pfSense 2.6.0 on PC Engines Alix APU 4D4 - fiber WAN slow Download (Upload at expected speed)
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I am a very happy user of pfSense for past 7 years (run 20+ Alix PC Engines of all possible models) and I just can not be more happy.
Last week I finally got a fiber connection at home 250/250 and I spent hours on troubleshooting the DOWNLOAD speed which never gets over 31 Mbps, while Upload runs on expected full 250+ Mbit.Let me describe what I tested.
- Mikrotik router board set as PPPoE on WAN delivers nice 250/250 Mbit (FIBER <--> Mikrotik <--> PC)
- Alix 4D4 same PPPoE settings delivers 30/250 Mbit (FIBER <--> Alix <--> PC)
- Mikrotik set as PPPoE and with NAT connected to Alix - directly on Mikrotik 250/250, on LAN port of Alix 30/250 (FIBER <--> Mikrotik <--> Alix <--> PC)
So it seems the PPPoE setup as such is not a problem here - when terminated on Mikrotik, it delivers on LAN port of Mikrotik still nice 250/250 but as soon as this LAN is connected to WAN on pfSense Alix board, then the speed of download drops.
I have tested 2 different PC Engines - older APU2 and newer APU4, fresh install, factory reset.
Regardless whether the fiber is connected directly to PC Engines alix WAN as PPPoE or NATed from Mikrotik, I am unable to get higher download speed than 31 Mbit.To me it seems that it is either the Alix PX Engines NIC or that there is something on a SW side in pfSense. Although I consider myself rather power pfSense user I am lost here as I have no idea what to do more.
Just out of curiosity - what could be the reason why on the NIC download and upload speed differs?
Thanks in advance for some shared experience and potential fix ideas.
Cheers -
I assume you mean the APU here specifically because the ALIX was a 32bit device that could not run pfSense 2.6.
With a restriction like that I would be looking for a link issue like bad duplex or speed mismatch. Something set to 100Mb fixed for example.
Do you see errors on any of the interfaces in Status > Interfaces?
Steve
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@keson said in pfSense 2.6.0 on PC Engines Alix APU 4D4 - fiber WAN slow Download (Upload at expected speed):
Alix 4D4 same PPPoE settings delivers 30/250 Mbit (FIBER <--> Alix <--> PC)
Without setting "tuneables" for the NIC you should be able to
realize something around 450/450 MBit/s out of the box!I would install the latest BIOS 4.19.0.1 on both APU boards
and have a look once more again with that new once. -
@stephenw10 Thanks Stephen, yes, APU by PC Engines - both APU2 (2D4) and APU4 (4D4). The ports are all set to default / auto negotiate and the status shows on all used ports 1000baseT <full-duplex>:
WAN_O2_MIKROTIK Interface (opt4, igb3)
Media: 1000baseT <full-duplex>
In/out packets: 4540103/3800319 (3.83 GiB/2.27 GiB)
In/out packets (pass): 4540103/3800319 (3.83 GiB/2.27 GiB)
In/out packets (block): 816/11 (121 KiB/812 B)
In/out errors: 0/0
Collisions: 0What I do not understand is how can the same NIC do upload 250 and limit just download to 30 - this seems to me like some limitation enforced.
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@Dobby_ Thanks Dobby - yes, this was also my understanding after reading several posts that on pfSense 2.5.0 and 2.6.0 no tunable are needed to provide 400+ Mbit speed on each port.
I am now on Vendor: coreboot / Version: v4.16.0.3, so I am going to flash the new bios now and let you know. BRB. -
@keson So, I have downloaded 4.19.0.1 and flashed, rebooted. Same result:
openspeedtest.com/results/60007774
just in case - this is the speed when I plug the pc directly to the Mikrotik which is next to the fiber endpoint:
openspeedtest.com/results/60002184 (test done yesterday)I am giving up now. Later I will take another APU board and set it fresh with devel 2.7 version of pfSense and also I plan to take an intel NUC and set it with USB NIC as LAN and use the built in 2.5Gbit as WAN and test pfSense 2.6 on that too, but now I gotta work. Will post here my results over the weekend if I find something.
