normal power consumption "N100"
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Hello, I am using this new Mini PC for my pfSense.
KingnovyPC Firewall Micro Appliance, 4 Port i226 2.5GbE LAN Fanless Mini PC N100, 1* DDR5, 16GB DDR5 512GB NVMe, HDMI, DP, RJ45 COM, 4* USB Gigabit Ethernet AES-NI VPN Router Openwrt BareboneHowever, I thought that it would consume less power. I am currently at an average of 15 watts.
What is your consumption with the Intel N100?
Of course, it always depends on what the PC has to do, but I don't think this is anything special. Normal HomeLab.What could I do to reduce it?
What information do you need from me? -
Is that with all the NICs linked? At 2.5G? Am I reading that right as 4x USB Gigabit NICs?
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@TMG Is that mini PC a 'CWWK' that was 'rebranded' as KingnovyPC? The pictures I saw on Amazon for that brand look like CWWK models. You can tell because when you boot it up, it says CWWK on the BIOS splash screen... Mine is a 6- i226 port version labeled 'HUNSN' but it says 'CWWK' on boot.
You may have to go into the BIOS and hunt around for the SPEED STEP and C states (power save). On mine they are near each other in the settings- make sure they are both enabled even though it is better in PFSense to turn on SPEEDSHIFT and you do this with SPEED STEP ON in the bios, as that also enables turbo.
Once you confirm those are enabled, you go into PFSENSE (current release version), System/Advanced/Miscellaneous and set SPEED SHIFT. Ignore the 'POWER D' settings below it, that's the older way to enable power savings and you don't want that. Enable SPEED Shift/CORE LEVEL control. There is a PERFORMANCE slider, lower number provides more power/faster speed ramp up at the expense of power use and heat. A lot depends here on the load you will be realistically be putting on it. I use '60' as that provides the ramp up I want under load without overdoing it. Temps in the upper 20s on idle, heating up to the mid 30s under load. Before Speed Shift, it idled in the upper 30s c. The trick is to find the setting that allows the processor cores to drop to as low a level as possible, saving power (and heat) when idling, ramping up as needed under load. That will save power. I have 5 vlans and run speed tests between vlans. I could probably go higher and get more energy savings but lack the time to test. Mine has the Alderlake Pentium 8505, 16 gigs ram (hard to find quality 4 gig sticks these days and I want both memory slots populated so 16 gigs it is). There is a large forum thread at the Serve The Home forums that goes over these mini 'soft routers' in their 'Networking' forum.
Hope this helps... -
@Tzvia said in normal power consumption "N100":
Tzvia
@TMG
2 days ago@TMG Is that mini PC a 'CWWK' that was 'rebranded' as KingnovyPC? The pictures I saw on Amazon for that brand look like CWWK models. You can tell because when you boot it up, it says CWWK on the BIOS splash screen... Mine is a 6- i226 port version labeled 'HUNSN' but it says 'CWWK' on boot.
You may have to go into the BIOS and hunt around for the SPEED STEP and C states (power save). On mine they are near each other in the settings- make sure they are both enabled even though it is better in PFSense to turn on SPEEDSHIFT and you do this with SPEED STEP ON in the bios, as that also enables turbo.
Once you confirm those are enabled, you go into PFSENSE (current release version), System/Advanced/Miscellaneous and set SPEED SHIFT. Ignore the 'POWER D' settings below it, that's the older way to enable power savings and you don't want that. Enable SPEED Shift/CORE LEVEL control. There is a PERFORMANCE slider, lower number provides more power/faster speed ramp up at the expense of power use and heat. A lot depends here on the load you will be realistically be putting on it. I use '60' as that provides the ramp up I want under load without overdoing it. Temps in the upper 20s on idle, heating up to the mid 30s under load. Before Speed Shift, it idled in the upper 30s c. The trick is to find the setting that allows the processor cores to drop to as low a level as possible, saving power (and heat) when idling, ramping up as needed under load. That will save power. I have 5 vlans and run speed tests between vlans. I could probably go higher and get more energy savings but lack the time to test. Mine has the Alderlake Pentium 8505, 16 gigs ram (hard to find quality 4 gig sticks these days and I want both memory slots populated so 16 gigs it is). There is a large forum thread at the Serve The Home forums that goes over these mini 'soft routers' in their 'Networking' forum.
Hope this helps...Thank you very much for the detailed feedback. I was very pleased. Sorry that I can only get back to you now. A few answers in advance.
- When booting I see the following bios
Aptio AMI BK-1264NP - Power Savings - Intel Speed Shift is currently set to 60, which I had already activated.
- I am using the 2.5 port and bridge mode for ports 0-3.
- I have now deactivated Power Savings - PowerD.
- I currently have 1 VLAN Guest for testing
- The manufacturer told me that I could still achieve something with a BIOS flash, but unfortunately the BIOS does not send me anything.
- When booting I see the following bios
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Yes exactly, that's how it is.
I'm using 2.5G and nothing is plugged into the USB ports. As far as I can remember, I even disabled them in the BIOS.
