Watchguard Firebox M400/M500

stephenw10

No it will boot from CF without any BIOS changes. It will run fine but upgrades are painful because CF is slow as hell!

JackMeyer

@stephenw10 haha that makes sense. Thanks for info, Im excited to get this thing going.

chpalmer

I just installed a Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz in my M400.. It had been running the original Celeron G1820 until this last week.

Boots a bit faster.. has AES-NI now.. 4 cores now.. shows running cooler since the fans seem to be actively adjusting their speeds now. fans were always slow before.. even in the summer.

The fans are a bit more noisy and constantly adjusting now which they never did when the Celeron was in place. Celeron showed constant 40c to 45c depending on weather here.. The i5 is a constant 39c.

I have an updated BIOS on the board but cannot find the speed controls.. anyone remember where they are supposed to be?

I want to adjust them more to be constant than the up and down they are doing now.

stephenw10

The fan speed controls? They should be there under thermal control. Not much to play with though IIRC.

Does it reboot correctly with that CPU?

Steve

MH 0

@chpalmer I'd replace the existing fans, they are incredibly noisy at most speeds, if you find my posts above I posted a link to the Nocturnas that fit.

chpalmer

@stephenw10 Seems to boot fine. Freakin fast compared..

ioapic0 <Version 2.0> irqs 0-23 on motherboard
random: unblocking device.
FreeBSD/SMP: 1 package(s) x 4 core(s)
FreeBSD/SMP: Multiprocessor System Detected: 4 CPUs
ACPI APIC Table: <ALASKA A M I>
Event timer "LAPIC" quality 600
avail memory = 6095597568 (5813 MB)
real memory = 6442450944 (6144 MB)
TSC: P-state invariant, performance statistics
VT-x: PAT,HLT,MTF,PAUSE,EPT,UG,VPID
XSAVE Features=0x1<XSAVEOPT>
Structured Extended Features3=0xc000000<IBPB,STIBP>
Structured Extended Features=0x27ab<FSGSBASE,TSCADJ,BMI1,AVX2,SMEP,BMI2,ERMS,INVPCID,NFPUSG>
AMD Features2=0x21<LAHF,ABM>
AMD Features=0x2c100800<SYSCALL,NX,Page1GB,RDTSCP,LM>
Features2=0x7ffafbff<SSE3,PCLMULQDQ,DTES64,MON,DS_CPL,VMX,SMX,EST,TM2,SSSE3,SDBG,FMA,CX16,xTPR,PDCM,PCID,SSE4.1,SSE4.2,x2APIC,MOVBE,POPCNT,TSCDLT,AESNI,XSAVE,OSXSAVE,AVX,F16C,RDRAND>
Features=0xbfebfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,DTS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,PBE>
Origin="GenuineIntel" Id=0x306c3 Family=0x6 Model=0x3c Stepping=3
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz (2000.04-MHz K8-class CPU)

chpalmer

@mh-0

Thanks.. I actually ordered three of those fans today so will try them.

I also replaced the version of WGXepc64 that I was running as it seems I was on a pre-m400 version.. So I can adjust my fans with that instead of mussing with BIOS.

stephenw10

@chpalmer said in Watchguard Firebox M400/M500:

@stephenw10 Seems to boot fine. Freakin fast compared..

But does it reboot though? There are a large number of 4th gen CPUs that just hang at reboot even with a different BIOS etc. The i3-4160 I have does not reboot for example and that makes it painful for anything!

Steve

chpalmer

@stephenw10

But does it reboot though?

I did a reboot this morning via the GUI "reroot" reboot. Came up fine. Is there another method you want me to try? This one is my primary firewall and I have to do things after hours unless I want to join "wine hour" here.. and Im fresh out of cheese.

(for those already typing.. yes I know how to spell whine. ;) )

chpalmer

After some more testing with the new CPU.. Normal reboot does hang. Reroot reboot does not. I generally do not shut this one down ever so a non issue for me.

This box is 2.6..

stephenw10

Urgh. Disappointing. I wish I knew what caused that.

JackMeyer

Anyone run into issues with putty spitting out giberish on startup?
Downloaded Memstick installer, used balena etcher (from my understanding Balena will automatically un zip the .gz file) to flash to the same exact model CF card (Except mine is 8gb and not 4gb). Popped the CF card in, powered on the M400, used COM3 port and its just spitting out random letters and characters.

stephenw10

Typically that happens if the baud rate is mismatched. It's 115200bps by default.

JackMeyer

@stephenw10 Yup that did it! ive been so used to cisco It never occurs to me that would ever need to change. When I get to the part where it has me select the target disk it doesn't let me select the CF card. I hit enter with the CF card highlighted and it returns the message "Not Enough Disks selected. 0 < 1 minimum" any Ideas on this?

stephenw10

You can't install onto the drive you booted from. You can install to a SATA SSD after booting from CF. Or you can boot from USB and and install to CF.

eisenb11

I never realized that my M400 (i3-4370T) has been sucking away 40W 24/7. Thinking about doing the BIOS upgrade to enable SpeedStep as my system is barely stressed (1% CPU at this moment). Just curious - for anyone who has already enabled SpeedStep, what kind of power savings have you seen?

stephenw10

Does it reboot correctly with that CPU out of interest?

The power draw can be affected by a number of things. Addtional drives. NIC that are linked. Fan speed. 40W does seem high though, how are you measuring it?

eisenb11

@stephenw10 No, the i3-4370T has the reboot hang issue. Not a big deal as instead I just do a HALT, then power off and on with the button afterwards.

I'm measuring with an Emporia outlet device. At 1% load, I'm mostly idling. If SpeedStep is significant (e.g. drops it to less than 10W) it would be a worthwhile update, but I have no idea what to expect by enabling it.

stephenw10

Enabling high C states usually has a greater affect, especially if your CPU is mostly idle.
Check the available C state and the 'lowest' value. The default Celeron and BIOS don't offer much:

[2.7.0-DEVELOPMENT][admin@pfsense.fire.box]/root: sysctl dev.cpu.0
dev.cpu.0.temperature: 39.0C
dev.cpu.0.coretemp.throttle_log: 0
dev.cpu.0.coretemp.tjmax: 100.0C
dev.cpu.0.coretemp.resolution: 1
dev.cpu.0.coretemp.delta: 60
dev.cpu.0.cx_method: C1/hlt
dev.cpu.0.cx_usage_counters: 66905813
dev.cpu.0.cx_usage: 100.00% last 620us
dev.cpu.0.cx_lowest: C1
dev.cpu.0.cx_supported: C1/1/0
dev.cpu.0.%parent: acpi0
dev.cpu.0.%pnpinfo: _HID=none _UID=0 _CID=none
dev.cpu.0.%location: handle=\_PR_.CPU0
dev.cpu.0.%driver: cpu
dev.cpu.0.%desc: ACPI CPU

eisenb11

@stephenw10 Sounds like it may be worth a try. I may try to pick up another M400 so I'll have a backup and maybe try to "downgrade" it to a i3-4130T as well. Lower clock should use less power and I hear it doesn't have the reboot issue so a win-win. Might also upgrade that machine to pfsense 2.6 as I'm on 2.4.5 currently.