Appreciate if someone knows what unit from which vendor has N6005 (or 5105) with I225 and cut outs in bottom for Fan and is available and OK overall quality?
Topton Jasper Lake Quad i225V Mini PC Report
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Forget about the i225, they are probably somewhere as unreliable old stock and not really manufactured anymore but nobody wants them anyway, i226 is the way to go.
I agree with @oneplane , so far support for both i225 and i226 seems to be the same, besides for windows(which you need to install the drivers manually) and for pfsense CE which doesn't work yet with the i226 due to bugs, at least that is what i could understand from the discussion from here:
Intel i226-V not recognized
Hi Everyone, This is my 1st post here (so please be gentle :-) ) I've been using pfSense for a couple of years now and I'm loving it! I'm running it on a fan...
Even the manufacturer of the board itself(ChangWang) is not selling these x86 routers with i225 anymore:
Their store -> Buy Products Online from China Wholesalers at Aliexpress.com <- no more i225, only i226.
Edit: Never mind, they still sell with i225 but its with the older board(not the v3 or v4 boards) which is not worth it tbh! So its probably just stuck old stock that they are trying to get rid off.
And for the best unit to buy, its strait from them for sure:
N5105 -> 191.45US $ 5% OFF|Upgrade The N5105 Softroute Mini-host /openwrt/pve/esxi Fansless Energy Saving Pc - Barebone & Mini Pc - AliExpress
N6005 -> 252.04US $ 5% OFF|New Upgrade V4 Version N6005 I226 Four Network Card 10 Black Layer Pcb Board Feature: Double M. 2 Nvme | Dp | | Type - C M. 2 Wi - Barebone & Mini Pc - AliExpress
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I'm using an Anker Nano2 30W with a USB-C to barrel PD cable to power mine. The included power supply was terrible and had the Anker device lying around spare. Totally silent, cool, and very efficient.
But there is quite a bit of people in this thread that are running i225 and have them stable for months already....
So I should throw my N6005 with I225 B3 in the trash?
I need 2 units in total but got the first N6005 unit a month ago after many months wait time because there was no N6005 CPUs in Shanghai ... Then now also this drama with ES and people literally complaining about these units from A to Z and then now even more additional drama with i226 and still see posts the new v4 units overheat even with fans in bottom... Honestly never experienced this much circus and drama about a single piece of hardware in 25 years of working with computers...
That device is still present even with the 4G LTE mini PCIe card removed, so i can only assume its something on the mobo.
Could a firmware update possibly help?
Yes, and? Want do you mean with this?
Its like saying:
But there is a lot of people that driver manual cars every day
But there is a lot of people that drive automatic cars every day
But there is a lot of people who takes the bus every day
As i already explained... With the information provided by research + reports from users which already have the i226, we have the following conclusion:
Support for both i225 and i226 is basically the same! With the exception for windows where you need to install the drivers manually and for the current pfsense CE which doesn't work yet with the i226 due to bugs! You can use pfsense plus 22.05 or wait until the new snaps start getting released again.
You are adding everything together(old information and older versions + new information and new versions) and making a mess with this statement to be honest.
The ES issue is old! Its from months ago and it happened with the older v1 board from ChangWang when buying from topton since ChangWang didn't have a store in aliexpress yet. Now, who ever made a decision to sell ES N6005 cpus with the older V1 systems, in other words if it was topton or ChangWang fault, we won't ever know i am pretty sure...
The v4 system its a brand new system that uses the V3 board but replaces the I225 with the new and better i226! It appeared in aliexpress on around August 1 or 2 if i am not mistaken, so barely anyone got one yet. So far the V4 ones that come with the N6005, are coming with retail cpu's and not ES.
I honestly don't remember anyone complaining about temperatures when using a v4, but i might have missed it? Since i am really not paying too much attention to posts about temperatures anymore, cause i already saw so many posts about that with different solutions and causes, so i already have my annotations to work on my appliance once it arrives in the next day or so.
What i saw was a post like this one:
Which we can see the V4 version bought from ChangWang themselves which has proper contact between the cpu die and the copper block, so it has alright temperatures.
The problem with temperatures might happen due to two things:
1 - The first problem happens when there is a big gap between the cpu die and the copper block, so the cpu temperatures spike instantly under load to really high temperatures! Like in this picture:
This unit from above, came from topton which seems to have worse QC, with their QC people just adding a ****ing ton of thermal paste to try to compensate for the gap which some units have.
