November 29, 2022
Today I want to cover a small pc used as a firewall. I wanted to get one of these for some time but just had not looked into them much as there are many different types. I wanted a fanless since this will be on all the time just like a router. In fact these can be configured as a router themselves. So I’ll go into a few things here. I have a nas that I was thinking of using as my promox box and virtualize everything from there. But before that I wanted to try it out in a virtual machine. Unfortunately I found out that promox did not like that so I could not use it in a virtual box vm. My nas is a bit large, 8 bays and I didn’t want that on all the time. So I decided to get this mini pc which is has an all metal body and it’s the smaller size. I figured I could run promox from it, and then add whatever else I wanted to test out. So I looked for the best priced version and decided to max out the memory and add a roughly 500 gb m.2 drive. One terabyte would have been nice but I just didn’t know how well these parts would be. I just wanted to run things out of the box and now have to purchase then separately.
Main Features:
Celeron N5100(6W TDP)
CPU: Intel Jasper Lake Celeron Processor N5100, 4 core 4 threads,64 bit, 10nm, 1.1GHz up to 2.8GHz, 4M cache
GPU: Intel UHD Graphics GPU, 24EU, 350MHz up to 800MHz
Celeron N5105(10W TDP)
CPU: Intel Jasper Lake Celeron Processor N5105, 4 core 4 threads,64 bit, 10nm, 2.0GHz up to 2.9GHz, 4M cache
GPU: Intel UHD Graphics GPU, 24EU, 450MHz up to 800MHz
RAM: 8GB or 2x8GB DDR4 2666MHz
SSD: 128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB M.2 2280 NVMe SSD
-4xIntel i225-V B3 2.5G RJ45 LANs, 2xUSB3.0.
-Support two storage: 1xM.2 2280 NVMe SSD+1x2.5''SATA SSD/HDD.
-Support 1xHDMI+1xDP dual display output synchronously and asynchronously.
-1xMPCIE wireless slot, support 4G/WiFi/Bluetooth connection.
-Support AES-NI, ESXI, Watchdog, Auto power on, RTC, PXE boot, Wake-on-LAN.
-Full Aluminum Alloy high quality solid-built shell with three-sided ice thorns, excellent cooling performance, Exquisite production craft on outside design.
-Fanless system without cooling fan, noiselessness and durability fit for industrial grade field, work as long as 7x24 hours.
-Low consumption TDP only 10W(N5105)/6W(N5100) and can be mounted back of monitor by VESA bracket(optional).
Note:
N5100 TDP is 6W, N5105 is 10W. If you need the CPU to run under high load for a long time, I recommend you to choose the N5100 CPU, which has less heat generation.
Here you can see the cpu stuck to the top of the case which does get pretty toasty at around 60 degrees C. I added my own usb fan on the top until I can get a slightly larger one and this brought it down to about 30 degrees C, so it did make a huge difference. I don't want it that hot if it's going to be on all the time.
There are not too many holes on the bottom of this plate, but it stays cools as is. It's the top that gets hot.
Once you take all four screws out, it sort of falls apart like this.
This is all that's included in the box. Unfortunately there was no manual, so I don't have a website for where to get the update bios or drivers if I were to use windows.
Pf Sense came installed on this unit but it didn't look like it was working correctly but I haven't used it myself so I can't tell you anything about it. I will be checking it at a later time.
This is what is displayed at boot up. I don't speak Chinese so I don't know what that says.
And here's the bios information this comes with.
I went ahead and deleted Pf Sense and installed proxmox since I can installed Pf Sense later.
This is how I ended up cooling this unit. It's just a fan I added a usb plug to in order to use it to cool my modem. Now I'm using it on this and it needs it. So not exactly fanless but it keeps the temps low and you can barely hear it. I want to get a slightly bigger one so it's even more quiet.
These are the included Pf Sense screenshots.
My proxmox screenshot.
April 27, 2025 update...
I have been testing the windows server on this computer and I ended up running into problems due to the low memory I have on it. So I have ordered two 32gb sodimms in order to max it out at 64gb of memory. I can barely run a server as is so I finally ordered some more memory. In any case this has been my test pc so I'm just going to keep using it until I can't do what I need. So far it's been fine for the testing that I'm doing at home.
If you are planning on setting up a virtual machine server running more vm's you may need to look into a mini itx board or something bigger that can handle more vm's. I looked at other mini pc's and most of them don't have a lot of memory. Some go up to 48gb and others up to 64gb like this one,which is the reason I'm just updating the memory. There's no point in getting another one even with say four nvme slots since most don't go too high on the memory side. As you can see from the picture below I'm not even running that many virtual machines on this one.
I just received the other 32gb dimm for this computer and well, it will no turn on with both memory modules. As it turns out, this cpu only supports up to 16gb but as you can see above I can use it with one 32gb dimm. So make sure to check the cpu before you buy any of these tiny pcs to make sure they support more memory and what you're looking for. I bought mine a while back and didn't run into this problem until now that I was trying to run two windows server vm machines for testing.
These are the memory specifications for this cpu.
While looking up the board on this I found the website that has the same logo that you see when you boot this up here which is nice.
https://www.bkipc.com/en/product/G30B-1338-4L.html
https://www.bkipc.com/en/download/file-1338NP-12-4L.html
Bios Update page...
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