If u think a dedicated pfs box is expensive compare the alternative, what does it cost you to buy one of those rules based, state full Internet Appliances. Ya, an old PC/VM should hold u over, until u can afford to do it the proper way.

@acascianelli: Another reason to avoid the APU3's is that the they all use the i211 Intel NIC's and the APU2C4 uses the i210 which has some advantages over the i211.  Can't remember the exact difference, sorry. i210 supports wake on lan and baseboard management. I think one NIC on the APU2 may support WoL, baseboard management isn't implemented. So yes, if you need WoL, the APU2 may be a better choice (if it's working), otherwise they're the same.

I ended up using a Huawei E3372h in hilink mode - it only cost me 10$ so it was worth a shot. I only need the bandwidth so the double nat issue is of no concern to me at the moment. To mitigate this slightly I decided to flash a modded WebUI that allows me to enable DMZ for my pfsense router. I used the partial solution here: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=99705.0 This provides me with around 40Mbit without an external antenna - the reception seems to be a bit lower than my E398.

Googling….  ;) Appears to be Extended BIOS Data Area. So allowing that to be relocated presumably gives more flexibility but perhaps breaks anything hard-coded with the original localtion. Enhanced Disk Device seems to be for using the card with FCoE to provide a boot device to the main BIOS. https://service.chelsio.com/beta/drivers/Chelsio-Uboot-2.0.0.8/Chelsio-UnifiedBoot-UserGuide.pdf No real reason to change either of those I would think. Steve

Like I say removing the wifi link if it's not required would definitely be what I would do. I don't know what sort of load balancing OpenWRT offers though. Steve

@stephenw10: Indeed, it probably is due to the required power state for WoL not being correctly supported by the board. Are you running the latest BIOS? You might  try shutting down from the CLI with shutdown -h vs shutdown -p. Does the console report it's rebooting? There may be some BIOS additional ACPI power state setting in the BIOS required. Steve Yeah at the latest BIOS, unfortunately that dates back to 2013… Perhaps, I'm doing it wrong but I've been testing halting the system from the command line with /etc/rc.halt, I'll try what you suggest. Also, not sure about other BIOS settings, the manufacturer says all that's needed is the following: http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Support/Support_FAQ_Detail.aspx?MenuID=49&LanID=0&FAQID=2006031952

@glint.bladesong: @Grimson: The SilverStone SST-ML09B is relatively small, but you need a low profile NIC for it. Thanks. I had looked at that one a couple of times, the desktop profile is certainly a better fit in my workspace then the m110 cube/square profile, but it is still the size of a fat DVD player.  Its just hard to justify going that route when the alternative is a device that I can sit on my book case like the netgates or qotoms (which is a pity as I like building). Its probably the smallest case available though if I do talk myself into building :) http://www.mini-box.com/M300-Enclosure-w-Bootable-CF-Reader_2 http://www.travla.com/business/index.php?id_product=87&controller=product There are others, but you tend to be limited less by the expansion card than by the fact that anything that small doesn't use a standard power supply. If you go up a little in width there are more options using sff ps's. For keywords use "mitx case pcie riser" to get one that has the slot horizontal instead of vertical.

I've been using the Pace 5268AC in a different configuration using CARP IP Aliases for years with U-verse, but then I upgraded to AT&T Fiber I discovered that the Add Cascade Router option is now working.  It appears to be a true IP Pass-through, so I created the following post to help others out: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=147288.0

This feels like a smack traffic shaper issue, maybe obliterate that and only that see what happens?

budget generally refers to the cheapest products that a company makes. So e.g. if kingston make $30 ssds then their $100 ssds are not budget.  But I guess we dont see eye to eye on this. I have never ever before seen someone use the term in the way you have done such as look at these budget parts.  What you said I would phrase as look at these parts I am buying "within my budget". But yes the exact point I was making that $30-60 ssd's a few years back were capable of what you said they not capable off, which is 24/7 server type use.  Thats the point I made, in that newer parts in the same price bracket are of lower spec than the older ones. The $40 ssd in my pfsense unit has higher endurance than the $300 ssd in my PC.  Its only priced at $40 due to the size of the drive, in the year of its release the components were of equal quality to $400 drives made by the same manufacturer.

Nice!!! Lets us know how it works out.. Any questions here to help ;)  I have a 3100 at office, but it is production so while I can play with it a bit and provide screenshots on how to do something.. Any sort of major config change to test bed something to help is difficult on that unit.. The switch ports can be a bit of learning curve.. But there are some great posts by Derelict on config of them.

Update: Solved my own problem! Enhanced C1E should remain disabled - once I turned that off, along with ACPI 3.0 T-states, full blast ahead you go! I am at about 920 mbit which I can live with. Cheers :)

will try that thanks.

Hello, I was lucky today and I came across this: ftp://ftp.embeddedarm.com/old/old-software-pages/Manuals/lcdprocHowto.pdf a script + this documentation + lcdexec, can do a lot of interesting things :) I hope this is useful to somebody.

If those are 1Gbps switches/ports you'll need to set the link speed to 1G in the interface settings. It should link up no problem then. Steve

"Cable Disconnected"  seems to signal a RJ45/cable/MDIX issue, but nah, it cannot be that simple.