Well merely disabling powers I'd opnsense left me with the opnsense vm crashing after a couple days again.
I guess I can try disabling cstates in bios and see what happens. Although that will be unfortunate if it wastes more power.
Topton Jasper Lake Quad i225V Mini PC Report
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Well merely disabling powers I'd opnsense left me with the opnsense vm crashing after a couple days again.
I guess I can try disabling cstates in bios and see what happens. Although that will be unfortunate if it wastes more power.
Yeah, first disable both and see if the crashes still persist. I just think there's some issue with Proxmox on N5105/N6005. You may lose a few watts of power savings but for testing purposes, it's worth it. If you ditch Proxmox and just run bare metal, it should be rock solid stable and you have the benefit of being able to enable both C-states and PowerD (but then you obviously lose what Proxmox brings to the table...).
Also, is your Proxmox fully patched or are you running the install straight from the ISO with no updates?
Yes, since this is my home router I will value stability over a few watts of electricity. Do you remember which settings in the bios you specifically disabled?
both proxmox and opnsense are updated to the max via their internal update tools.
I don't recall seeing this opnsense crash when I had a slightly older point release from a month ago. Then again, I only had the router set up for a short time before updating to newer releases.
I don't have the units in front of me at the moment and won't be able to get to them for several more hours but on each there was a section in the BIOS called "Power & Performance" and beneath that I think there's a CPU and GPU menu, and in the CPU menu there should be an option called C-States with an Enable/Disable toggle. On the 3 that I have, they all defaulted to "Disabled". If it's disabled on yours and PowerD is disabled and you're fully patched and you're still getting crashes, then I would give up on Proxmox and just run bar metal (if that's an option). Bare metal *sense will give you the lowest power usage and the best performance.
I just received my HUNSN RJ03l Mini w/N6005 and it is V5. I'll be posting my mini-review in a new thread later.
New thread:
Networking > HUNSN Model RJ03L w/N6005 V5 w/4 i226V NICs
BobS
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So, an update. I resolved the power and stability issues by using a higher spec power supply. I also found a couple more DIMMs to try and found out that the DIMM slot issue was a module compatibility problem. I'm now running it in dual-channel with no issues.
The first set of memory I used was a 2x8GB single rank kit branded PNY XLR8. Both DIMMs were fine in the lower slot, but it would fail to boot with either in the higher slot. I found a couple of 16GB dual rank sticks which both work though. It is a blursed mismatch combo of these two sticks:
1) A Micron DIMM from 2018 which I harvested when I upgraded the RAM on a ThinkPad. It is DDR4-2666. Part no: 16ATF2G64HZ-2G6E1
2) A new DIMM from Kingston. DDR4-3200. Part no: 9905744-108.A00G
So unfortunately, it is running at DDR4-2666, but being able to run dual channel makes a much more significant difference than the clock speeds. Also going from single rank to dual rank is a bigger difference than the clock speeds as well. Also, it's now 32GB, which is overkill but hey it works!
It's been mentioned here a few times
although really interesting devices from a price / performance perspective - "buyer beware" on a few fronts - lack of good documentation, little to no BIOS updates, poor communications with vendors and lastly - hit or miss when trying to upgrade or start with a barebone device !! They do warn consumers NOT to purchase a barebone system unless you know what you are doing Then again, getting a system with the Chinese no-name components like RAM and SSD also are questionable when it comes to long-term reliability ?!? I have now purchased 3 different devices (X86-P2, J4125 i225 and Ryzen 5800U I226) fun little devices if you are willing to put up with the slight inconveniences . . . my biggest worry was getting a defective unit upon arrival and having to send it back I also had an instance with my first unit when I put what I thought was the correct RAM only to find the device appeared dead and wouldn't POST with said RAM installed . . . . frustrating to say the least!Glad to hear your device is working . . . and with 32GB RAM you can really have fun with Proxmox
Now I'm considering the R86s device with 10Gb SFP+ (G2)
very tempting!!Happy Holidays in advance and Stay Safe!
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Well so now this box has twice shut down and then doesn't restart. It attempts to start, you see the power light come on for a second and back off again. I have some new ram on the way but if that doesn't resolve the issue I'm going to have to burn this piece of junk.
ah, I found the c-state disable entirely. for some reason I glossed over that bios setting and was messing with individual c-states.
with c-stats maxed out proxmox was idling as low as 8.5W. When limited to just C1 it was idling around 10W. With cstates completely disable it idles around 12W. (P-states are still enabled).
will be interesting to see how it does for a few days.
Years ago I briefly experimented with nesting opnsense in proxmox for a different hardware I was using for a router. However, I decided it was too complicated and just went bare metal. I may do it again, but sometimes I like flying too close to the sun.
