I use of one these with mini pcie, there are also different version out, mine has 4 2.5G ports.
Works extremely well with openwrt:
Many devices like this are manufactured / sold by "CWWK" and "Topton" (with some overlap between these brands). A lot of those use Intel i225/i226 ethernet chips, have 4 or more ports and also SFP options. But they don't always have a lot internal expansion, unless you get their development boards or (NAS oriented) Mini ITX boards.
The CW-ADLN-4L with 4x i226 and 2x M.2 M-key are the most expandable from their recent models:
They are great devices for their specific purposes, but lack continuity between model updates and the form factors are all over the place. Support and BIOS updates are also a reported issue. In this regard PC Engines is sorely missed in this niche field.
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I can second that, had my fling with a 6 NIC Celeron based small Chinese router PC in a passively cooled case. Compared to the APU2s these have several various, small, annoying problems. The APU2 only has one: it’s old and slow for some workloads.
I had a different use case: I wanted to consolidate my small home lab. I’ve had a separate AP, so I did not need wifi, but it was still a PITA.
Compared to the APU2, the Chinese router:
- was much faster (not a surprise)
- had comparative power draw, though a bit higher
- had i226 based NICs with serious problems, they were extremely sensitive to the cable. I only have GE devices at home and the cables which happily worked with the APU2 threw various errors, the NICs were flapping, often reconnecting only at 100 Mbps speeds etc.
- AFAIR after a while these problems triggered kernel faults/register dumps, too
- at least one harsh blue LED, far from ideal if the router is tucked away on a bookshelf, but still in the eyesight of humans.
I ended up selling it and went back to using 2 APU2s instead: a router and a home server. Their performance is sufficient for my use cases and the reliability is unmatched.
I also stacked up 2 more as cold spares, as time goes by, they are expected to completely disappear from the second hand market.
Just my 2cents.
Update, one more thing: the 4GB APU2 models have ECC RAM. AFAIK none of the Intel based routers do. Except for those with server class Atoms (C3xxx), but those are more expensive. Ryzen based ones can have this in theory, but quite often it’s not supported by the firmware. It’s obviously not a necessity for a home lab, but still a very nice to have feature.
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RK3588’s are an option; I have several Nanopc-t6’s - whilst the onboard NIC’s are nothing to write home about they run circles around the n150/n300 options (which if you are going to go down that route I suggest looking at the boards that are marketed as NAS there is one that has a 10G AQC nic and 4 mPCIe slots). But yeah RK3588’s and if you want a NIC that is good using a m2 to x16 adapter and putting something like a x710 or similar in it - would be my recommend.
The Intel x7000 series Atom CPU's support in-band ECC with DDR5 memory, where a part of the existing RAM (e.g. 128MB for an 8GB module) is used for storing ECC data and extends the error correction from "on-chip" to also the transport layer between RAM and CPU. This will give you a large part of the advantages of ECC and was the deciding factor for me to use these boards for industrial purposes. They most closely matched what APU2 was offering, just more expensive.
The OP requested a board with expansion ports and more advanced ethernet chips (in line with what I needed). I also looked at ARM based solutions and many of those only had 1 or 2 ethernet interfaces with optionally an added (managed) switch.
The RK3568 and RK3588 are also used on some industrial VPN routers / edge systems and was also a path that I researched. If a board would be available that is generic enough (e.g. no specialized bootloaders or highly customized images) and enough PCIe lanes, then it would be a contender.
For these kind of boards I was looking at "Radxa", like the Rock 3B and the Orion O6(N).
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It’s a little more tragic than that. The founder of PC Engines said that he doesn’t see any worthy replacement, so he is winding down PC Engines…
Not to be all negative, I don’t have a board recommendation for you, but I can suggest a complete device: AppNeta m70. It’s a rebranded Aaeon unit. I have posted my impression of it here:
Briefly: an octa-core Intel Atom C3758 processor running at 2.20 GHz, 16 GB of RAM, a 32 GB SSD, six Intel network controllers (two i211 and four x553), and a pair of Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 wireless adapters.
Aaeon is selling successor models retail starting south of USD 500:
https://eshop.aaeon.com/network-appliance.html
Specifically, the device page for FWS-2292:
https://eshop.aaeon.com/desktop-network-appliances-twin-lake-n150-fws-2292.html
has this to say:
Mini-PCIe Slot
M.2 3052 B-Key (5G, Colay Mini Card with Push pin SIM for 4G LTE/Wi-Fi)
M.2 2230 E-Key (Colay Mini Card slot for Wi-Fi)
Hope this helps…
That's the aspect I really don't follow, as there are plenty of modern devices (gemini-lake and up, ryzen embedded, alderlake-n) that should fit in. The necessary features are there, performance and power usage are also there, at least ryzen embedded (even the old r1505g) has 'enough' PCIe lanes as well.
