Topton Jasper Lake Quad i225V Mini PC Report

[kboxvegas]

My V4 from CWWK on Ali came in, no gaps on the heatsink as far as I can tell. The #1 Philips faceplate screws were torqued to the absolute max letting out an audible pop each time they broke free but the board screws were fine. I will be using either Meanwell 12v or 19v laptop power supplies with these but It came with a Dajing ADP-60E2 12v 5a power supply that could be useful for some other 12v project down the road.

 

[xShARkx]

My topton v4 unit arrived:

And there is no gap between the cpu and the copper block:

And also no gap between the aluminium heat sink and the NIC's:

But i've disassemble it anyway to replace the thermal paste with kryonaut:

The thermal pad started to falling a part the moment i disassemble it, i just ordered a replacement for it!

The copper block is scratched\scuffed:

But when i passed my finger over it, its is pretty smooth! So i don't think that i need to sand it.

So far it seems to be a retail n5105 and i updated the bios to latest one before doing anything else:

I am running it fan less and the temperatures are pretty good after replacing the thermal paste + fiddling with the power settings in the bios.

At the time, ambient temperature was about 18 °C give or take.

Did a quick install of OPNsense just to test it:

And it works 100%! I am still debating between using openwrt or opnsense

I went with topton because i got a nice price for the unit, i did not plan to use two nvme ssd's with this appliance and also because i was not afraid of temp issues nor would i get defeated by that

 

[Vollans]

The thermal pad started to falling a part the moment i disassemble it, i just ordered a replacement for it!

Yeah, mine did as well, but I don’t think thermal pads are really meant to be reused once disassembled anyway.

 

[Baradine]

Have been following this thread as just a viewer, but now that I have my topton n6005 (the one with the intel 226's) thought I'd register and post my experiences.

Saleswise.. lawd.. Aliexpress can be bad at times but topton... *facepalm*. Long delays etc. However.

Following what I read here, I ripped the thing apart, whacked in a 40mm fan, and redid the thermal paste. Disabled c state in bios, and I'm seeing averages of around 60c at 3300Mhz consistent. I can't see if it's a retail cpu or what (not sure how to check in linux).

Software wise, I went completely different to most of you, by using VyOS barebones. Why barebones? Nightlies of VyOS can run containers, so why add something else into the mix haha. Currently running grafana, telegraf and influxdb1.8 as a basic monitoring solution + influxdb2 to learn it.

gateway:~$ show container
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                                 COMMAND     CREATED            STATUS                PORTS       NAMES
f87faba09997  docker.io/grafana/grafana:latest                  About an hour ago  Up About an hour ago              grafana
98fcbf15e11f  docker.io/library/influxdb:1.8        influxd     About an hour ago  Up About an hour ago              influxdb
8958c3f8047b  docker.io/library/influxdb:latest     influxd     About an hour ago  Up About an hour ago              influxdb2
d693c24d5fe4  docker.io/nuntz/telegraf-snmp:latest  telegraf    About an hour ago  Up About an hour ago              telegraf

Connection wise, I'm on 1000/50 NBN here in Australia, and ideally wanted something that'd handle that without issue, plus do the rather complicated network that I have (vlans everywhere, wireguard links everywhere, and some policy based routing on top). Hence VyOS. Could have run pfsense/opnsense as well, but hey.. why not be different.

What I did find was this. Before I disabled c state... fq-codel would only ever allow about 500mbit through. It'd just choke itself out. Now with c state disabled? It's working a dream. As the below image shows, pair of downloads at 50MB/s, and ping isn't deviating much at all. Something I'm quite happy with.



All in all, apart from the headache over getting the thing here (7 weeks to be posted total, with DHL having the delivery booked for 8 days, then it took 4 days to actually arrive once DHL got their hands on it)... I'm impressed.

If anyone wants tips etc on going the VyOS option with one of these, feel free to ask. For the moment though, I'm happy with the thing. Will see how stable it is over time.

