pcengines replacement

Any worries with the Intel i226-v in there?
My original box uses the I225-V (rev 03) chips. There were several iterations of changes to Linux drivers for the I225 (and I detected a lot of problems and confusion when researching on-line). Mine appear to work well with Ubuntu 22.04, which was chosen precisely (over my usual choice of Debian) because it had Linux kernel (5.15) that post-dated most of the igc driver issues I could find (and supported the newest integrated Intel graphics).

But I'm limited to 1 Gbit switch ports. benchmarks/iperf3 sustains about 950 Mbits/sec in both client and server mode. I have not experienced any Ethernet issues over several months.

I don't yet have experience with the I226-V chips on the newer models. My gut is that they will be an improvement on I225-V.

I do not yet have any 2.5 Gbit switches to test with. So I just don't know if I will see problems there. I want to move to 2.5 Gbit hosts on the periphery and 10 Gbit trunks, but nothing demands that right now.

[I wish I could say more about FreeBSD on these systems, and I will test as soon as the video drivers catch up.]
 
. I use it as firewall and storage system (via sshfs) - with 2 USB enclosures with 4x12TB HDD each. Accessing the USB disks is at about ~ 15-25MB/sec
Well the APU2 only has one USB3 connector so I bet you are running into the max USB2 transfer rate.

What if you piped both enclosures to a usb3 hub and single line to USB3 jack? I would test that setup.

 
Protectli has nice boxes
A lot of weird mSATA and B-keyed M.2 products in here as well as from the other vendors. That's the one thing I wish PCEngines would update. Good mSATA drives don't seem to exist anymore.

I don't understand the eMMC on the NVMe boxes, but they're also double what I would expect. Looks like you need a 2017+ product to get NVMe.
 
I'll let you all know if it turns pear shaped :cool: .
Well, it's just got a bit lopsided...

I have two of Topton's passively cooled MiniPCs which are pitched as routers/firewalls.

The older has 4 x Intel I225-V NICs and one M.2 slot. The newer one has 4 x Intel I226-V NICs and two M.2 slots.

The older one has been on my desktop for several months while I have been setting it up and testing things. There have been no problems. I boot if from a USB3 thumb drive, and it has no other storage.

I just got the newer one, and I immediately noticed that, with ambient around 25C, the newer case runs a lot warmer (46C) than the older one (33C). The newer one has a pair of M.2 SSDs fitted, so I used smartctl(8) to have a look at the temperatures. They were both running at 80C! Samsung's specified operating temperature is 0 to 70C.

I have powered down the new box, and it will stay off until I get a fan. There's provision to attach a 4010 (40x40x10 mm) fan to the base of the case in the same space as a conventional 2.5" SSD (mutually exclusive).

Both motherboards have provision to attach a 4-wire fan. The older motherboard has a conventional PWM header. The newer motherboard has a smaller 4-pin header, which I believe is commonly used on GPUs.

I'm going to order a couple of Noctua 12V NF-A4x10 PWM fans, plus a PWM adapter cable (google: JST-PH 4-pin to PWM) for the newer motherboard. These fans are whisper quiet. They hit 19.6 dB(A) when flat out at 5000 RPM.

Noctua products are in short supply at the moment, so it might take me a while to report back on the results.
 
Thanks for the write-up. ServeTheHome has reviewed various Topton units and found (as you are saying) that it's a bit of luck as to what components you end up with. https://www.servethehome.com/?s=topton

I've read (elsewhere) that SSDs in M.2 (are these NVMe or SATA?) will definitely need thermal control if passively cooled. Is there any room for heatsinks in the case? Or no, and you're going to fans because no room for heatsinks? Or just want to try and see what the fans can do?

I've paid more and gone for the more seem-to-be-more-consistent (but more expensive) Protectli machines. But curious what you get if you buy direct.
 
Protectli machines
Run for the hills.....

Look at pfSense forum. Littered with the carcass of those...

I am the cheapest of cheapskates but you got to realize you get what you pay for.

For what PCEngines cost you got good quality board backed by a manufacturer.
I had one brick and sent it back to Pascal an he flashed it for free.
Dealing with the people who designed the product is awesome.
Who else offers board schematics on amd64. Virtually an open design.

<rant deleted>
 
I’ve had a Dell with the dodgy capacitors die, and a Soekris and Supermicro die with the self-destructing Atom chips but otherwise mostly a good run!
 
I've read (elsewhere) that SSDs in M.2 (are these NVMe or SATA?) will definitely need thermal control if passively cooled. Is there any room for heatsinks in the case? Or no, and you're going to fans because no room for heatsinks? Or just want to try and see what the fans can do?
They are NVMe M.2 SSDs, and they do run hot. If mine run at 80C with ambient at 25C, then 95C at 40C ambient is more than plausible, and that's basically at idle!

I want the SSDs well under 70C, so say 60C. I don't think that heatsinks will give me the -35C I need, and even if they do, there will still be a lot of hot air heating up everything else in the case.

