Adding 4 more 2.5GbE interfaces to the GMKtec NucBox G9

TL;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 reliable1. 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…