShARkx

Member
Jun 12, 2022
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I got both "versions", the unit were i added the fan needs the fan, the other unit is fine without any additional cooling.

see here https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...i225v-mini-pc-report.36699/page-8#post-341943

if i had to choose again with the knowlege i got now, i would go with the bigger one @your post the "old chassis" version aka proper heatsink version ;)
Thanks for the info!

But i see that the one that you got with the "new" chassis(which i would like to call "slim") has the old bottom cover, in other words, no vents, no place for the 40mm fan on it(which you probably cut it yourself, right?) and no knock-out hole... While the "old" chassis version(which i would like to call "fat") that you got has the new bottom cover with the vents, place for 40 mm fan and the knock-out hole!

So does that bottom cover have a considerable influence on temps, it having ventilation holes i mean?

Ill be honest, i still would like to see a comparison between the same chassis using the same mother board, with the same bottom cover and from the same store :D Any chance of that @Patrick ? Thx.

Are the bottom covers exchangeable by your units? To test if the one which has no vents would increase the temperatures on the fat chassis?

And after the fan, which one has the better temps?
 

yxman

New Member
Aug 18, 2019
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i had to cut the hole in the slim version. the fat version allready had holes and a fan mounting position. i would prefer holes in the bottom cover plate because nvmes can generate up to 8w of heat.

nvme temp on the slim version with fan is better, thats the only thermal advantage over the fat one.

the bottom cover is not the same size.
 

dtw

New Member
Jul 11, 2022
14
6
3
Which os? I resetted the bios to defaults, didn't event touch the PL or CPU VR settings. Enabled Cstates, and the most important thing, ASPM for the PCIE Lanes (ASPM = AUTO (disabled by default)) and Link State Power Mgmt.
I installed Debian 11 from netinstall; there's a single 2.5G link connected, 32GB RAM and a NVME M.2 disk. I have already figured out that the M.2 is around 0.7W in idle by removing it and booting from USB into recovery mode. Without the 2.5G link I lose another 0.3W or so.

Chipset -> PCH-IO -> PCI Express Configuration -> DMI Link ASPM = Auto was the default
Chipset -> PCH-IO -> PCI Express Configuration -> PCI Express Root Port [1,3,5,6,7,8] -> ASPM = Auto was also the default
See attached screenshots for the PCIE Root Port settings.

I haven't yet found where to set Link State Power Mgmt but will look some more...
 

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yxman

New Member
Aug 18, 2019
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L1 Substates, but they are allready correct. maybe the ps is oversized (90w) version, have you checked the efficiency?
 

xShARkx

Member
Jun 12, 2022
78
49
18
i had to cut the hole in the slim version. the fat version allready had holes and a fan mounting position. i would prefer holes in the bottom cover plate because nvmes can generate up to 8w of heat.

nvme temp on the slim version with fan is better, thats the only thermal advantage over the fat one.

the bottom cover is not the same size.
On my mind that bottom cover having those vents will have an impact in the temps and that might explain some of the advantage that the fat chassis is having over the slim chassis in your case...

Cause there is a lot of vents on that new bottom cover, so its helping the motherboard, the nvme and the memory with the heat on the fat chassis. Ofc not all of it.
 

dtw

New Member
Jul 11, 2022
14
6
3
L1 Substates, but they are allready correct. maybe the ps is oversized (90w) version, have you checked the efficiency?
I don't have a good way to check the efficiency but will get my hands on a GST60A12 + adapter and see how that does. The GST90 seems to be doing about as well as the Dajing ADP-36K12 that came with the unit (seeing the same wattage for both).
 
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dazagrt

Active Member
Mar 1, 2021
195
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@yxman do you have any problems with the transfer rate on yours? I'm still trying to get mine to do full bandwidth when acting as a server in iperf3.

I have had no success with the seller and am about to open a return & refund, but I can't even find out who has to pay for the return postage on a faulty item.
 

ramst3r

New Member
Jul 14, 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.

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.
Agree. Felt exactly the same way. Didn't expect to get a some crap travel adaptor that is loose in the socket. I complained to them and their response .. "don't worry". Yeah right, not going to risk the house burning down using that rubbish.
 

PigLover

Moderator
Jan 26, 2011
3,184
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@yxman do you have any problems with the transfer rate on yours? I'm still trying to get mine to do full bandwidth when acting as a server in iperf3.

I have had no success with the seller and am about to open a return & refund, but I can't even find out who has to pay for the return postage on a faulty item.
I’m not seeing that issue. I get solid 2.44-2.48gbps in both directions.
 
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SSMI

New Member
Jul 15, 2022
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Well now I have something weird.

I got a NVME SSD (here) to replace the SATA I was using so I could add the fan. I come to discover my Topton unit (N5105 with 6 ports) won't boot (power light stays off) when I have the NVME installed. Any combination with the NVME (with or without fan or SATA) doesn't power on.

Is there something I need to do in the BIOS or something? If the NVME was bad wouldn't the device still go to BIOS and just not recognize the drive?

