KingNovy 4x 2.5GbE Intel Celeron N5105 Fanless System Hardware Overview
The system we purchased from KingNovy had the potential to be our favorite just because it is slightly larger and heavier due to the design of the heatsink chassis. On the front, we got a power button and two USB 3 ports. There is also a HDMI out port. While you may think “two USB ports and video” realistically this is a networking box instead of a desktop.
![KingNovy Intel Celeron N5105 4x 2.5GbE Front](https://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/KingNovy-Intel-Celeron-N5105-4x-2.5GbE-Front.jpg)
On the rear of the unit, we get perhaps the most exciting bits. There are four 2.5GbE ports powered by Intel i225-V NICs. Two status LEDs for power and SSD activity are in the middle. Finally, there is a 12V power input.
![KingNovy Intel Celeron N5105 4x 2.5GbE Rear](https://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/KingNovy-Intel-Celeron-N5105-4x-2.5GbE-Rear.jpg)
On the bottom of the unit, we get mounting points for a VESA bracket. The other holes are for mounting a 2.5″ SSD to the bottom cover of the chassis.
![KingNovy Intel Celeron N5105 4x 2.5GbE Bottom](https://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/KingNovy-Intel-Celeron-N5105-4x-2.5GbE-Bottom.jpg)
Inside we have a fairly familiar layout compared to the J4125 units that we have looked at. It is fairly easy to see these utilize the same motherboard. Opening up this panel shows the NICs and main serviceable components. The CPU is on the other side attached to a block that routes heat to the chassis for dissipation.
![KingNovy Intel Celeron N5105 4x 2.5GbE Internal 1](https://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/KingNovy-Intel-Celeron-N5105-4x-2.5GbE-Internal-1.jpg)
Inside we find the NICs to the left and the M.2 slot on the bottom for storage. Two SODIMM slots are in the top right. Finally, a mPCIe slot, with a SIM slot, is on the bottom right.
![KingNovy Intel Celeron N5105 4x 2.5GbE Internal 2](https://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/KingNovy-Intel-Celeron-N5105-4x-2.5GbE-Internal-2.jpg)
Here we can see the SLNMH Intel i225-V NICs making them B3 stepping NICs which are the ones you want these days for 2.5GbE Intel NICs.
![KingNovy Intel Celeron N5105 4x 2.5GbE Internal NICs](https://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/KingNovy-Intel-Celeron-N5105-4x-2.5GbE-Internal-NICs.jpg)
There is also a PCIe Gen3 x2 slot for NVMe storage that is an upgrade in this generation and a mPCIe slot with a SIM slot for WWAN. The sellers have 3G/ 4G options, but we did not get to test them.
Tis unit was a v1.0 motherboard, while the Topton is the v2.0. It may just be stocking dates that meant we got an older revision. We have heard some users have coil whine on the V1 units but we did not experience this.
![KingNovy Intel Celeron N5105 4x 2.5GbE Internal SODIMM](https://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/KingNovy-Intel-Celeron-N5105-4x-2.5GbE-Internal-SODIMM.jpg)
The two SODIMM slots are DDR4 and up to DDR4-2933. We only tested up to 32GB (2x16GB) in this configuration, but sellers say these can take up to 64GB even though Intel Ark lists the maximum memory supported by the chip at 16GB. Many generations of Atoms have been able to handle more memory than their specs indicate.
For storage, there is a 2.5″ mounting point on the bottom cover via four screws. Included with the unit is the SATA data and power cable for an extra drive.
![KingNovy Intel Celeron N5105 4x 2.5GbE SATA Data And Power](https://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/KingNovy-Intel-Celeron-N5105-4x-2.5GbE-SATA-Data-and-Power.jpg)
Our power adapter is the same as the Topton unit. Both have the DP/N’s which seems strange for these units.
