Topton Jasper Lake Quad i225V Mini PC Report

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johnknierim

New Member
Aug 1, 2022
22
14
3
That doesn't look too bad. Input filtering seems decent, common mode choke, capacitors and probably even a MOV in the bottom part for inrush limiting. I'd have preferred to see a 400V bulk capacitor in there, at 240V mains it'll get charged to 340V dc and it's way too high for my comfort zone on a 350V cap. The output part looks nice, it would be interesting to see how much ripple gets through the inductors and caps.

I'll take apart mine once I get a single psu for the whole rack, I suspect the build quality might be rather similar (same rating, similar label and different branding).



I'll add something besides what @Mike9474593 has already written.

The heatsink themselves, if left horizontally, have really bad thermal performance as there's no chimney effect created by the rising air inside the fins. Therefore, at idle or low loads you won't notice it, as there's a lot of thermal mass to soak heat. Once you start doing some more intensive stuff (as example suricata / intrusion detection), this issue becomes significantly more noticeable. My box runs a pentium 7505, with optimizations applied on the hypervisor side (proxmox 7.2). OPNsense VM running on 2 threads, Suricata full on on a ~200mbit line got me up to 65°C and 20-23W power draw. The ssd (sata) was running at 70-ish which is a bit too much for me.

A very simple solution, used by several users around here, is to attach a 120mm fan on an USB port and stick it on top of the unit. Some of us 3d printed an adapter, but also any other mounting systems will suffice. The fan will run at extermely low RPM at 5V and will be almost inaudible. My temps this way are Idle (10W) at 26-28°C, while full load (25-30W) is still below 50.
These worked really well for me


 

johnknierim

New Member
Aug 1, 2022
22
14
3
The i3-1115G4 system I ordered from Topton just arrived today. This was the listing: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004514115494.html

I ordered barebones, and have put a Samsung 512GB NVMe drive in. I also have a PNY 2x8GB DDR4 3200 kit which I tried to install, but found that only the bottom memory slot is working (either DIMM works fine if installed on the bottom slot, but system fails to post with no video output if I try to install memory in both slots or just the top slot).

I installed Win10 Pro 22H2, fully patched up. Drivers installed up to date, no yellow boxes in Device Manager.

Without a fan I was noticing frequent crashing under light load. I haven't disassembled and repasted it, but I did take a side plate off and verified the CPU is making good contact with the case. I stood the case on its side and put it next to a box fan blowing on the top of it. That made it stable enough for simple browsing, but it is still crashing very quickly if I try to run Prime95. HWINFO shows maximum package power around 31W and maximum core temperature around 62C before crash.

There also doesn't appear to be any sort of BIOS option to enable TPM, in spite of the listing saying that Win11 would be installed if you didn't choose a barebones option.

So basically, it looks pretty unusable, unfortunately.

The motherboard I have is a blue PCB marked with "GF-1449NP-12 ver:1.1" under the BIOS battery connector.

Gratuitous FLiR thermal imagery. This is just sitting idle on the Windows desktop, before adding a fan.

View attachment 25219View attachment 25220View attachment 25221View attachment 25222
The latest version of Rufus can create USB installers that remove the TPM requirements for Windows 11
 
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bndr

New Member
Oct 28, 2022
16
15
3
Some power data. This is the CPU Package Power from HWiNFO, not power at the wall. I made sure C states are enabled in BIOS, profile is set to "Maximum Non-Turbo Performance" (which was the default). Haven't really touched the BIOS settings otherwise.

Sitting idle at the desktop with only HWiNFO Sensors page open:
4W avg
After opening Edge default home page, alt-tabbing back and forth between it and HWiNFO Sensors:
5W avg
Loading Youtube homepage:
10W avg
Playing a 4K@60 vp09 Youtube video full screen (
):
14W avg
Running Prime95 Torture Test (best run I've managed was less than 5 minutes):
~24W avg
Follow-up with some power at the wall data for this i3-1115G4 system. It consumes about 11W sitting idle on the Windows desktop. With higher load I'll see power at the wall up to about 25W playing the same Youtube video.

I also ran Memtest86+ for 24 hours with all passes and no errors.

The power at the wall does peak above 45W before Prime95 crashes typically, so it is plausibly a power sag issue. I might try a TDP Down run and see if I can get it stable. I have also briefly seen it spike around 51W during bootup and login.