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How are you testing?
If you only test from the PC behind the APU the issue could be on the LAN NIC.
You might try running a test from pfSense directly so it only tests the WAN. The result won't be as high as a through test but it will show up any limit at 30Mbps.
Steve
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@stephenw10 Hi Steve, you are right, it is good to do several tests. That is also what I did. I would not dare to use the time of people here without really doing all I could think of :). I have downloaded the speediest-cli on pfsense and used that and the result is as you might have guessed are completely opposite...
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Testing from O2 Czech Republic (88.103.226.45)...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Selecting best server based on ping...
Hosted by suec//dacor GmbH (Frankfurt) [407.96 km]: 30.537 ms
Testing download speed................................................................................
Download: 143.63 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed......................................................................................................
Upload: 7.50 Mbit/sThe thing is that the Fiber optics was provided to several neighbors at the same day so I was doing the setup for 3+ households and used the same equipment everywhere - they all have Mikrotiks as that is what I recommended them as I know they are affordable and will work well. And all of them get nice 250/250. And when I take the same Mikrotiks device to my home and test it - I get the same nice results - si dare to say all the lines are equal and the testing HW is also performing the same in all 4 households.
But for the reason that I have several rules set on my home pfSense and OVPN and HA proxy for cert offloading, I do not want to give up pfSense - also mainly because I simply love it. So of course, if I would use the RB2011UiAS-IN which I have now at the end of the Fiber, I would also get the 250/250 (which I really do), but I want to troubleshoot it and find the cause.I have also tested several computers - HP with linux, Mac - they all give me the same result 30/250 - mornings, evenings, weekends... Pretty stable results. And I tested three different online test web apps and also downloaded an ISO files - woudl never get over 3,5 MB/s - which is roughly the 31 Mbit I can see on tests.
I will try now again a fresh pfsense on APU 2C2 with latest bios and external USB Gbit NIC :)
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Hmm, so no download restriction in that test. That's using a PPPoE WAN? or behind the Mikrotik?
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@stephenw10 This one was done with Mikrotik in between. I will replug the cable to PPPoE directly later and connect to the other interface where I have still the PPPoE setup - I keep them both so that I can swap the setup easier. Will inform you.
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@keson said in pfSense 2.6.0 on PC Engines Alix APU 4D4 - fiber WAN slow Download (Upload at expected speed):
- I keep them both so that I can swap the setup easier. Will inform you.
Only the wan connected device should be doing PPPoE
and the other one is not needing it! PPPoE will only
single CPU core threaded.one core = one queue
4 cores = 4 queues -
@Dobby_ of course. One wan uses pppoe and second uses dhcp from the mikrotik. Just to save time reconfiguring wan interface between pppoe and dhcp standar network. As the APU has 4 lan ports i can waste two ports for experiments. All clear
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Dear everyone reading this post. I have to admit I have been wrong and both pfSense and PC Engines are the best of its kind.
To make my explanation short, it was my mistake, I am now running on nice 250/250 without any intermediate device (Mikrotik) - directly from GPON to pfSense gb0 where I have VLAN set and used for PPPoE as expected, all basic settings.
The cause of my limited speed dates back several years when I set TRAFFIC SHAPER to limit kids as at that time whole household was connected on 5/1 line so it was to prevent some extensive misuse. And I completely forgot this section, havent seen it for years, till today when I took an old APU2, set it out of the box and ...it worked like a charm. So I installed all packages to exclude any package to introduce such limitation and as I didn't find any issues I went screen by screen comparing my recent configuration with out of the box until I got to FIREWALL / TRAFFIC SHAPER where I had some wizard made rules. Deleted and all of a sudden everything works.
I am deeply sorry for anyone spending time on my post, thanks ou all - you are all the best community.
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No worries. We've all done that.
Glad you got it sorted.
