Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    Overheating - Zbox CI323 nano

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
    14 Posts 8 Posters 5.0k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • I
      IggyB
      last edited by

      @tirsojrp:

      @IggyB:

      Their response was "doesn't matter we use whatever is available at the time"

      WTF? :o

      yep lol that's what i got in email haha

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • D
        doktornotor Banned
        last edited by

        Sounds like good reason to avoid any of their products in future.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • KOMK
          KOM
          last edited by

          I looked at this unit but the Realtek NICs left me cold.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • D
            doktornotor Banned
            last edited by

            @KOM:

            the Realtek NICs left me cold.

            You probably have better thermal pads than Zotac  ;D :D

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • I
              IggyB
              last edited by

              @KOM:

              I looked at this unit but the Realtek NICs left me cold.

              Honestly the unit is not bad but not perfect either due to realtek nics

              I managed to resolve random "stall" issues by compiling realtek driver in freebsd 10.3 and migrating it over to pfsense

              Other then that my WAN is only 11mbit and can't push the box to it's max. Perfect for Aussie internet haha

              I do wish i went for atom x8 core with intel nics

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                @doktornotor:

                @KOM:

                the Realtek NICs left me cold.

                You probably have better thermal pads than Zotac  ;D :D

                Ouch!  ;D

                But yeah in general thermal pads are terrible compared to paste and the thicker they are the worse. Manufacturers use them because they are easy to fit and the tolerances are huge.

                Ideally you want both surfaces mirror smooth and the absolute minimum amount of thermal paste. It should serve only to fill the gaps where the heatsink is not touching.

                Steve

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • D
                  doktornotor Banned
                  last edited by

                  Yeah, I cannot stand the chewing gum either. One particularly bad "thermal" pad on a GPU made me virtually rip off the chip from the board when trying to remove the heatsink. Ugh. Was virtually like concrete.

                  :( >:( >:(

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • A
                    astronach
                    last edited by

                    Hi,

                    got my Zotac CI323 a couple of days ago. In general I am satisfied with that box, beacuse it´s cheap and as always this have some disadvantage but in general I think for this purpose its good.
                    I mean you are not going to make use of such kind of device if you need to have 20+ users make use of it (imho).

                    But to get back to the topic….. Why you are using a SSD at all? I installed pfsense on a 16GB Class 10 SD Card an let it boot from there. Temperature on my device is 28°C even when pulling 4k Video from YT (100Mbit down / 6Mbit up)

                    But just to mention I am using pfsense at home, so no business involved.

                    Maybe its worth a try, just back up your configuration, install pfsense on SD card, restore it lets see what happens.....

                    kind regards,
                    Astronach

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • D
                      doktornotor Banned
                      last edited by

                      @astronach:

                      Temperature on my device is 28°C even when pulling 4k Video from YT (100Mbit down / 6Mbit up)

                      The keyword here being "Australia". When it's ~40°C outside and stick the thing into a rack without fans, it sure like hell won't be 28°C.

                      @astronach:

                      Why you are using a SSD at all? I installed pfsense on a 16GB Class 10 SD Card

                      Not serious, are you? This shit dies in 6 months max. You'd need industrial grade SLC SD cards (~200+ USD) to get anywhere near the most shitty SSD out there.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        Yeah, if you're running from flash you should use Nano (<2.4) or, since there is no Nano in 2.4+, at the very least move /var and /tmp into RAM using the options in Advanced > MIsc.

                        Steve

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • M
                          messerchmidt
                          last edited by

                          put a laptop cooler below and plug it into the usb slot on the back.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • J
                            Jonesy_sa
                            last edited by

                            @IggyB:

                            I'd like to share some information to you guys if you're having heat issues with your ci323 nano

                            The heat in Australia is crazy currently…

                            Fellow Australian; where abouts did you purchase the ci323? I am deciding between a CI323 or Qotom 150s/p N3150; however I could not find the CI locally? Great info on the heat issues; it greats pretty warm in SA and ave had heat issues with cheap modem/routers.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • First post
                              Last post
                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.