FWIW, I contacted Topton and they are offering to send a replacement with no hassles based on the memory slot not working.
 
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bndr

New Member
Oct 28, 2022
16
15
3
I'm doing a Prime95 run with CPU PL1 set to 22W and PL2 set to 30W in the BIOS.

It's pulling 38W at the wall while CPU Package Power is at 22W.

So far, it's stable and the cores average about 3.0GHz at 50C (with max recorded at 62C). This is on its side with the bottom plate off and a box fan blowing on the top plate. Still stock thermal paste and no rework.

Edit: That was stable, so just tried PL1 to 28W and PL2 to 32W. Got a crash after 20 minutes.

Edit 2: Now stable for 45 mins with PL1 and PL2 set to 29W. This puts power at the wall at 44W while the CPU Package Power is at 28W. Avg. core clock 3.57GHz, Avg. temperature 65C (max 72). I think this is the edge of what that power brick can handle. Don't have something convenient on hand to plug in now but will see if I can try it with a better power supply before I ship back to Topton.

Edit 3: After 4+ hours totally stable, I've turned the fan off. It is so far stable even after running up to 99C and starting to thermal throttle. About an hour running with no fan, average temp is 96C. CPU avg power is still close to 29W, but average clock is down to 3.35GHz due to the poorer efficiency at higher temperature. The hot spot near the CPU is almost untouchable and I wouldn't want to hold the sides of the case more than a few seconds.
 
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rfox

Member
Jun 10, 2022
80
41
18
Germany
I've ordered mine from the "Topton Official store". Used seller's shipping method. I placed the order on october 15 (a Saturday), on Monday they shipped. Got the mini pc by regular mail on the 28th and no taxes required. Not even two weeks. I live in Italy, and my post system is know to be a bit slow at times.
I have a choice of "sellers shipping method" without tracking and estimated date of Jan 16 - or DHL with tracking and estimated date of Dec. 01 ?!? Even though it says in the "tips" section if you order by "sellers shipping method" it comes faster: "Good News: Send from China to EU/RU/UK/US etc by DDP&Charter Flight, VAT/TAX free, must choose seller's shipping method that can be tracked and deliver fast." - All so confusing :oops::(

1668012098557.png
 

bndr

New Member
Oct 28, 2022
16
15
3
I have a choice of "sellers shipping method" without tracking and estimated date of Jan 16 - or DHL with tracking and estimated date of Dec. 01 ?!? Even though it says in the "tips" section if you order by "sellers shipping method" it comes faster: "Good News: Send from China to EU/RU/UK/US etc by DDP&Charter Flight, VAT/TAX free, must choose seller's shipping method that can be tracked and deliver fast." - All so confusing :oops::(
From where I am, most packages from Aliexpress arrive in 1-2 weeks. Only rarely get something that takes closer to a month. The delivery estimate is always about a month out anyway though.

I've ordered enough to see a bit of their shipping machinations. It seems most packages go from the sellers to consolidation warehouses in China, and if you've ordered things like small boxes or bags of things from multiple sellers those might get stuffed into a larger package there. In my country there's a local logistics company which everything then gets sent to. I suspect they have enough volume that there's weekly air deliveries of pallets of packages. More often than not the differences in the items' shipping info on the listing page don't amount to much.
 
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rfox

Member
Jun 10, 2022
80
41
18
Germany
From where I am, most packages from Aliexpress arrive in 1-2 weeks. Only rarely get something that takes closer to a month. The delivery estimate is always about a month out anyway though.
What country are you in if I may ask? I'm in Germany . . .
 

rfox

Member
Jun 10, 2022
80
41
18
Germany
FYI - Found an interesting video (in Chinese but you can use closed captioning Auto-Translate and convert to English or another language !) - Looks like he set it up with Proxmox and created a router VM using an OpenWRT variant - passing through two NICs - and also created a Windows VM passing through the GPU o_O Interesting setup! Still awaiting a good review in English though :rolleyes: Getting closer to pulling the trigger . . . .
 
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EasyRhino

Well-Known Member
Aug 6, 2019
499
370
63
hey y'all i just got mine in yesterday, the unit has been fun, here's my report.

