Topton Jasper Lake Quad i225V Mini PC Report

[agent_kenshin]

Update on my V2 6x I225V Topton N5105 box running Proxmox VE 7.2-3. I did a some updates last night which moved me from Edge Kernel 6.0.9 to 6.0.13 and I am happy to report no major issues with the hypervisor or guests for over 23 days.

I finally started routing my potato 15Mbit WAN connection which comes from another router running only in modem mode and most of the LAN though this box a couple of weeks ago just doing some standard routing. No issues so far and I hope to do more testing soon.

Is it possible to make the net ports behave like a switch? Like you just need to plugin the cables

Yes I am doing just that on my 6 port box using Proxmox passing 5 physical ports though via IOMMU (these will be dedicated to OpnSense) and 1 virtual NIC which for the VM's and all these ports are LAN bridged within OpnSense using this guide

How to Enable LAN Bridge with OPNsense – Protectli Knowledge Base

protectli.com

As said before, you will have performance loss because of overhead for switching. For some testing I did months ago I noticed that i topped out at around 2Gbit/s with some 2.5Gbit Realtek Nics giving my OpnSense 2 cores. This testing I did was flawed and issues with the Realtek cards in anything outside of windows 10. I don't have anything that is running either 10 or 11 at this time. I scaled back many years ago by getting rid a lot of equipment and I am in the process of replacing my old lab machine which can only do PCI-e gen1. I hope to restart my testing when this happens as well as finishing overhauling my storage stack.

 

[casulo]

The TDP (at base clock) is one of the differences, other is that N5100 by default can't run all cores near turbo speed.

Both cpus can work at lower speed than base clock, those are called c-states:

C-State

www.intel.com

Base clock is the cpu frequency when both c-states and turbo freq. are disable in bios or not in use and it's a guaranteed freq. for the cpu to work.

During c-states, the cpu takes extra time (latency) to "wake", it's not usually noticed by user, but sometimes "deeper sleep" can interfere with time sensitive task. In some bios you can set how deep it will sleep.

By default the cpu can't maintain high turbo clocks for very long time, because that will increase temperature and power consumption (above the writen specification), but usually those can the overridden in bios settings and if allowed we can configure it to work at turbo speed for longer time or even forever, but that will need better thermal dissipation.
In a lot of models, turbo clock max value is not applied to all cores, it depends on the cpu, but some cpus and and bios will alow to change that.

So in our case, if bios allows it:
We can enable/disable c-states in bios, allowing the cpu to go lower than base clock.
We can also allow the cpu to run at turbo clock for longer periods or forever (or limit the turbo clock), setting cpu power limit (P1 and P2) in bios.
Those will influence, speed, power consumption and temperature, but there's always a chance not all bios will allow this.

Thanks for the reply. So, now i wonder if the BIOSes on these micro pcs work like they should. Looks there are a lot of revisions for these pcs. Plus, they don't provide updates. So, it's a russian roulette?

 

[sqrwv]

Thanks for the reply. So, now i wonder if the BIOSes on these micro pcs work like they should. Looks there are a lot of revisions for these pcs. Plus, they don't provide updates. So, it's a russian roulette?

I really don't know, some have bios updates, you can ask others, some ppl here have more than one box.
I went for a cheap one, n5105 4xi225, that someone else had already bought and said it worked well.
I don't like to buy expensive from China (Aliexpress), when I can buy cheaper items that work the same, It's almost all the same and there's a lower risk.

 

[Kurátor]

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

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

today I received this exact unit with both RAM and SSD, so far they are only testing Windows, but so far the temperature is stable at max 70°C with 8k video... The device does not turn off for me. Do you know if there are any BIOS updates? or source codes, I would like to change the initial BIOS Logo.

 

[fabry6210]

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?

Hi,
did you solve the m.2 disk problem? I have the same problem as you, and in the end I put an SSD.