While ChangWang seems to pay more attention to this issue, so their units have proper contact:
2 - The second reason for temperature issues are people who are using high performance NVME SSD's, which require cooling like a heatsink for sure and maybe even a fan.
I think you are expecting perfection from something really cheap that comes from unknown and new manufactures from china. If you really don't want drama(which i don't agree with this definition tbh, i would call it a challenge instead), then i suggest you buy something from a well known manufacturer! Which is going be a lot more expensive but it might ensure that you get something with better quality?
You could always boot into a 'Live' version of Linux from a USB stick and get it to list your hardware and compare what it finds to Windows. It's straightforward and I'm sure many of us here could help you along. When you are done just shut down pull out the USB thumb drive and boot back into Windows.
i also did fix the damn gap between the cpu and the copper heatsink, used a dremel with a flat disk side, damn the temp went really down :O i'm at 29°C idle and no more temp spikes.. impressive.
i'm gonna let it run for a while and see how temps report.
i would suggest everybody fix that gap.
from my previous post in stress testing the temps went down 27° in full load.. and the chassis seems to stay way cooler.
i'm gonna let it run for a while and see how temps report.
i would suggest everybody fix that gap.
from my previous post in stress testing the temps went down 27° in full load.. and the chassis seems to stay way cooler.
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I've been running my V2 unit as a primary router in my network for ~10 days now.
Despite having "OK" contact between the die and the aluminium spacer, my temps still settled near ~70°C after 48hours and the case was insanely hot (and heating up the switch above the unit).
So yesterday I decided to take another look and maybe changing the thermal paste between the spacer and case, and it turned out there was actually quite a gap between those two - i.e. the spacer wasn't tightly bolted against the case. Instead there was a rather thick pillow of thermal paste inbetween. After bolting down the spacer I also had a small gap (<0.5mm) between the die and spacer.
So I also filed down the studs to get a flush contact with some preloading between die and spacer, used some MX2 paste that was lying around and now the unit sits at ~40° at normal operating load with 23-24° room temperature.
The case still gets 'hot', but you can still touch it without instantly wanting to pull your fingers away.
To be clear: the unit ran totally fine at those ~60°-70° temperatures and I didn't see any indications during normal operation that the NICs or NVMe would have any problems with those ambient temps; but burning my fingers on some gear that sits in my rack isn't something I want and the unit also considerably heating up the switch above it (in ~5cm distance) finally got me to take another look.
As for stability: absolutely no problems so far.
The unit runs OpenBSD with ~75 PF rules and NATing and is routing between 5 VLANs. The heavy lifting at 10GBit between VLANs for the services that account for most traffic in my network (e.g. NFS), are handled via PBR on the switch, so the router only sees ~30GiB of total traffic daily on average.
Apart from firewalling/routing the unit handles local DHCP, local DNS resolver (unbound with 2 local zones), BGP for some local routing/fallback and CARP/PFsync for redundancy with the edgerouter 4 (/w OpenBSD) that is still running as a backup.
So it's not under heavy load, but also far from idling as it might be in most "normal" home setups.
Despite having "OK" contact between the die and the aluminium spacer, my temps still settled near ~70°C after 48hours and the case was insanely hot (and heating up the switch above the unit).
So yesterday I decided to take another look and maybe changing the thermal paste between the spacer and case, and it turned out there was actually quite a gap between those two - i.e. the spacer wasn't tightly bolted against the case. Instead there was a rather thick pillow of thermal paste inbetween. After bolting down the spacer I also had a small gap (<0.5mm) between the die and spacer.
So I also filed down the studs to get a flush contact with some preloading between die and spacer, used some MX2 paste that was lying around and now the unit sits at ~40° at normal operating load with 23-24° room temperature.
The case still gets 'hot', but you can still touch it without instantly wanting to pull your fingers away.
To be clear: the unit ran totally fine at those ~60°-70° temperatures and I didn't see any indications during normal operation that the NICs or NVMe would have any problems with those ambient temps; but burning my fingers on some gear that sits in my rack isn't something I want and the unit also considerably heating up the switch above it (in ~5cm distance) finally got me to take another look.
As for stability: absolutely no problems so far.
The unit runs OpenBSD with ~75 PF rules and NATing and is routing between 5 VLANs. The heavy lifting at 10GBit between VLANs for the services that account for most traffic in my network (e.g. NFS), are handled via PBR on the switch, so the router only sees ~30GiB of total traffic daily on average.