I ordered my n5105 / I226 version from the "YSJMNPC Store". At the time with a small coupon it was slightly less than other options. Around US$162. I ordered it on Oct 14, and received it on Nov 7. I ordered the version with the "basic" small chassis, and I think it was the... v4 version of the Changwang board.

Here are my out of order notes:

* The biggest I problem I noticed was in windows. When I try to install the intel graphics drivers, Windows boots into a black screen. I can reboot in safe mode and get video, but the the video driver reinstalls again and I'm stuck with black screen. This is using the newest driver from Intel's site. Anyone else had this problem? I don't plan on running Windows for real, so it's not a showstopper it's just annoying.

* the system buzzer is surprisingly loud!

* I didn't see any daylight gaps between the heatsinks for either the CPU or the NICs. Since temps were okay, I didn't do any further disassembly.

* It came with bios from 7/30/2022, jk4lv03. I think I could upgrade it with this later bios from changwang, but I've been scared.

* CPU temperature! Windows idles at around 55C. running prime 95 I saw two phases. First phase (PL1) it went up to 81C. Second phase (PL2) it was about 72C. Running for a more extended time (an hour?) it crept up to 77C. This is totally fine for me, so no sanding or repasting or shims needed.

* hwinfo reports the CPU using 3.15W at windows idle. almost 19W during PL1, and just under 15W at PL2.

* total system draw, per my smart plug, with two dimms, a 2.5" SSD, and one ethernet cable plugged in, and the monitor, was 10W at windows idle, and 23W during prime95.

* installed my system with 2x4GB Samsung DIMMs that I bought used, and a janky 2.5" SSD that I had sitting around in a box.

* I noticed not many people posting experience with a 2.5" drive. There are screw holds to mount it on the bottom. But it blocks the vent where you could put a 40mm fan. in addition, when you screw it in, there is not enough clearance to plug in the SATA adapter! (pic included). Or at least with my 7mm SSD. My solution to this was very fancy, flipping the SSD upside down so there was a millimeter of extra room adn then using electrical tape to hold it on.

* the included AC adapter was a "Dajing" model. it seems fine. it even has a little blue light when powered up. total system power is 15.2W sitting at bios screen.

* i looked through my pile of adapters and had a 36W adapter from an old router. when I plugged it in it used 14.9W at the wall. I'm not sure really how efficient what I have is.
 

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bndr

New Member
Oct 28, 2022
16
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* The biggest I problem I noticed was in windows. When I try to install the intel graphics drivers, Windows boots into a black screen. I can reboot in safe mode and get video, but the the video driver reinstalls again and I'm stuck with black screen. This is using the newest driver from Intel's site. Anyone else had this problem? I don't plan on running Windows for real, so it's not a showstopper it's just annoying.
I had some trouble with the Intel driver installer and had to use the zip and manually install the drivers.
 

Eggroll

New Member
Aug 31, 2022
10
14
3
hey y'all i just got mine in yesterday, the unit has been fun, here's my report.

I ordered my n5105 / I226 version from the "YSJMNPC Store". At the time with a small coupon it was slightly less than other options. Around US$162. I ordered it on Oct 14, and received it on Nov 7. I ordered the version with the "basic" small chassis, and I think it was the... v4 version of the Changwang board.


* I didn't see any daylight gaps between the heatsinks for either the CPU or the NICs. Since temps were okay, I didn't do any further disassembly.

* CPU temperature! Windows idles at around 55C. running prime 95 I saw two phases. First phase (PL1) it went up to 81C. Second phase (PL2) it was about 72C. Running for a more extended time (an hour?) it crept up to 77C. This is totally fine for me, so no sanding or repasting or shims needed.
I've got the same unit and had similar temps out of the box. You won't see any daylight gaps until you clean off the thermal paste since they put such a huge chunk on there out of the factory. You might also need to change the angle as there's another block for the NICs behind that which will prevent you from seeing any light leak on improper contact. After I filed down my standoffs for better contact and repasted, I was able to get 40'C idle and around 65'C under prime95 load. I'm pretty sure I could bring this down even more by more filing and smoothing out the cooper heatsink but was happy enough with that temp.

I've had mine running with OPNSense as my main home router/firewall for a month now and it's been rock solid so far.
 