 

[n00b]

ht an earlier model from a different seller and it had issues and is currently <*still*> in dispute with the AliExpress seller. But the story isn't about that, it's about the replacement and OMG what a differen

Hello to all from Germany - Great thread! I purchased a J4125 unit from Amazon Germany back in May - been running with Proxmox and OPNSense for some time - upgraded to 16GB RAM and added 512GB SSD - Only issue is when it's tasked too hard, it shuts itself down (I think thermal shutdown of some sort) - no issues with i225-v3 and passthrough - runs quite stable as long as I don't try other VMs simultaneously

I was contemplating moving up to a 1135G7 model - but now that I've seen the Ryzen 5800U/5825U units - I'm quite tempted, although there is no reviews or information about the insides . . . Has anyone actually purchased one of these (Topton 5825U) and can share some impressions or photos?

R.Fox

I'm interested in the Ryzen units as well.

 

[rfox]

I'm interested in the Ryzen units as well.

I finally got one myself (5800U) and stuffed 32GB inside . . . Haven't had the time to play with it as much as I'd like, but it makes a mighty impression! Got Proxmox on it already and will also put OPNSense as a VM on it . . . Patrick did a review already - so thumbs up on this device Happy Holidays in advance and Stay Safe !

 

[n00b]

I finally got one myself (5800U) and stuffed 32GB inside . . . Haven't had the time to play with it as much as I'd like, but it makes a mighty impression! Got Proxmox on it already and will also put OPNSense as a VM on it . . . Patrick did a review already - so thumbs up on this device Happy Holidays in advance and Stay Safe !

Very cool and happy to hear that your device arrived. How are your thermals and overall build quality? Did you buy it from CWWK? Happy holidays to you too!

 

[rfox]

Very cool and happy to hear that your device arrived. How are your thermals and overall build quality? Did you buy it from CWWK? Happy holidays to you too!

Bought from KingnovyPC - Build quality is excellent - as for thermals - have not run the system for any period of time - but it appears to run in idle around 47C on average . . . no tweaks in BIOS - so straight out of the box . . . I think Patricks' review has more on power and thermals . . .

 

[n00b]

My 5800U boosts to 4.2 ghz at time, but in Prime95 it has not clocked more than 2.2ghz all core. I think there is a power limit on the bios, the cpu TDP is stated as 15W, and in HWinfo, I'm getting exactly 15W @2.2ghz all core. Temps are around 60c.

I need to check if I can get all core clocks a bit higher if there is a way to allow the cpu to draw more power.

Does your Ryzen 5800U BIOS provide options for undervolting or underclocking?

 

[pioneer-1]

Pin 1 is the one with the triangle pointing at it. I started there with black, next yellow, then green then blue. See attached diagram.
View attachment 25735

thanks a lot, I finally made it to add a 5v fan

 

[T.Sharp]

Hope everyone is doing well.

Figured I would post an update of the bios config I'm using with the N5100 box. Running OPNsense bare metal, with a pretty basic config, the idle power is 5.4W from the wall.

The board is GF-1338NP-12 version 1.4 (sold by a few stores on Ali, mine came from WooYi store).
Using a 256GB MP33 NVMe + 2x4GB Samsung 3200 @2933

BIOS settings (unlock the hidden menu with Ctrl + F1) :

Advanced Tab :
1. Connectivity Config > disable CNVI and BT (not using this slot)
2. CPU Config > disable Intel VMX (not required for power saving, and shouldn't be disabled if you run VMs)
3. Power and performance > CPU > CPU VR Settings > Acoustic Noise settings > Enabled > disable fast ramping = True, Slow Slew rate = Fast/16 (no power savings, but my thought is to minimize transient voltage peaks & EMI)
4. Power and performance > CPU VR Settings > VccIn VR settings > AC Loadline = 1 (this reduces the VRM output to ~1.63V, compared to the stock ~1.7V. This seems to slightly reduce power consumption, but my primary concern was the longevity of the 2V VRM capacitors)

Chipset Tab :
1. System Agent > Vt-d = disabled (also not necessary, but I'm not running anything virtualized)
2. PCH-IO > PCIe Config > Root Ports 1,4,5,6,7,8 > ASPM = Auto (This is the important one for power savings)
3. PCH-IO > Sata > Disabled (not using a sata drive)
4. PCH-IO > HD Audio > Disabled