 

[kboxvegas]

Yeah, mine did as well, but I don’t think thermal pads are really meant to be reused once disassembled anyway.

Usually the high quality silicone pads are good for 2-3 applications if you are careful. I have a variety of nice one's for 22110 nvme drives of various thicknesses that I trim up for all sorts of applications. I plan on stress testing the V4 from CWWK for a few days but afterwards I will re-paste with kyro and a new pad and compare to see if it's even needed in the first place for future units.

 

[agent_kenshin]

Hello everyone I am reporting back on my N5105 6x i225V Topton unit which I went into detail here

I encountered a problem with Proxmox which others have noted with VM's freezing up. I have had 2 instances of VM's freezing up all within the last day over 14 days of Proxmox uptime. I was trying to troubleshoot a problem with a Arch VM to test a fix for one my bare metal machines when it just froze up when trying to build a package.

I finally was able to get PfSense working and was going try and enable IOMMU to see if it would fix a problem when I was topping out a 1.6Gbit/s in bridge mode (im still learning so this could be me that set something wrong) the unit is cool to the touch due to my 8" fan 30ft away so I can rule out anything thermal.

I am not sure what I want to do yet as in terms of trying a different hypervisor or trying a different kernel with Proxmox ; or going Pf/OPNsense baremetal. I did extensive testing prior to installing Proxmox which would have picked up something if the hardware was unstable.

 

[xShARkx]

Hello everyone I am reporting back on my N5105 6x i225V Topton unit which I went into detail here

I encountered a problem with Proxmox which others have noted with VM's freezing up. I have had 2 instances of VM's freezing up all within the last day over 14 days of Proxmox uptime. I was trying to troubleshoot a problem with a Arch VM to test a fix for one my bare metal machines when it just froze up when trying to build a package.

I finally was able to get PfSense working and was going try and enable IOMMU to see if it would fix a problem when I was topping out a 1.6Gbit/s in bridge mode (im still learning so this could be me that set something wrong) the unit is cool to the touch due to my 8" fan 30ft away so I can rule out anything thermal.

I am not sure what I want to do yet as in terms of trying a different hypervisor or trying a different kernel with Proxmox ; or going Pf/OPNsense baremetal. I did extensive testing prior to installing Proxmox which would have picked up something if the hardware was unstable.

Install the latest edge kernel in promox:

GitHub - fabianishere/pve-edge-kernel: Newer Linux kernels for Proxmox VE 7

Newer Linux kernels for Proxmox VE 7. Contribute to fabianishere/pve-edge-kernel development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Everyone who did it, is reporting that now their vm's are stable with the n5105.

 

[kboxvegas]

So with a v4 CWWK unit if I plug any NVME into the PCB expansion board the NVME in the first slot just disappears. I tested and confirmed with every combination of Intel Optane, HP ex950, Adata sx8200, Samsung PM991, 980 Pro. I am currently on the 8/9 FW.

 

[Snk B]

So with a v4 CWWK unit if I plug any NVME into the PCB expansion board the NVME in the first slot just disappears. I tested and confirmed with every combination of Intel Optane, HP ex950, Adata sx8200, Samsung PM991, 980 Pro. I am currently on the 8/9 FW.

Strange... Have you ever contacted CWWK?
If you change the nvme from the main slot, to the adapter card, is it recognized?

 

[kboxvegas]

Strange... Have you ever contacted CWWK?
If you change the nvme from the main slot, to the adapter card, is it recognized?

No as it just came in ~8hrs ago. If there is no NVME in the adapter whatever is in the first slot is picked up fine. Whenever any combination of these drives are plugged into the second slot, the one in the first disappears entirely every time.

 

[Snk B]

No as it just came in ~8hrs ago. If there is no NVME in the adapter whatever is in the first slot is picked up fine. Whenever any combination of these drives are plugged into the second slot, the one in the first disappears entirely every time.