So I think I have an airflow problem. But M.2 SSD heatsinks are definitely not off the agenda. I'll look at the temperatures and available space when the fan is in.
 
Have you checked Qotom?
They are remarkably similar in price and configuration to the Topton offerings. The cases are a little different, but my guess is that they have some commonality in the manufacturing source. I actually think that the Topton cases look like they have more surface area for heat dissipation.

I would not be averse to trying one, but the two Toptons I have are enough for the time being. I put the first into production as a PVR client yesterday (replacing a small noisy Phemon II era PC). It's booting from a USB3 stick, and running Kodi and MythTV very nicely. Sadly, not with FreeBSD -- Ubuntu is a better choice for the task.

It renders video very well, using X11 (not Wayland) and OpenGL (recent Linux kernel required for Intel Jasper Lake UHD Graphics i915 driver at the moment). I have tapped the HDMI audio signal to feed to the amplifier. The only remaining questions in this context (no M.2 NVMe disks installed) relate to reliability and durability.
 
The Topton MiniPCs continue to entertain.

I found this STH thread, which goes on for 123 pages, but there's lots of good information. Certainly enough to justify the skeptics, and perhaps encourage the intrepid :).

It seems that the 4-pin fan headers are for 5V fans. I purchased 12V fans, because I always get 12V fans, without thinking...

The "JST-PH 4-pin to PWM" cable I got to connect the 40x40x10 PWM fan didn't fit. The pitch was wrong. If you have a motherboard with the small 4-pin JST fan header (as opposed to the standard PWM header which my older motherboard has), the 4-pin connector with 1.25 pitch you need to run a PWM fan is here. They are said to be "difficult to crimp".

Happily, the "JST-PH 4-pin to PWM" cable, which don't fit the fan header, did fit the SATA "HD PWR" header. I'm not using a SATA SSD (and never will, because they block the air vents) so I can cut and join the cable wires to get a +12V two-wire power supply for the fan. Since there's no sense or control wires, the fan will run flat out. But, honestly, the M.2 SSDs are probably going to need that, and the fan noise is less than 20 dBA flat out.

I had concerns about the fan clearing the second M.2 SSD (which sits on a raised daughter-card). But it looks good.

I'll report back when the fan is installed.
 
The cooling seems to be under control...

I have now fitted a Noctua NF-A4x10 FLX 40x40x10 fixed speed fan to my late model Topton MiniPC. It's a 12V fan, and I stole +12V from the SSD PWR header. Noctua now conveniently provide an OmniJoin adaptor set (4 x 3M Scotchlok IDC Butt Connectors) in their fan kits for those who have to cut and join wires. I was impressed.

At the same time as I ordered the MiniPC, I sourced locally two Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB M.2 SSDs -- which I have discovered are notorious for running hot.

To test the cooling, I got the CPUs up 60C by running sysutils/memtester continuously on half of the memory (8G).

I then ran the benchmarks/bonnie++ benchmark to get the M.2 SSDs (mirror'd) working.

As an aside, the bonnie++ numbers were:

Block Output: 723M/sec (41% CPU)
Block Rewrite: 351M/sec (33% CPU)
Block Input: 658M/sec (44% CPU)
Random Seeks: 4895/sec (131% CPU)

That's not spectacular for M.2 NVMe, but the PCI lanes are X1.

With the CPUs warmed up, I started the bonnie++ disk benchmark.

Smartctl reports two temperatures for each SSD. The highest temperatures I observed were 57C/72C for nvme0 and 67C/83C for nvme1. Ambient was 18C.

Nvme1 as consistently hotter than nvme0. Nvme0 is directly under the fan (which I have blowing inwards). The good news is that nvme1 has headroom for a heatsink. Nvme0 does not (because of the fan). I reckon that a good heatsink will buy me 10C. That should keep them both to 57C/72C (maximum recommended is 70C). I still have to see what happens in really hot weather. But it would be unusual for me to have all CPUs and disks running flat out. So I think I will have a workable solution when I get the heatsink for nvme1.

The bad news is that 20 dBA on my desk is quite audible. So the whole notion of a quiet fanless PC is lost.

It's a great pity I could not test a PWM fan, because it would be inaudible for most of the time... but I'm not convinced that CPU temperature is a good proxy for the SSD cooling requirements, so it may not have done the job under stress. I have ordered a 1.25 pitch connector for the 4-pin 5V fan header, and might just order a 5V fan at some time in the future.

There's a few lessons learned. If you want to use NVMe M.2 SSDs on these things, pay a lot of attention to the heat they generate. Even if you choose well, they will probably need active cooling and one heat sink for longevity. Noctua fans are the quietest in the business, but they are still quite audible when running flat out.

If you want to avoid noise, best use is probably for applications that can boot and run from a USB3 stick. I have a media client doing exactly that on a slightly older MiniPC, and, with 16G of memory, it's quite pleasant to use for casual tasks. If I can get a 2.5 Gbit/sec Ethernet connection to my ZFS server for NFS, it might work very well for a wide variety of tasks (without local NVMe SSDs or fans).