![KingNovy Intel Celeron N5105 4x 2.5GbE PSU](https://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/KingNovy-Intel-Celeron-N5105-4x-2.5GbE-PSU.jpg)
Next, let us get to the Topton unit and see some of the differences.
I’m surprised it took 40(!) days to arrive, in western EU it takes roughly a week as long as worldwide shipping isn’t completely screwed. I thought the units might be just-in-time manufactured, but that makes no sense considering there are two different revisions at the same time. Are shipments from China to the US always this slow?
Any idea how or if BIOS updates will be available for these systems? I’m guessing no…
I was looking into one of these models before deciding on an HP730 plus an 4-port Intel i350 NIC. I really love the 2.5GbE upgrade though.
I appreciate the iperf network tests, but would like to see a broader panel of tests.
i.e. Linux: debain-based and red hat-based linux iperf tests.
Linux: NGinx and/or Apache tests
And then repeated for FreeBSD & OpenBSD.
Please spend the time to do more detailed test that are relevant to the product, I promise to not complain about lack of content. I check your site 20+ times a day, I can wait for in-depth content. Please fill the niche that Anand created. It’s been a void. I want details. Comparing zip times isn’t enough. Compare results of a single stick of RAM to both. Maybe the Intel spec of 16GB of RAM has some validity.
I love these little boxes as edge devices that I resell to homes and small businesses. I use OpenBSD exclusively, but now that ISP’s are offering speeds surpassing 10Mb/s in my region; I find that OpenBSD is a little anemic and not upto the task of 1Gb/s connections. I refuse to use PFSense or any of those other pre-packaged distros too.
@Patrick I purchased a Topton unit with the N6005 and it looks *exactly* like your King Novy model. The single difference that I’ve been able to spot is that my case is black, not grey. Looking through AliExpress is an interesting experience. You will find the same units sold between King Novy and Topton, often listed multiple times at multiple price points. I picked up the barebones N6005 for $276. Even though Intel Ark says the N6005 supports a maximum of 16GB, I’ve got 2x16GB Samsung 2400MHz modules in mine and it is working well. That said, I went through 3 kits of 2×16 modules before I found one that would work without crashing in strange ways. I am running Proxmox on it with pfsense and the unit typically expends 13.3W with 3 of the NICs connected @2.5gbit. If you enable C-states, this is further reduced to 9.7W. With pfsense running as a Proxmox guest using PCIe passthrough, pinging the LAN interface with C-states disabled (in my network setup) results in a ping time of just shy of 0.2ms. With C-states enabled, that increases to ~1.2ms (if the network is idle – increased traffic reduces the ping time due to the CPU not having to wake up). I tried OPNsense (passing the NICs through) and had some issues with the WAN interface losing link when direct connected to my FiOS ONT that I don’t have with pfsense. I need to go back and investigate that at some point but with family members using the network around the clock, it’s going to be a while.
@Mike , lucky you getting a N6005 ! Both King Novy and Topton have told me all kinds of crazy stories about why they don’t have any N6005 models when in reality they just don’t have any more N6005 CPUs ( but they come up with a new different excuse every 3 days) as I have to pay both 25 % VAT plus a large customs handling fee often as large as the VAT ( the carries really are greedy) I really don’t want a 5001 when it will end up being almost same price with the N6005, I guess at this rate I will never get what I ordered.
@Mikes what specifi memory dimms are the ones that work?
Did the ones you tried not work because they are 16 gb modules or because these firewalls have some issues with memory
@Rodigas It took Topton about a month and a half to actually ship the N6005 model. Once I got the shipping notice, it only took about a week to arrive and was packaged air tight. It was wrapped in so much packing tape that it could have floated across the Pacific and would have arrived bone dry.
@Rodi The specific SODIMM that works for me in a 2x16GB configuration is the Samsung 16GB 2400 module: M471A2K43CB1-CRC.
The 2x8GB 2666MHz Mushkin kit MRA4S266GHHF8GX2 (16-17-17-36) worked for me, as well.
