GoKawiilTL;DR: I added 4x Intel I226-V 2.5GbE network cards to my NucBox G9. You can do it too. Download the files and print them yourself.↗
Backstory
A few months ago, I blogged about using an Intel n150 based mini PC as my home router running OpenWrt. Since then, I’m happy to report that it has been perfectly reliable.
However, the NucBox G9 runs notoriously hot↗ with NVMe drives installed. Even without any hot NVMe drives installed, I’d describe the overall thermal situation as “not great, not terrible”. I haven’t had any specific issues since OpenWrt is about as light of a load as I could possibly run on it. My unit stays at about 50°C, which is wonderful. What worried me is the 64GB of onboard eMMC storage.
As far as I understand, eMMC is almost exactly a glorified SD card soldered to the board. And if my experience with SD cards, specifically my experience booting computers off of them, is any indication, it would not be very reliable. Adding to my fear was one user’s experience of the eMMC failing after 6 months. Of course I could always boot it off an NVMe or SATA m.2 SSD, or even a USB stick. But the router is the main artery of my entire network and trying to scramble downloading and flashing an OS while my network is down sounds like a horror story I’d like to avoid.
The NucBox is also a victim of its own success for me too. I really love it and it is perfect for my home router. The issue is that these mini PC manufacturers have an approximately 2-week product lifecycle and the G9 is over a year old at this point. In other words - it’s ancient history. There were a handful available on eBay back in May when I first purchased it, but since then the supply has completely dried up. There are replacement models available but thanks to the RAMpocalypse, the prices are outrageous and none of them are an exact drop in replacement for the N150 G9 and it’s Intel NICs.
Great price! ┅
I decided to try and get ahead of any potential hardware failures and procure a spare G9. I set up an eBay alert and mostly forgot about it. One morning I woke up to an email saying a G9 had been listed for $150 buy it now with free shipping. Even less than the $180 I paid for my original unit! A miracle! Sure, it had been “used”, the seller’s description said they’d been running it as an NVMe NAS but it just wasn’t sustainable, especially now that NVMe drives have also succumbed to the AI apocalypse. For my purposes, it was perfect.
Adding the NICs
Once I had the replacement unit in hand, the first thing I did was guillotine the horrific standards violating USB-C power adapter.
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