If you want to hide the goofy chinese boot logo : Boot tab > Full Logo Show = Disabled

Then for my OPNsense Tunables :
dev.hwpstate_intel.0.epp = 99 (for each core. This limits the CPU to 1.6GHz with the N5100)
hw.acpi.cpu.cx_lowest = C3 (enables C3 C-states)
hw.ibrs_disable = 1 (disables Spectre V2 mitigation. May run slightly more efficiently?)
vm.pmap.pti = 0 (disables Meltdown mitigation)





I also have PowerD disabled, it has no effect with these newer CPUs. Everything is handled by the CPU / bios and the OS P-state & C-state settings.

Setting P-states to 100 will limit the CPU to 800MHz, which may be enough for basic router duties, and will have the lowest power draw under load. Setting it to 99 keeps the CPU between 800MHz - 1.6GHz, which is plenty fast for my simple config, and still keeps max power draw pretty low (~12W iirc).

 

[gregg098]

Has anyone tried the 6.1 kernel on Proxmox? Just noticed it.

Opt-in Linux 6.1 Kernel for Proxmox VE 7.x available

We recently uploaded a 6.1 kernel into our repositories. The 5.15 kernel will stay the default on the Proxmox VE 7.x series, 6.1 is an option that replaces the previous 5.19 based opt-in kernel. The 6.1 based kernel may be useful for some (especially newer) setups, for example if there is...

forum.proxmox.com

I installed it this morning just out of curisity for my N5105 unit. Everything working OK, but has only been a few hours.

Note there are some issues/workarounds if you use Proxmox Backup Server. Its all in the thread linked above.

 

[PigLover]

Has anyone tried the 6.1 kernel on Proxmox? Just noticed it.

Opt-in Linux 6.1 Kernel for Proxmox VE 7.x available

We recently uploaded a 6.1 kernel into our repositories. The 5.15 kernel will stay the default on the Proxmox VE 7.x series, 6.1 is an option that replaces the previous 5.19 based opt-in kernel. The 6.1 based kernel may be useful for some (especially newer) setups, for example if there is...

forum.proxmox.com

I've been running it for a few days on a couple of N6005 systems (early Topton and r86s) and one J4125. Was hopeful that it would help clean up the instability with C-states enabled but no luck on that. pve-kernel-6.1 appears at least as stable as pve-kernel-5.19 but it doesn't really fix anything either.

One note - if you are using ZFS root you need to set up /tmp on tmpfs or you'll have some odd troubles with backup/restore and maybe more (see Proxmox forums kernel 6.1 thread for explanation).

 

[DomFel]

As said before, you will have performance loss because of overhead for switching.

As far as I know setting the tunable net.link.bridge.pfil_member=0 will disable pf on the interface, there shouldn't be any loss.

 

[DomFel]

Hi,
did you solve the m.2 disk problem? I have the same problem as you, and in the end I put an SSD.

Email CWWK with your motherboard version and ask if there's a bios update, there was a new one fixing exactly that problem.

 

[fabry6210]

Email CWWK with your motherboard version and ask if there's a bios update, there was a new one fixing exactly that problem.

thank you, can you send me the e-mail please.

 

[DomFel]

thank you, can you send me the e-mail please.

From Aliexpress, go to their store and contact them from there, they're impressively quick to reply.

 

[Kurátor]

WooYi Store Aliexpress

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mP0iBhG

that's what the seller wrote to me

Hello, it's a custom BIOS, I don't recommend updating it.

Edit:
now I discovered that there is something like CoreBoot alternative BIOS that should work on different boards. Do you think it could work?

 

[TimoVerbrugghe]

Just a quick post to remind everyone: although these boxes sometimes fail... Other components can also fail and give you issues .Tried to diagnose crashes in proxmox/ubuntu always thinking that it must be the CPU of this topton box... got an immediate fail in memtest86+ after trying almost everything else -_-' (memory bought from local retailer, didn't come from china).