These 2x16GB 2666MHz kits did NOT work for me:
Mushkin MRA4S266GHHF16GX2 (which has the same timings as the 2x8GB kit…)
Teamgroup TED432G2666C19DC-S01
In the case of the Mushkin and Teamgroup 2x16GB kits, the system would recognize the memory and would boot but would eventually experience graphical corruption on the display and reboot. I do not have that issue with the Samsung modules.
2x16GB 2666 kits that did NOT work for me are Mushkin MRA4S266GHHF16GX2 which has the same timings as the 2x8GB kit, and Teamgroup TED432G2666C19DC-S01.
I’m not sure why the 2x8GB 2666MHz Mushkin kit worked but the 2x16GB kit did not. They both have the same timings.
Problem with memory above spec is that the memory controller in these CPUs cannot properly address 4 ranks of memory. This is also the reason why some 2x16Gb kits work and others don’t and why Intel states 16Gb is the max as there should be no single or dual kit at 16Gb that has more than 2 ranks of memory.
It also means that a 32Gb kit with just two ranks typically will work as expected.
Hope there will be more reliable vendors/boxes available at 2.5GbE soon so availability improves and more interesting combos are made (such as with PCIex4 on the m.2 slot)
Just to chip in on the memory config.
Bought a Topton unit aswell with the N6005 config barebone (got the square’ish chassis without the extra USB 2.0 ports)
Crucial CT8G4SFRA32A, an 8GB 3200Mhz stick runs perfectly fine (for 2 weeks now) at 2933 Mhz JEDEC timings. Have not tried with 2 sticks yet.
Been running pfSense without issues with all 4 ports in use.
The motherboard in the N6005 unit appears to be a CW-N6000. Found this: https://www.changwang.com/down/61.html which has links to the motherboard specifications (in Chinese – google translate seems to handle it pretty well). My BIOS version matches their picture:
Core version: 5.19
Compliancy: UEFI 2.7; PI 1.6
Build date: 2022/03/30
Just hunting around for BIOS updates for it.
I am curious if Protectli is going to start selling these models given their twitter says to expect 2.5gbe models June 1st +/- a few days. If they do, it is possible people may be able to get updated BIOS from them given what I read here:
https://www.hagensieker.com/wordpress/2020/11/08/firewalls-and-bioss-and-coreboot/
Looks like a straight re-badge of an older model.
@Mads
I got a Topton N6005 barebone with the 2 USB2.0 ports, running two Crucial CT16G4SFRA32A DIMMs at 2933 MHz. It’s working fine!
Buy a QNAP 4 port 2.5GbE card (Intel 225-V) if your setup supports it and move on.
@Mikes
Just to clarify, M471A2K43CB1-CRC appears to be a single stick, not a 2×16 kit. You just bought two single sticks right?
Please help.
Need specification what power adapter to buy?
The Topton Store sent a US power adapter with a EU travel adapter to me when I choose a EU plug. Bonus that the travel adapter don’t fit in Swedish power outlets.
Support said they will reimburse me on Paypal if I buy one locally, guess they really dislike negative feedback.
What I figured out is 7.4 mm * 5.00 mm port? 12V and what A or wattage is needed? Dell part-nr? Figuring a universal power adapter could work but don’t know what the port is called.
@Gabe That is correct. I ordered two individual sticks.
Great review!
Do you have any Google Coral NPU to test if they work in the units?
Preferably a mPcie.
My dream machine would be one of these with 2 nic for pfsense and the other 2 for home assistant with one of the for de dedicated camera vlan.
I wanna use frigate with a coral NPU and would be nice to use the nvme ssd for os/log, 2,5″ for NVR storage and the mpcie for the coral NPU.