Neither do I, but the man said what he said, and made a rather drastic business decision based on it. Maybe that was the situation as he saw it a few years back. Maybe he just wanted to bow out and needed an excuse. I honestly have no idea…
The owner of PC Engines didn't simply say there isn't a 'worthy replacement', he said:
Despite having used considerable quantities of AMD processors and Intel NICs, we don't get adequate design support for new projects. In addition, the x86 silicon currently offered is not very appealing for our niche of passively cooled boards.
A big problem around that time was that intel decided to suddenly EOL the i210/i211 chips and they couldn't just drop in an alternative. The APU7 that uses the i225 was made, but only a few were released and with the CPU deliveries also ending it didn't make sense to continue.
AMD Ryzen R1000 and 2000 series existed, but were only available for purchase in very large quantities and there were no other board manufacturers using and actually delivering them either. All other suitable CPU's had much higher TDP's (15W+ if I remember correctly) and nothing came close to the 5-6W of the APU2 boards, which was the niche that Pascal from PCEngines was targeting.
Only later the Elkhart lake and Alder lake CPU's came out with 6-12W TDP.
I designed my own mainboard that can use SMARC modules with CPU + RAM (all the high speed stuff) integrated, so I could have all the features I needed from what APU2 was offering, but the cost of those modules ended up being too high.
When Aaeon and DFI came out with 3.5" SBC that were 90% of what I wanted, the mainboard project was shelved and we bought those boards instead and I just made the enclosure.
But now Intel is also cutting back on production of these embedded chips and redirecting capacity for AI and server related parts. I have deliveries scheduled for the rest of the year, but can't place any new orders for 2026. I hope it will get better next year.
In the long term I hope that a good generic ARM64 solution comes out in this 3.5" form factor or on a SMARC module that will fit my mainboard design (which I could even sell publicly if there is enough interest).
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That sounds actually quite nice. It has two mini PCIe slots for Wi-Fi, right?
In the text it says “a pair of Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 wireless adapters” but in the picture I only see one card. Is there maybe another one on the underside?
@NC1 would know, I guess.
The M70 is pretty expensive though, close to $150 for a used device, in US.
| Device | CPU | Ethernet | WLAN slots | PTP/TC offload |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AppNeta m70 (Aaeon FWS-2363E6) | Atom C3758 8c @ 2.2GHz | 2× i211 + 4× x553 | 2× built-in QCA6174 | ✓ |
| Citrix SD-WAN 210 | Atom C3338 2c @ 1.5GHz | 4× i211 + 2× x553 | 1× M.2 (WiFi/LTE) | ✓ |
| Supermicro A2SDi-8C-HLN4F (+ variants) | Atom C3000 up to 16c | 4× Intel GbE (ixgbe); some with 10G SFP+ | 1× PCIe x4 (carrier board → 2× mini-PCIe) | ✓ |
| DFI ADN-553 / ASL-553 (3.5" SBC) | Intel x7000 Atom | 3× i225 | 1× E-key 2230 + 1× B-key | ✓ |
| Piesia AD743AW / AD30NA4L (3.5" SBC) | Intel Atom | 3–4× Intel | 2–3× M.2 | ✓ |
| Fujitsu Primergy TX1320 | Xeon | 2× i210 + PCIe slots | Via PCIe add-in | ✓ |
| HP T740 (thin client) | Ryzen Embedded V1756B | 1× onboard + low-profile PCIe | 1× M.2 E-key | With Intel add-in NIC |
| Fujitsu Futro S740 / S7010 (thin client) | Intel J4xxx (Gemini Lake) | 1× onboard (often Realtek) | 1× M.2 E-key | Limited (Realtek) |
| Alderlake-N mini-PCs (CWWK, Topton etc.) | N100 / N150 / N305 | 2–4× i225/i226 (2.5G) | 1× M.2 E-key 2230 | ✓ (i225/i226) |
| NanoPC-T6 (RK3588) | Rockchip RK3588 8c | Weak onboard + PCIe add-in | M.2 → x16 adapter | Via add-in |
| Cyberoam CW25WiNg | AMD GX-412TC | 4× (non-Intel) | 1× low-profile | ✗ |
Another thin client option: Fujitsu S940 / Wyse 5070 Extended. Both have a Intel J5005 and PCIe + M.2 expansion for a modern Intel NIC. The T740's Ryzen has higher performance, but the J5005 can be passively cooled.
Yes. There are two cards. One (visible after removing the cover) connects to antenna holders on the removable cover, the other (on the opposite side of the system board), to antenna holders on the case.