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T.Sharp

Member
Oct 22, 2022
54
91
18
If possible try to see if/how ASPM and/or those C states affect latency and burst speed.
For example, compare pinging your LAN or do ipferf3 =1s burst(s) (with long idle time between bursts), to compare latency and burst speed, with those power savings from idle and without them.
I installed the iperf3 plugin in opnsense and on my desktop, but I'm not sure exactly what commands to use for a 1s burst with long wait between bursts. Any recommendation?

I also don't see any latency / ping data in the windows CLI logs.

Doing typical test with windows as the client, I can get 950Mb/s (desktop is only 1GbE), either direction, with the CPU locked at 800MHz. CPU usage is 50-60%, sometimes momentary spikes to 90%. Power draw is ~9W. (ASPM + C2 enabled + epp=100)

EDIT : Looks like the WAN monitoring (4 hops out) is showing laggy pings while running iperf with those settings. Gonna see if that changes when forcing C1 and lowering epp.
 
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bndr

New Member
Oct 28, 2022
16
15
3
I'm doing a Prime95 run with CPU PL1 set to 22W and PL2 set to 30W in the BIOS.

It's pulling 38W at the wall while CPU Package Power is at 22W.

So far, it's stable and the cores average about 3.0GHz at 50C (with max recorded at 62C). This is on its side with the bottom plate off and a box fan blowing on the top plate. Still stock thermal paste and no rework.

Edit: That was stable, so just tried PL1 to 28W and PL2 to 32W. Got a crash after 20 minutes.

Edit 2: Now stable for 45 mins with PL1 and PL2 set to 29W. This puts power at the wall at 44W while the CPU Package Power is at 28W. Avg. core clock 3.57GHz, Avg. temperature 65C (max 72). I think this is the edge of what that power brick can handle. Don't have something convenient on hand to plug in now but will see if I can try it with a better power supply before I ship back to Topton.

Edit 3: After 4+ hours totally stable, I've turned the fan off. It is so far stable even after running up to 99C and starting to thermal throttle. About an hour running with no fan, average temp is 96C. CPU avg power is still close to 29W, but average clock is down to 3.35GHz due to the poorer efficiency at higher temperature. The hot spot near the CPU is almost untouchable and I wouldn't want to hold the sides of the case more than a few seconds.
I just found a higher rated 12V power supply, so now trying Prime95 with the PL back up to 38W. Box fan on. Stable so far. It still averages about 28W and the average clock is only marginally higher (3.59GHz). Avg. temp. 67C (max 77). So seems you're not really leaving any performance on the table by capping the power at 29W with the i3-1115G4. Perhaps I would get better results by lapping the contact surfaces and applying Kryonaut, but seems 28W is about the limit of what it can dissipate as configured (even in a 20C room with a fan blowing over it enough that the case is completely cool to the touch, even on the hot spot).

I haven't timed it precisely, but also without the fan you'd need to be maxing out at 29W for at least 10 minutes before it starts to thermal throttle. The case has quite a lot of thermal mass to soak up the heat first.
 
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sqrwv

Member
Oct 8, 2022
58
45
18
I installed the iperf3 plugin in opnsense and on my desktop, but I'm not sure exactly what commands to use for a 1s burst with long wait between bursts. Any recommendation?

I also don't see any latency / ping data in the windows CLI logs.
iperf3 is not designed to do latency tests, my idea was simple:
1. wait for the router cpu go idle, (see if CPU CLK gets lower or if power consumption indicates it's idle)
2. Do a burst 1 second test from LAN computer to router (iperf3 -c <router_ip> -t 1 --bidir)

The idea is to compare the speed of this test with and without CPU C states and ASPM.
If it takes time for the system to wake up it will show in measured speed.

It would be better to have two computers, one LAN, the other in router WAN, to test the router, firewall, NAT, but that can be too much trouble.

Another test would be a simple ping from LAN computer to ISP router, with and without power saving.

Just to try to measure the impact of system wakeup from idle to burst.

I'm concerned if router is idle, that when loading a single web page, it will take more time than usual.
Download speed is not important, the total speed isn't affected by any small initial delay.

Anyway, it's just an idea, I don't know if we can measure or perceive the time it takes to wakeup from idle.

Doing typical test with windows as the client, I can get 950Mb/s (desktop is only 1GbE), either direction, with the CPU locked at 800MHz. CPU usage is 50-60%, sometimes momentary spikes to 90%. Power draw is ~9W. (ASPM + C2 enabled + epp=100)
Looks good, we can also use --bidir for simultaneous send/receive.
iperf is also usefull to test LAN/WAN and LAN/LAN speed, using two computers.
 