Keep up the great work
Just for anyone that is interested, there is an increasing variety of these devices showing up on AliExpress. I looked again the other day and there are now units that have both HDMI and DP, units that have a CMOS reset button on the chassis, units that have DB9 and RJ45 COM ports, etc. The models in this review are from “Changwang”, e.g. CW-N6000. There are additional 4 and 6-port 2.5gbe boards from “Bluetech”. I’ve seen a version of the N5105 4-port going for as low as $148 (but it only seemed to come with a UK plug). I ordered a 6-port with the N5105 for $230. Trying to order that model with the N6005 resulted in a price increase of $70 which is a hefty premium over the N5105. The N6005 seems in short supply.
intel NUC11ATKPE ?
@kenneth: I can’t find the original post where I read it any longer, but there was a person commenting that he had used this adapter for his device; https://www.meanwell-web.com/en-gb/ac-dc-industrial-desktop-adaptor-output-12vdc-at-3-gst40a12–p1j . Just by switching to this adapter the idle power was reduced, so it’s probably wise to go for a higher quality adapter than the one you got with the device.
Seems like it’s worth checking if switching thermal pad can reduce the temps further, ref. https://www-congenio-de.translate.goog/infos/opnsense-hardware.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
How much of a different does the new stepping make? Are there any real downsides?
I am in CHINA, and I got this N5105 about 3 months ago, and now it has the 3rd version with type-C as well as a DP display port, what’s exciting is that a little cheaper than the 1st version of n5105.
Can anyone who received the N6005 version check in CPU-Z if the CPU is an engineering sample (ES)? My Topton N6005 shows as an ES CPU, which is perplexing. It is also quite unstable under Prime95.
I’ve bought one of these little boxes with the N5105 to have a play with OPNSense, which is new to me. OPN is reporting temperatures in the 90-95C range using coretemp (although the BIOS is reporting in the 70s), which seems very high for doing very little. I’ve tried enabling max-battery and C-states in the BIOS, disabling cores in the BIOS, and I’ve set OPNSense’s PowerD to minimum power but nothing seems to make any difference. I polished the aluminium heat block that connects the CPU die to the case and also polished off the black paint to get a better fit, but it hasn’t made any difference. These CPUs have a max temp of 105C, so I’m nearly there already.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to how I can reduce the temps?
(I haven’t tested it so I can’t verify the effectiveness but here it is)
There’s a review left on AliExpress which describes the measures taken to lower the temperature:
## Bios/Uefi settings ##
– Advanced
– CPU – Power Management Control
– View/Configure Turbo Options
– Power Limit 2 Override [Enabled]
– Power Limit 2 22000
– CPU VR Settings
– PSYS PMax Power 176
– Acoustic Noise Settings
– Acoustic Noise Mitigation [Enable]
– Slow Slew Rate for Vccln Domain [Fast/16]
– C states [Enabled]
## Case mods ##
– Add 2x 1.5mm (or one 4mm) thermal pad on all smd coil inductors
– Repaste CPU with better paste (Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for example)
With this settings and mods coil whine went down and also temps are about ~43C (8% load, Proxmox 7.2 + 2 VMs, room temp. ~28C)
Could someone provide the URL from where the purchase Topton N6005
Anyone still lingering around these reviews that have purchased these devices, if you happen to have the CW-N6000 model, the board is produced by “changwang” and resold by various vendors like Topton and King Novy. If you google “changwang cw-n6000”, you’ll find the manufacturer. If you go to the downloads -> bios section of their website, they’ve dropped a new BIOS update for the CW-N6000.
I’ve got a second model, the 6-port CW-N11. The I225-V (yes, they claim to be rev 3) NICs in it are particular about the 1G switches it will connect to at 1000 full. On 2 of 5 switches I tried, it would only negotiate 100Mbit Full-Duplex using a Cat7 cable. The 2 switches with issues are both >5 years old and one was a Trendnet device and the other was TP-Link.