Guys, i'm interested in a n5100 unit because i don't need the extra power of the popular n5105. Plus, less eletricity bill. Looks the main option would be the one from Topton. However there's a slightly different one, it even has a fan.
Topton, in this case Wooyi:
Different one:
Anyone has experience with the one from iKuaios? Guys saying the n5100 running on the Topton, has a higher voltage than normal. Which makes it spend the same power as the n5105. Which defeats the purpose.
Topton, in this case Wooyi:
Different one:
Anyone has experience with the one from iKuaios? Guys saying the n5100 running on the Topton, has a higher voltage than normal. Which makes it spend the same power as the n5105. Which defeats the purpose.
@casulo
In theory the Intel CPU TDP is only for the CPU BASE clock, not turbo clock speeds.
Nothing is said about the turbo clock power consumption, so that explains a lot.
At least this is my understanding.
If you read the thread, ppl that bough the N5100 say it can run all cores at turbo clock, this is unlocked by bios and not guaranteed if bios doesn't do it.
Personally I think both N5100 and N5105 are good buys and equivalent, but if I bought a N5100, I would get the same motherboard model reported to run all N5100 cores at turbo speed.
Both cpus can be TDP limited and that will lower their max possible turbo speed, but it's in my personal experience with my specific N5105 unit, there's not a significant amount of power that I can save.
There's also a fixed power consumption from the motherboard and components, independent of the CPU used.
In theory the Intel CPU TDP is only for the CPU BASE clock, not turbo clock speeds.
Nothing is said about the turbo clock power consumption, so that explains a lot.
At least this is my understanding.
If you read the thread, ppl that bough the N5100 say it can run all cores at turbo clock, this is unlocked by bios and not guaranteed if bios doesn't do it.
Personally I think both N5100 and N5105 are good buys and equivalent, but if I bought a N5100, I would get the same motherboard model reported to run all N5100 cores at turbo speed.
Both cpus can be TDP limited and that will lower their max possible turbo speed, but it's in my personal experience with my specific N5105 unit, there's not a significant amount of power that I can save.
There's also a fixed power consumption from the motherboard and components, independent of the CPU used.
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I haven't heard of ikuaios from this thread. That fan is.... Interesting. Looked like it just cools off the exterior heatsink not the internal components
I 3d printed a fan top for my device and even a slight air movement across the top of the case causes a massive drop in temps.
For those wondering about the efficiency of the power supplies provided with some of these mini PCs:
This N5100 box is the single biggest piece of junk I've ever spent money on. I bought a second stick of RAM and it still does the exact same thing. Randomly dies and goes into a boot cycle which it won't recover from. I've recovered it a few times but I don't know exactly how, just trying everything until it starts working. Usually involves wiping the bios at least, unplugging the drive, moving the memory around. I've had an ASROCK J3455 device for like 5 years and it has never caused me a single issue. Thank god I still have it cause I just keep switching back to it when this POS lets me down.
Buyer beware, that's all I'll say. I know I took a risk on this thing but for anyone else considering buying these, I assume one in a few are like this.
This is the box, I assume many of them are the same
www.aliexpress.com
Buyer beware, that's all I'll say. I know I took a risk on this thing but for anyone else considering buying these, I assume one in a few are like this.
This is the box, I assume many of them are the same
134.24US $ 45% OFF|Intel Celeron N5105/n5095 Soft Router Fanless Mini Pc 4x Intel I225 2.5g Lan Hdmi Dp Pfsense Firewall Appliance Esxi Aes-ni - Barebone & Mini Pc - AliExpress
Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com
www.aliexpress.com
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Yes, moving air across the chassis is key to cooling the CPU. One of my units sits isolated in an area where there is no active air movement. The CPU would idle around 40C. I placed one of those tall cylindrical fans a few feet away from it and set it on high and slowly worked my way down to the lowest setting and what made the most difference in cooling was to simply have any air movement at all. I wound up pulling one of these fans from an AV cabinet and just set it on top of the unit on its lowest setting so it is inaudible. The CPU now idles around 31C. The 140mm just barely sits atop the case; the 120mm would probably make more sense for anyone looking to buy one. Right now I have it aimed up away from the case. At some point when I get time, I'll aim it down at the case instead and see if it makes any difference in cooling. I suspect not much but I imagine the air turbulence might become audible. That said, 40C idle temps are absolutely nothing to worry about; it's just the tinkerer in all of us that has us playing with these devices.
What about sending it back? Complaining about it it's not going to help. If you clearly have hardware issues, then there's only one solution, RMA.