Bad performance on Topton/Bluetech N5105 i225 System

[ruskotet]

Hello everyone,
I just received this Toptop/Bluetech N5105 passively cooled system:
https://it.aliexpress.com/item/1005004557497577.html

The OEM board is this one: http://www.e-bluetech.com.cn/?c=msg&id=2290, but the actual system I received is slightly different: mine has no DisplayPort and revision on board silkscreen is 1.1 vs 1.0 on the website.

The system has 4x i225 2.5Gbps NICs, the BIOS identification is 1338NP-12-V112 and the BIOS version is 07/04/2022.
I installed OPNsense 22.7.4.

I read this thread https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=27938.0 and tried everything that's suggested there but I am really starting to think that this system is not good at all. I started this new thread to avoid noise on the other one.

I installed 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD (SATA3).

Quick findings:
- CPU and copper heatsink have a slight gap and do not touch each other
- The temperature is insane: out of the box the CPU reaches 85 degrees sitting idle, with small load it jumps to 103+ degrees
- The casing is impossible to touch for more than 5 seconds
- The performance is terrible

I will try to fix the first tree points, but the last one is the one that worries me the most, so I'm asking if there is something that can be improved or tweaked inside OPNsense or the bios.

The net config is:
1x WAN port to ISP ONT
1x LAN (NAS interface) port to NAS
1x LAN (LAN interface) port to Wi-Fi AP Zyxel NWA210AX (160MHz, WiFi6)

All cables are Cat. 5e.

Here we come to the problems:
1. iperf3 between a Wi-Fi 6 device and Topton: max 500/600 Mbps
2. iperf3 between a Wi-Fi 6 device and NAS: max 900 Mbps (why is it higher than the direct case???)
3. No 2.5Gbps link between the Wi-Fi AP and the Topton. Forcing it gives no connection at all. This is strange, the AP supports 2.5Gbps, the Topton does too, the cable is 5e. Why is it not working?

Any help is greatly appreciated, if you have any question/curiosity on the system itself feel free to ask, I will gladly answer!

[Taunt9930]

Chances are the first three issues are a large part of the problem - if the CPU is getting that hot, it is probably throttling. I think you need to fix that first, and then re-visit.

[ruskotet]

Chances are the first three issues are a large part of the problem - if the CPU is getting that hot, it is probably throttling. I think you need to fix that first, and then re-visit.

I ruled out throttling manually adjusting core frequencies with tunables (dev.hwpstate_intel.x.epp).
Starting from 799Mhz all the way up to the maximum turbo frequency, there is no difference in iperf3 speed.
Moreover, I made sure that throttling does not happen during the tests (inspecting the CPUs frequency).

So the problem must lie somewhere else.

[ruskotet]

Small update: after improving the termal dissipation of the device (put a thermal sponge between the copper block and the case, reducing the gap between the CPU and the copper block itself, plus repasting), temperatures went down but the performance remain terrible.

Performance remains unfortunately the same.

I also tried different flow control options (0, 3 in igc driver tunables), but there was no difference at all.
At the same time I enabled/disabled CRC, TSO, LRO: no difference.
TCP offload in tubaled enabled/disabled: no difference.

Any thought/suggestion? Thanks.

[borya.mbi@gmail.com]

Hi! I had problem with this unit too. I moved OS from NVME to SSD 512Gb. It is working but I have not yet testing iperf3 performance. I think bad quality of nvme and small size of it could somehow slow the system.