Just curious, what size SSD’s should one get for this, just want to make sure of what type I would need. Thanks
Does anyone happen to know how the Mini-PCIe slot on these are wired? I’d be interested in putting a decent WiFi card with AP mode support in one, but that would only work if they actually have the PCIe lane wired up. (Due to the limited PCIe lanes from the SOC, a lot of these devices seem to have USB-only Mini-PCIe slots.
@rez CT16G4SFRA32A appears to exist both as 1Rx8 and 2Rx8 layout. Could you confirm how many chips are on each of your 16GB modules?
@Tinkerer22 CT16G4SFRA32A.M8FF modules have 4 chips on each side for a total of 8.
Is there anybody who tried if 64GB RAM is working with them? I asked the seller on Ali and said that use original Hynix modules for 2*32GB. BUT they don’t have such option and also they didn’t send further info. It would be great to have 64GB in these models (with esxi or proxmox).
I want to share my findings. I have a homelab and I wanted to get a low-power machine. I don’t need much CPU power, so I decided to try this Topton machine, so I ordered one from Topton Computer Store from Aliexpress (a no RAM no NVME option). It is slightly different to the tested models above. It contains a MW-JSL2.5G4L motherboard and the N5105 CPU with 4 LANs.
I inserted two DDR4 16GB modules temporarily for doing basic tests:
– SK Hynix HMAA2GS6CJR8N-XN
– Kingston module but the SPD shows Micron 8ATG2G64HZ-3G2E2
The mini PC was able to work with these 2 different types of 16GB modules with absolutely no problems. As currently I don’t have NVME SSD, I used a 240GB Kingston UV400 SATA SSD. My goal was to install Windows Server 2019 (Hyper-V) on it. It was a hard work however the OS installation went pretty smoothly. I used a pendrive and during the Server 2019 installation the SATA SSD was shown without extra drivers. However after the installation I had difficulties. I tried to install the latest Intel GFX driver (30.0.101.1960) but it failed in the middle of the process and the screen started to flickering. So I decided to go with Microsoft Basic Graphics Driver but it was turned out not to be the best choice. In this case (Windows Server 2019 and MS Basic Graphics Driver), after a few seconds when the computer boots up it completely freezes if no display is connected. This occures only if using the default Microsoft Basic Display Adapter. Next I tried to install the latest GFX driver from the previous driver branch which is Intel GFX 27.20.100.9466. Fortunately, it went smoothly. After this, the miniPC can boot and work successfully without display connected.
Actually my goal is to install 64GB RAM if it is possible so in the next few days i will try to test 32GB modules.
I purchased one of these Topton N5105 devices and have been trying to tune IPS on OPNSense using 22.7_4. I have Comcast Gigabit service, and when I disable IPS and just leave IDS on, I can consistently get 1.4G down (after adding the below tuning). If I enable IPS, even with just the opnsense.test.rules enabled, I can only get between 800M to 1.2G down and with significant jitter introduced.
The most relevant tuning I made was disabling flow control. Before doing so, I could never get above 1.2G down even with IDS disabled. I added these tunables in OPNsense:
SYSTEM | SETTINGS | TUNABLES
Interface igc0 Flow Control | dev.igc.0.fc | 0
Interface igc1 Flow Control | dev.igc.1.fc | 0
Interface igc2 Flow Control | dev.igc.2.fc | 0
Interface igc3 Flow Control | dev.igc.3.fc | 0
Bottom line, if you want full 1.4G and you want IPS, then an N5105 is probably a bit to underpowered for it. If you just want IDS, then it can handle that just fine at full speed. I have both an N6005 and an i5 1135G7 from Topton on its way I will also try, but I don’t expect them until Late August.
About Topton CW-N11 motherboard and mini pci-e. About using the mb mpcie-port with Coral Edge TPU with mini-pcie bus I’ve had no success. Not sure if BIOS tweaks help. I also read about USB on this comment thread “USB-only Mini-PCIe slots”.