On balance, the build quality is a little dubious, but I do believe it has improved over the last 12 months. Lack of vendor support, and BIOS updates remain a concern. But for the price, I took a chance, and I'm not disappointed.

Edit: with the fan, external case temperature at idle has been reduced from 45C to 25C.
 
At the same time as I ordered the MiniPC, I sourced locally two Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB M.2 SSDs -- which I have discovered are notorious for running hot.
An SK Hynix Gold P31 isn't a speed monster but it keeps its head relatively cool (see e.g. SK Hynix Gold P31 1TB NVMe SSD). In Europe they have been and are not available (unless imported at overinflated prices); perhaps in Australia, but I don't know.
 
An SK Hynix Gold P31 isn't a speed monster but it keeps its head relatively cool (see e.g. SK Hynix Gold P31 1TB NVMe SSD). In Europe they have been and are not available (unless imported at overinflated prices); perhaps in Australia, but I don't know.
That looks like a very good option for its superior thermal behaviour. It has PCIe 3.0 x4 connectivity, which is overkill for the Topton, but a good thing. The 5-year warranty is also good.

They are not available in Australia through the normal retail channels. You can get them through Amazon at nearly twice the price of the Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus.
 
Not directly related but Samsung just released updated firmware for the 990 issues (and looks like they had issues with 980s too):


Not clear yet if a real issue - drives actually degrading too quickly - or more to do with some faulty calculations - would be good if that got clarified!

Guess everything has issues and firmware updates these days but making a little nervous - but no issues with any Samsung SSDs I've bought ... yet.
 
My 970 EVO Plus SSDs don't appear to suffer the rapid degrade reported for other similar models.

I have just received the Micro JST 1.25 mm Pitch 4-Pin female plug that fits the custom PWM header on the newest of my MiniPCs. I plugged it in, got out the volt meter, and found the header was oriented in exactly the same way as a standard motherboard PWM header. i.e. ground on pin 1 on the far right when viewed with the locking post at the rear.

The big surprise was that I measured 12V across pins 1 and 2. Hooray, my 12V fans will work!

So I opened up the older model, and found that it too had a 12V power supply to the PWM header.

I now have a 12V PWM fan installed in the newer MiniPC with the M.2 NMVe SSDs, and I have to get my ears withing 6" of the system to hear any noise.

I have not yet got a heatsink that I intend to use on the M.2 NVMe SSD which is furthest form the fan. Will report back with results of stress testing when I do.

The lesson here is that the specifications of these Topton systems do change. I did a lot of research before (wrongly) concluding that the fans ran at 5V. Caveat emptor.
 
Just noticed today that PC Engines is now calling it quits. My two go to hardware makers (Sokeris and PC Engines) are now gone.
Purchased two units from Protectli with OPNsense preloaded to evaluate. Hoping this new hardware maker is a good replacement.
 
Purchased two units from Protectli
I'd appreciate it if you could share your experience afterwards.
I am however afraid that PC-Engines provided a level of quality, pricing, reliability and support that will be hard to match :(
 
I am looking for a replacement for my pcengines apu2 ... while it is an almost perfect fit for my needs, I need a somewhat faster device. Faster in the sense of I/O. I use it as firewall and storage system (via sshfs) - with 2 USB enclosures with 4x12TB HDD each. Accessing the USB disks is at about ~ 15-25MB/sec (compared to my AMD Ryzen system with ~ 150MB/sec) ... ~ 50MB/sec should be enough.

My requirements are:
  • fanless
  • ECC memory
  • CPU with AES
  • low power consumption (< 8W idle, <20W on average usage)
  • 2 ethernet interfaces, 3 would be ideal
  • at least 2 USB 3.0 ports, 3 would be ideal
  • smallish in size

any suggestions?

You will find chart for APU replacement in next link. It's fit with all your criteria except for ECC memory https://www.rack-matrix.com/en/prod...ds-from-pc-engines-to-noah-of-broachlink.html
 
This is interesting but Broachlink is Chinese which doesn't inspire longevity or support like PC Engines. Also, the port arrangement internally is a mess because they didn't flip the chip and sink the CPU on the underside. Would not mount a modem over that bare battery connector.
 
Update on my adventures: The Protectli are good alternatives. I have 3 of them running OPNsense, no issues to date. Would recommend without hesitation. They are easy to reach out for when you need help, and they are knowledge people. Other than a small glitch with one of the devices not having the correct boot configuration, I didn't need to reach out for help. The devices are stable, powerful, and quiet. Only main complain is that they are a tight fit on a 1U rack shelf. You'll need to remove the rubber feet, and it's still a squeeze.

For something with more power, I took a chance on a HUNSN RS42-G2I7-8128 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BPB7T1L8). So far I have been very satisfied with it. It's been running since Sept 2023 and I can't remember the last time I had to touch it. As was the case with the Protectli, this one too came with rubber feet attached (even tough it's a rackmount). Those had to be removed.
 
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