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T.Sharp

Member
Oct 22, 2022
54
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Thanks for the explanation @sqrwv :cool:

EDIT : updated test showing better results with C3 + ASPM
It looks like there are some wonky results when C2 is enabled. I ran 3 tests after a reboot both C-states, with the default "epp=50". ASPM still enabled in BIOS.

C1 (default) setting :


C2 enabled in tuneables :


Probably better to just leave it at the default C1 limit after all...

Now with C1 and epp=100 (CPU locked at 800MHz) :


not quite full speed on test 1 & 2, but 3 is good.
 
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purkinje

New Member
Oct 7, 2022
1
0
1
I didn't change the C-state settings in BIOS, those were left to defaults. I only modified the C-states under "Tuneables" in opnsense.
just a heads up, changing the tuneables for me resulted in complete instability of hte box. had to reinstall opnsense from scratch
 

burtal

Active Member
Jul 7, 2022
111
63
28
hey y'all i just got mine in yesterday, the unit has been fun, here's my report.

I ordered my n5105 / I226 version from the "YSJMNPC Store". At the time with a small coupon it was slightly less than other options. Around US$162. I ordered it on Oct 14, and received it on Nov 7. I ordered the version with the "basic" small chassis, and I think it was the... v4 version of the Changwang board.

Here are my out of order notes:

* The biggest I problem I noticed was in windows. When I try to install the intel graphics drivers, Windows boots into a black screen. I can reboot in safe mode and get video, but the the video driver reinstalls again and I'm stuck with black screen. This is using the newest driver from Intel's site. Anyone else had this problem? I don't plan on running Windows for real, so it's not a showstopper it's just annoying.

* the system buzzer is surprisingly loud!

* I didn't see any daylight gaps between the heatsinks for either the CPU or the NICs. Since temps were okay, I didn't do any further disassembly.

* It came with bios from 7/30/2022, jk4lv03. I think I could upgrade it with this later bios from changwang, but I've been scared.

* CPU temperature! Windows idles at around 55C. running prime 95 I saw two phases. First phase (PL1) it went up to 81C. Second phase (PL2) it was about 72C. Running for a more extended time (an hour?) it crept up to 77C. This is totally fine for me, so no sanding or repasting or shims needed.

* hwinfo reports the CPU using 3.15W at windows idle. almost 19W during PL1, and just under 15W at PL2.

* total system draw, per my smart plug, with two dimms, a 2.5" SSD, and one ethernet cable plugged in, and the monitor, was 10W at windows idle, and 23W during prime95.

* installed my system with 2x4GB Samsung DIMMs that I bought used, and a janky 2.5" SSD that I had sitting around in a box.

* I noticed not many people posting experience with a 2.5" drive. There are screw holds to mount it on the bottom. But it blocks the vent where you could put a 40mm fan. in addition, when you screw it in, there is not enough clearance to plug in the SATA adapter! (pic included). Or at least with my 7mm SSD. My solution to this was very fancy, flipping the SSD upside down so there was a millimeter of extra room adn then using electrical tape to hold it on.

* the included AC adapter was a "Dajing" model. it seems fine. it even has a little blue light when powered up. total system power is 15.2W sitting at bios screen.

* i looked through my pile of adapters and had a 36W adapter from an old router. when I plugged it in it used 14.9W at the wall. I'm not sure really how efficient what I have is.
I have the exact same unit

wait for maybe a new bios that fix power consumption .... N5105 should be able to boost to 2.9 all cores on 15W CPUpackage power ... i think is a bios issue. still waiting for CW reply , though they are busy with V5 now

you can upgrade but nothing changes with newer bios so waste of time at this moment .... i tried them all.

On those temps you definitely have the gap .... without the gap you dont see the cpu over 68-70C even after hours on Prime95
To check for the gap you need to remove the nic heatsink ....so light can pass through
I think @Patrick made the same mistake in the recent video about these units where he said there is no gaps ....you need to remove the nic heatsink to check

if you use a 2.5 ssd i dont see why would you need a 40mm fan ? .... those are helpful for hot, fast, nvme drives

i use a meanwell power supply
 
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