About power adaptor, I had similar US + EU-plug adapter. However for my solution I purchased Eaton 3s mini ups to replace 12V/3A adapter with UPS.
To continue, I found changwang.com and via downloads section I got some papers in Mandarin. With Google Lens I tried to ‘read’ them and got..
Expansion slots:
1*Mini-PCIE slot support WIFI, 3G, 4G modules
1xM.2 slot, support PCIE signal, SSD hard disk module
Note: MINIPE is USB signal, only supports USB signal module
So let me continue the story I started some posts ago. I decided to try 64GB memory, so I bought 2 pieces of A-DATA 32GB 3200Mhz DDR4 SO-DIMM modules. They are working just fine. The first start takes about two minutes when changing memory anyway but after that period the computer boots up just fine. In OS memory amount is 64GB, and SPD shows the 2 memory modules. Currently the machine hosts 3 VMs and now it is its 5th working days without any problem. I installed a Kingston NV1 1TB NVMe SSD in it, it is working fine also. It seems NVMe slot only supports PCIE x2 mode but it is enough I think. My only problem is the temperature. I tried to repaste the CPU but it was not solved the problem. When using nearly 100% CPU, CPU become hot of over 80C. The NVME is also really hot, so I installed inside a 60mm cooler but it seems not solve anything. C states are also enabled. The case has mount points for a 40mm cooler. The tickness of the cooler cannot exceed 15mm as there are not enough space. I ordered better grease for repaste and another cooler to test. Apart from this overhetaing problem the computer is working fine.
Are the fan headers 5v or 12v?
It is a normal 12V fan header, but only have one piece. I used a Noctua NF-A4x10 fan and its working fine. The repaste with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut solved the cpu overheating problem, it is not exceeding 50C even at 100% CPU usage. The nvme can heat up to 55-57C for a short period of time when high io load occures but the daily avarage is about 46-47C and the room temp is about 25-27C.
Continuing my previous comment my mother board says LH JSP4L version 1.0
Anyone have a webpage for windows drivers?
@Mikes
I have 6-port Topton N5105 version. And I got 2 8 GB sticks Patriot PSD48G266682S. At first attempts it looked like it won’t start. I tried every stick in every slot alone. No luck. Then I tried 4 GB stick from notebook. It did start, but it took almost 10 seconds to get to the POST. So it was clear that it’s capable of training the memory. Went into the BIOS and there were a lot of memory training settings. I didn’t touch them. I just inserted back those two Patriot sticks, switched and started waiting and praying. About 3 – 4 minutes into it did turn on. So it just took it long to train the memory. After that it starts immediately – reboot, hot start and even cold start (from disconnected power supply). So just try to wait it out.
Anyone have found any memory that they can vouch it runs at 2933? I’m running kingston DDR4 3200 that has a XMP for 2933 but it loads as 2400, but havent found an XMP option on the bios.
Every memory I tried worked at 2933Mhz, strange…
2933 would be JEDEC profile, not XMP. Your Kingston probably lacks of 2933 JEDEC profile. Probably old set of stick made before JEDEC approved 2933 standard.
Thanks regs for the detail answer, you are likely to be right, its an old memory, probably among the first of the 3200, so it could be JEDEC profile. I’m trying to find out memory that its already proven to run at 2933mhz, before taking my gamble into buying Mushkin Redline DDR4 16GB (2x8GB) SODIMM Memory Kit – 2933MHz (PC4-23400) CL-21 – 260-pin 1.2V RAM – Dual-Channel – Low-Voltage – (MRA4S293MMMF8GX2)
Kazso thanks for the reply. I have two questions if you don’t mind:
1) On your before post you mention you are using a Noctua NF-A4x10, how did you connect it? the FAN1 plug its not standard 4pin header, nor a mini GPU header, I’m trying to find an adapter or even trying to identify the plug, so how did you connect yours?