Okay, have you tried connecting the nvme only to the adapter card and checking if the nvme is recognized?
Have you tried clearing CMOS?

 

[kboxvegas]

Okay, have you tried connecting the nvme only to the adapter card and checking if the nvme is recognized?
Have you tried clearing CMOS?

yes to both

 

[Mike9474593]

So with a v4 CWWK unit if I plug any NVME into the PCB expansion board the NVME in the first slot just disappears. I tested and confirmed with every combination of Intel Optane, HP ex950, Adata sx8200, Samsung PM991, 980 Pro. I am currently on the 8/9 FW.

Just tested, working with two NVMe. Using two cheapish SSD, a Kingston NV1 and a AData Legend 700, both 250 GB. Running the original BIOS, did not update yet.

SSD with adapter is recognized as disk 0 (AData), SSD in m.2 2280 slot is disk 1 (Kingston). Would expect it the other way round, but it's not an issue.
Maybe I'm just lucky...

 

[Faenor]

Has anyone thought about or tried to put in an sfp/sfp+ port? It would function as a wan port for fiber internet. Looked around the motherboards but can't find any free PCI besides the extra nvme. Any other ideas?

 

[pigr8]

Has anyone thought about or tried to put in an sfp/sfp+ port? It would function as a wan port for fiber internet. Looked around the motherboards but can't find any free PCI besides the extra nvme. Any other ideas?

i was thinking that too, switching the nvme disk to a sata disk and using the m.2 for the SFP+

or maybe reroute the mpcie lanes (the one for the wwan), but the case is not ideal for any of those ideas.

 

[Catalin]

hi guys. My first post here. I got a Topton unit N6005 4x intel 2.5Gbps, B3 stepping. It worked fine but I got the "itch" and wanted to write a BIOS update from CWWK website. Since the info said it's only for V3/V4 I went for the latest bios version here: BIOS下载. Unfortunately, it worked somehow but I lost the video. it boots fine into pfsense but I got no video on console/bios. I prepared an UEFI stick with the previous BIOS but I am working in blind. - Can anyone list the steps/keys to reach the boot selection menu and select the USB UEFI stick? Many thanks!

 

[newabc]

By the way, CWWK released a 6-sata and 4-i226 MiniITX board with N5105 or N6005 CPU:

195.21US $ |N5105/n6005nas Demon Board / Six Sata3.0/ Dual M.2/itx/ Four I226-v Nics - Barebone & Mini Pc - AliExpress

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

It seems it is for a low power consumption NAS, or firewall in a 1-U server case.

Probably this is my 1st time posting a link of a real product before the other's review on youtube.

This is an introduction video for this board by "Vedio Talk"(and another thing, "Vedio Talk" also sells this board on its taobao store.)

 

[DanielN]

Anyone get the 12th gen Elkhart version yet?

 

[burtal]

My topton v4 unit arrived:


And there is no gap between the cpu and the copper block:

And also no gap between the aluminium heat sink and the NIC's:

yeah ... cause if CW fix the shit ...Topton also got it ) you dont think topton made the case right ?

In this last pic ... the board seems a bit flexed? .... i have the same flex on my board after filing down the pegs..... i dont think it will have any issues


Anyone get the 12th gen Elkhart version yet? --- Dont think it will make a difference performace wise .... and is better to wait for better bios

 

[prdtabim]

yeah ... cause if CW fix the shit ...Topton also got it ) you dont think topton made the case right ?

In this last pic ... the board seems a bit flexed? .... i have the same flex on my board after filing down the pegs..... i dont think it will have any issues


Anyone get the 12th gen Elkhart version yet? --- Dont think it will make a difference performace wise .... and is better to wait for better bios

The NVME M.2. slot is gone in this 6 port i226 Elkhart Lake. I agree that the NVME is responsible by most of the heat that disturb this system but ...