Does this mean there is something wrong with my device?
 

yxman

New Member
Aug 18, 2019
16
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Sounds strange. I swapped on both my units several nvme (pm 991a, evo 960, 970, a2000 and sn 530).

all were detected and working fine (with pcie 3.0 x2)
 

rwojo

New Member
Jul 7, 2022
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So the only good news I have is that my n6005 6-port CPU looks to be a retail CPU.

Everything else is still confirmed bad.

The unit with a desk fan pointed towards it, and with a higher speed 40mm fan I had available in the case, without NVMe and just one 16GB proven DIMM... crashes.

Not only does it crash, especially when under Prime95, but it crashes HARD. Screen turns off, unit cools down, and it won't start back up even after unplugged for minutes.

Give it enough time (maybe more like 15 minutes) it seems that components fully drain (caps, etc), or something like that, and then the thing will boot up again. Rinse and repeat.

DO NOT BUY THE N6005 VERSION! This thing is not thermally stable.
 

ReturnedSword

Active Member
Jun 15, 2018
526
235
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Santa Monica, CA
So the only good news I have is that my n6005 6-port CPU looks to be a retail CPU.

Everything else is still confirmed bad.

The unit with a desk fan pointed towards it, and with a higher speed 40mm fan I had available in the case, without NVMe and just one 16GB proven DIMM... crashes.

Not only does it crash, especially when under Prime95, but it crashes HARD. Screen turns off, unit cools down, and it won't start back up even after unplugged for minutes.

Give it enough time (maybe more like 15 minutes) it seems that components fully drain (caps, etc), or something like that, and then the thing will boot up again. Rinse and repeat.

DO NOT BUY THE N6005 VERSION! This thing is not thermally stable.
Not good. This is the X6 N6005 right? This is the unit Topton said they will upgrade me to to replace my X4A N6005 “V1.”

I had a discussion with Topton about thermal loading, and they were insistent that they test every model thoroughly. Maybe by testing the units were turned on? :p My experience with custom CNC chassis isn’t recent, nor is designing custom thermal solutions as standard chassis nowadays are mostly “good enough” unlike back in the day when it was more common for a subset of enthusiasts who had access to CNC made their own heatsinks, water blocks, and re-manufactured chassis for radiator support.

However with a small understanding of physics it isn’t that hard to figure out what the issue is. The Cu/Al “plug” doesn’t optimally, or even come close to doing an average job of transferring heat from the SoC to the chassis, which acts as the main heatsink. Furthermore, the mass of the aluminum chassis isn’t sufficiently “big enough” to fully sink the heat while dissipating the heat fast enough. Yes, I’m aware that it’s a big ask to demand a cheap chassis that can sink away and dissipate heat 24/7 while running full load. Yes, I’m aware that the expectation for a cheaper passive system is to be able to handle bursts before the SoC down clocks again. In this second important metric these passive chassis fail utterly.

Adding thick “ice thorn” fins doesn’t do much to radiate and dissipate the heat because the important thing about design is to increase surface area. This is why passive tower heatsinks have many thin fins, with heat pipes distributing the waste heat to those fins. Taking this into account, a better design would be more and thinner fins, with heat pipes from the SoC to distribute the heat. It would be better for example to have a slightly larger “smooth” sided chassis with many vents, and a fat thinly finned heatsink underneath.

The additional consideration is there should be a way for sink the heat from the NVMe to chassis. Better design and thermal pads are fine for this. There is typically a max thickness where a thermal pad would start to lose effectiveness, so for example a “10mm” thermal pad wouldn’t work that well.

By removing the two obvious sources of heat from the system, the RAM modules should be fine and within spec.
 
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rwojo

New Member
Jul 7, 2022
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Yes, 6-port N6005. They swapped me to this as well.

The shocking thing is this thing for me seems to crash in Windows PE not even benchmarking sometimes. This time the last crash seems to be sticking, it's been something like 30 minutes and I can get it to POST.

I also get a very concerning weird dim green LED blink when plugging in the PSU. So shady.
 

ReturnedSword

Active Member
Jun 15, 2018
526
235
43
Santa Monica, CA
Yes, 6-port N6005. They swapped me to this as well.

The shocking thing is this thing for me seems to crash in Windows PE not even benchmarking sometimes. This time the last crash seems to be sticking, it's been something like 30 minutes and I can get it to POST.

I also get a very concerning weird dim green LED blink when plugging in the PSU. So shady.
This is concerning as currently I’m waiting for the X6 N6005 to come back in stock for Topton to swap me. I believe @Patrick bought the X6 as well but he probably doesn’t have time to test it yet.

Both the N5105 and N6005 have the same thermal design spec, however the N6005 should run hotter since it turbos higher. We can have niggles about the PSU, BIOS, or even QA on these units, however to me the main issue is really the chassis. No thought was put into thermals, as evidenced by @bhigh observations on the Tiger Lake units which use the same basic chassis.