2) How are you validating that you are running the memory at 2933? CPUz don’t seem to display the actual speed its running. Cant seem to find anything in the bios either.
@Mikes
I wouldn’t be surprised with Cat 7 cable issues. There are complications with some non-standard connectors. But I have right opposing problems. I have an LTE router for backup. The router has 100 MbE ports. And they just do not work with that 6-port Topton N5105. No signal at all on both sides. Every port, every side, every cable. Just no signal. No lights on both sides. And all cables are typical Cat 5 cable, may be 5E. Some of those cables are decades old. Some are new. Sure it shouldn’t need Cat 6 for 100 MbE…
Abula:
1) What kind of motherboard do you have in the machine? The FAN1 (which is the only header in the machine) is a standard 4 pin FAN header in my edition, the Noctua has 3 pins. My motherboard is: MW-JSL2.5G4L
2) I used Aida64 for it: you can check in multiple places in it, for example in the motherboard -> motherboad menu.
Hi all, just received a N5105 small profile, i225v 2.5G mini PC.
https://i.imgur.com/CrCGsHB.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/10cz39l.jpg
BIOS is 100% default, no temp or performance tweaks. I did activate auto power-on since it will be a router. I deburred the holes of the aluminum plate that attaches between the cpu and the upper heatsink case. I noticed that it had a tube’s worth of paste and it was a mess. So I cleaned everything up, deburred the holes of the plate to create a flat surface, bought 20mm x 20mm cooper shims that were 0.3mm thick to insert between the cpu and the aluminum plate. When I cleaned the paste off, there was a visible gap between the cpu and the plate so a 0.3 cooper shim filled it with drop-sized paste between cpu and copper, copper and plate, and plate and heatsink.
I also purchased Alphacool GPU RAM Copper Heatsinks 10mm x 10mm. I place them on the 3 scorching hot VRMs on the board. Make sure to also get double-sided thermal tape. I placed the copper fins parallel to the side vents of the case in case I needed to add a 40mm USB fan, “ANVISION 2-Pack 40mm x 10mm DC 5V USB” that will be hooked up to the “AC Infinity MULTIFAN S3, Quiet 120mm USB Fan”, inline fan controller.
https://i.imgur.com/E5yTnbM.jpeg
Also a low profile M.2 NVMe heatsink just in case the ssd runs hot, “GLOTRENDS M.2 Heatsink PS5 and Desktop PC”.
Well folks, the system runs no past 30°C with Proxmox running pfSense, Pi-hole, Baïkal and Nextcloud VMs and LXC containers. The USB AC Infinity with rubber feet just sits on top of the heatsinked case and touching the case is cooler than ambient temps, really stable.
While unplugging the fan, I noticed the unit would shut off, a possible grounding issue. Noticed the USB, HDMI shielded ports where coming in contact with the black powder coated case and shorting it. So I added scotch tape inside the front and rear plates as well as the inner ridge of the cutouts and the problem is now gone.
https://i.imgur.com/SyWGMFc.jpeg
Does anybody had issues with booting N6005 unit headless (not connected to any display)?
My CW-N6000 unit from aliexpress boots proxmox only when my physical display is connected.
Otherwise it only reaches the “grub tune” phase, then SDD is active for about a second and PC does nothing.
Ordered dummy HDMI plug but didn’t help either (although that plug is recognisable by Windows/Mac laptops).
Updated BIOS to the latest version from Changwang website (2022/9/29) but that didn’t help as well.
Could it be related to the fact that I’m using 32 GB RAM?
Any ideas or suggestions that I can try to allow my server to restart without monitor?
(I have older hardware based on Intel-5200U running proxmox and it has no issues at all, but this N6005 unit is very problematic at least for me…)
msergey – I know this is not helpful, but I probably have a dozen or more of these units running headless Proxmox VE.
Thank you for reply Patrick — your response is useful because it’s giving some additional information for my investigation!
