Well you can pick up a Linksys WRT54G (or WRT54G2) router on the cheap and run dd-wrt. That'll be a $10 solution.

Or for about $20US you can pick up a Cisco AIR-PI21AG-A-K9 802.11G PCI Wireless Adapter on eBay - not sure if its compatable with your version but it worked for me on 123 and on 2.0.

Those little Cisco adapters are cheap and really good in my (limited) experience.

I was curious how RouterOS compared to PFsense mainly. What I'm after is something which doesn't use as much power as an Atom board, but with a little more power than an ALIX so it can do gigabit.

i'm running the lastest snapshot
2.0-RC3 (i386)
built on Sun Aug 28 15:02:45 EDT 2011

in this machine i have 5 nic and 1 wifi card
with havp squid squidgard and dhcp on 4 of the nics
so far everything good

if i can help with any other questions
be glad too!!

@mikeg:

@Jason:

@mikeg:

FWIW, I'm running an 82580-based E1G44ET in stock pfSense 2.0-RC3.  However, it's an older card, and maybe there are other reasons why the E1G44HT won't work.  Also, I'm curious why E1G44HT prices seem lower than E1G44ET prices.

The E1G44ET is based on a pair of 82576, not the 82580.

The E1G44HT is less expensive because it uses the 82580EB which is a native 4-port chip, making the design a lot simpler.  The previous quads were actually two dual-port chips.

Thank you.  I obviously didn't read the documentation very carefully  :-[

So, do we know when the 82580 cards will be supported?
[/quote]

As of 9.0 it's still not supported, at least not in the hardware notes.  The driver compile is actually pretty easy though.

http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,26592.msg140323.html#msg140323

Had to play card roulette with them in order to get pfSense to recognize them.  Got all three to show up.  Still no message, though.

However, for some reason, my i3 has maxed out a core.  It says {irq16: em1 ehci0} is the reason.  Any ideas why that would be happening?

Probably safe then.  :)

Steve

Based on research I've done, the EXPI9301CT uses the 82574L. So if the 82574L worked then the EXPI9301CT should be good to go.

What do I have to lose except for the $25 for the card. I'll probably go ahead and try it.

Sortof bumping this from a while ago.

wanted to revisit hyperthreadding - yes or no?

I'm looking at a variety of options and I have found a decent lot of 15 motherboards that will accept single Xeon 5000 series processors. The Xeon 5060 is about $25 shipped on ebay and dual core with HT @ 3.2ghz. Its cheap & easy but should I look to pick up a bunch of E8400 CPUs instead if HT is better disabled?

Thx for any feedback.

I'll make a few calls to resellers and around town. I know PCI-x isn't as fast as pcie but these are cheap and the motherboards I'm running most of my PF boxes on have two or three PCI-x slots.

The PCI-x is certanly faster than a Linksys WRT54G running dd-wrt :)

–-Issue solved----

It was a wrong FW updatet i did. The alix3 update is also working on alix2 but  it causing some problems.

But now i know that a wrong FW is not crashing your alix.

I have a couple of 8 port switches that will lock up solid when plugged to an APC or any UPS and the mains loose power. Everything else on the same UPS will work fine. Even if it's for only a few minutes or less.  The switches need to be cycled to get them going again.
I swapped them both and keep them for spares.

@Ianes:

Since this topic is already on the right course, I decided to post here instead of making a new thread. I was wondering what to buy to get the cheapest possible build, similar to yours. A D525 board costs about 66€ around here and has one onboard NIC. So basically the hardest part is the storage and PSU/chassis. Any suggestions where to get those cheap?(I don't mind ordering internationally) Also, can an external USB flashdrive be used instead of HDD?

I would suggest the Mini-Box case as well. That is what I'm currently using. I'm currenty booting off of a 2GB Sony MicroVault Tiny flash drive.

So I increased my bandwidth this week to 50/8. The entire bandwidth is hogged up by users who are really excited with the extra speed. I see my CPU take a beating since I lowered it's voltage down to a 1600Mhz. Thinking about switching it back to defaults and let Powerd handle the frequency.

Any suggestions?

If you are planning to increase that WAN connection from 100Mb and adding packages like snort or squid sometime in near future than I would recommend you have a second look at i3 CPUs. Atoms are powerful enough for decent throughput but handling routing for large number of users with increased bandwidth might just be a bit too much for it. Plus the max you can go on Atoms for now is 4GB RAM. It sounds a lot for now but as technology is changing rapidly 4GB might just be a low end config mid next year.. who knows.. just guessing.

Unless you want pure 2Gbps (1Gbps each way) throughput, there shouldn't be much of a noticeable difference between onboard or PCI-e. I have tested onboard NICs on multiple mobo's and sure have seen differences in throughput. A lot depends on the NIC manufacturer (Intel vs Realtek vs Broadcom vs others) and the type of driver you have for it.

If you're looking at specifically that case (502L-200B), the bracket lines up with the first slot on any motherboard.  Which means that it will work with the X7SPA using regular rigid risers.

One question about the Backup. Are there also the Certificates from the OpenVPN Server included.

A simple google search can give you all the answers.

GA-H67N-USB3-B3 - mini-ITX.

SATA 6Gb/s - 2 x SATA 6Gb/s
SATA RAID - 0/1/5/10

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128484

Just 79.99 after rebate.

I am using this mobo with an i5 CPU. I don't need raid.

You wanted an opinion for new hardware.. I provided mine. If you are leaning with Dell then go for it. I am a person who doesn't like to pay someone if I can do it on my own for less.

Good luck !!