Apart from firewalling/routing the unit handles local DHCP, local DNS resolver (unbound with 2 local zones), BGP for some local routing/fallback and CARP/PFsync for redundancy with the edgerouter 4 (/w OpenBSD) that is still running as a backup.
So it's not under heavy load, but also far from idling as it might be in most "normal" home setups.
What is the most is the convenient and easiest way to fix gap between the CPU and the heatsink to lower the temperature ?
Can you show me a picture so I can better understand what needs to be done ?
Thank you.
just remove the board from the aluminium profile (="case") and file down the mounting studs.
exactly, just open up the unit, remove the board and clean all the thermal paste from it and from the copper block, the screw it back and see how much is missing, probably a lot, you can check it by pressing the board in the middle it will flex until it touches.
the 4 spacers need to be filed down by that amount, don't over do it, just remove a small layer of metal from all 4 studs and the remount the board to check how much it's left.. repeat until the gently flex is no more needed.
clean everything, apply thermal paste on CPU and GPU, remount the board for good.
the difference in my case is incredible, after 5 hours of soaking everything in normal use it stays at 32°C, the max i saw under full load was 47°C, perfectly acceptable.
the 4 spacers need to be filed down by that amount, don't over do it, just remove a small layer of metal from all 4 studs and the remount the board to check how much it's left.. repeat until the gently flex is no more needed.
clean everything, apply thermal paste on CPU and GPU, remount the board for good.
the difference in my case is incredible, after 5 hours of soaking everything in normal use it stays at 32°C, the max i saw under full load was 47°C, perfectly acceptable.
After some problems with the N5105, i'm thinking of selling my N5105 unit and migrating to V4 with N6005 processor.
Do you know if these CWWK units have the same temperature problem as the TopTon units?
Another thing, has the issue of using ES/QS chips been resolved on these units now in V4?
Do you know if these CWWK units have the same temperature problem as the TopTon units?
Another thing, has the issue of using ES/QS chips been resolved on these units now in V4?
Buying at CWWK the experience is MUCH superior to Topton.
They respond immediately, in addition to answering all the buyer's questions.
Even though the value is a little higher, it is much more worth buying through the official store.
So far the experience has been very positive.
They respond immediately, in addition to answering all the buyer's questions.
Even though the value is a little higher, it is much more worth buying through the official store.
So far the experience has been very positive.
PSA do not order from Qotom via Amazon or Ali.
I ordered what is pictured as a v3 N5105 here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B7JLZB9Z and paid $50+ for the 5-7 day expedited DHL shipping. Seven days later I got a notification that it was delivered so I rushed home from a friends Bday bash on the river ~90min's away only to find nothing. I then looked closely at the DHL information and it stated the service area was Long Beach, CA and not LV, NV. Amazon got in contact with the seller "Bovey" where they claimed to have accidentally filled in the incorrect tracking number for my order. Okay no big deal, give me the correct one and it should be here shortly. Come to find out mine was never even shipped in the first place because they were out of stock which would have been disappointing yet acceptable but I was not informed of this and it appears that they knowingly provided me with someone else's tracking number as a stall tactic and didn't plan on addressing the issue until I spoke up. I had used Qotom in the past with nearly a dozen J4125's but I will never use them again. We shall see what/if actually shows up next Tuesday.
I ordered what is pictured as a v3 N5105 here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B7JLZB9Z and paid $50+ for the 5-7 day expedited DHL shipping. Seven days later I got a notification that it was delivered so I rushed home from a friends Bday bash on the river ~90min's away only to find nothing. I then looked closely at the DHL information and it stated the service area was Long Beach, CA and not LV, NV. Amazon got in contact with the seller "Bovey" where they claimed to have accidentally filled in the incorrect tracking number for my order. Okay no big deal, give me the correct one and it should be here shortly. Come to find out mine was never even shipped in the first place because they were out of stock which would have been disappointing yet acceptable but I was not informed of this and it appears that they knowingly provided me with someone else's tracking number as a stall tactic and didn't plan on addressing the issue until I spoke up. I had used Qotom in the past with nearly a dozen J4125's but I will never use them again. We shall see what/if actually shows up next Tuesday.
I second this. So far so good. Cs very responsive (at least for pre sales). Placed order 8/29, it's already in US custom atm (9/2). I'll report further when I receive it.