I’ve also tried to check “Halt on error” option in BIOS but it looks like it just does not exist in CW-N6000.
And I’m just like many other people suffering from the fact that my unit can only run containers but hangs when running VMs (even idling VMs, although I haven’t tried running VMs on it after the BIOS update).
I’ve also tried Windows 11 installation which failed with graphic drivers (like in comments above).
All I wanted is headless PVE running a several containers to make use of this hardware but so far I can’t get it… Maybe my unit is just defective or maybe I should try with less RAM. Will try that later just out of curiousity))
I would be interested in how fast pfsense could do a VPN connection because that involves some CPU power… Because I am looking for a site to site setup where I am able to utilize a 1Gb internet connection… my current “enterprise” Unifi/UB Inifinity EdgeRouter can do about 400Mbit with IPSEC..
Should I go for this N5105 or maybe upgrade to the i5/i7 model?
@Kazso
Are you still using the A-DATA 32GB 3200Mhz DDR4 SO-DIMM modules with the N5105? Is it working stable? If yes, can you please share the exact model number, is it the AD4S320032G22 ? Thanks.
I’m running a unit (Celeron N5105) with Proxmox VE, pfSense and a few containers. Using a Samsung 980 Pro and 2×16 GB (Corsair CMSX32GX4M2A2400C16). The cores are running at 39C and nvm at 59C. I might add some cooling but it is not critical and it’s running stable for over a week, very happy with the performance. Power consumption is at 12W. It’s replacing a 60W server.
Does Anybody has Operating System has Halted issue ?
Hey nice review, I just want to say that the CPU Intel N5105 is not an Atom cpu like you said in your review, but a Celeron.
For Intel Atom < Celeron < Pentium < Core
I’ve got one of these N5105 units functionally replacing a HP microserver. drawing 200 watts. Your videos (and networkchuck) have given me the confidence to dive in to learning a VM’s using proxmox Patrick. I’ve nearly built up the courage to add a PFsense VM and use the thing to handle all home traffic routing (need to send wife and children away for a weekend). I chucked an 8gb ram module in it to get going, but I’m now realizing that the Ubuntu server VM hosting a plex server, transmission client and smb fileserver isn’t really happy with 4gb of ram. I know a few other users have mentioned their experiences with different RAM. I know the intel CPU spec says 16gb max. I’d love to go to 32gb or even 64gb and run more VM’s and services, and now worry about ram limiting network routing. What specific modules have have worked for others? Cheers Sam
Hello everyone, I just ordered one of these to play with as my first pfsense box. In a message the seller specfically mentions not to use “Kingston HyperX impact” ram. And luck would have it I have one Kingston FURY Impact 8gb or 16gb (not sure, have to check) lying around. I was hoping to use that to save from getting new ram *facepalm* lol.
The comments here shows a variety of rams all work fine, but no info on Kingston FURY Impact. Does this particular model of ram really not work with these mini PCs? Any help will be really appreciated!
I got 64 GB RAM (2×32) running stable on my Topton N6005 NAS Board running Proxmox as ZFS-NAS and many VMs.
You can find the exact part number here:
root@boxxy:# dmidecode –type 17
# dmidecode 3.4
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 3.3.0 present.
Handle 0x0046, DMI type 17, 100 bytes
Memory Device
Array Handle: 0x0039
Error Information Handle: Not Provided
Total Width: 64 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 32 GB
Form Factor: SODIMM
Set: None
Locator: Controller0-ChannelA
Bank Locator: BANK 0
Type: DDR4
Type Detail: Synchronous
Speed: 3200 MT/s
Manufacturer: G Skill Intl
Serial Number: 11190516
Asset Tag: 9876543210
Part Number: F4-3200C22-32GRS
Rank: 2
Configured Memory Speed: 2933 MT/s
Minimum Voltage: 1.2 V
Maximum Voltage: 1.2 V
Configured Voltage: 1.2 V
…