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    Watchguard Firebox M400/M500

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      Mmm, been a a while but IIRC the defaults will only boot legacy from the CF and if the USB drive boots EFI it will also install as that unless you specifically set it not to. So probably a legacy/EFI issues.
      But with access to the BIOS you can just change that to boot however you want. 👍

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      • S
        Swaglisher
        last edited by

        hello i have recently purchessed a m400 of off ebay, would anyone be able to help me update the bios, ive not really done anything like this before

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          First consider that flashing the BIOS is potentially risky. Do you actually need to flash it?

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            Swaglisher @stephenw10
            last edited by

            @stephenw10 it still has the bios that came with it and i want to be able to stop it from useing 40w constanly

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              This is what I did: https://forum.netgate.com/post/836153

              Others have done it using an external SPI programmer.

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              • M
                MathewPope
                last edited by

                So ive managed to get pfsense up, ive replaced the ram with 2 sticks of Kingston PC3-12800E, and changed the fans, Im looking to change the proc, could someone confirm working procs

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                  DirkS @MathewPope
                  last edited by

                  @MathewPope
                  i3-4130T + 8GB Ram without any problems. Has enough power for 1Gbit fiber in combination with pfblockerng, two subnets, tailscale, ntopng.
                  CPU load is 11% average.

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Does it reboot correctly with that CPU?

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                      DirkS @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10
                      Yes, it does.

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                      • D
                        dlucas46
                        last edited by

                        Hi all,

                        I thought I would finally look into upgrading the BIOS on my unit, I have FREEDOS on a CF card which is booted and the output is showing in Putty. The problem is I cannot type anything. I seem to recall I had this problem in the past either with an XTM5 or the old X750e.

                        The last time I just hard coded the BIOS commands and hoped for the best. Any suggestions? I did wonder if it was Putty.

                        Any other free Windows Terminal emulators worth trying?

                        Thanks

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                          eisenb11 @dlucas46
                          last edited by

                          @dlucas46 I’ve always preferred Tera Term over putty for anything involving a serial port.

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                            iJay-XTM5 @MathewPope
                            last edited by

                            @MathewPope M400 running here with an i5-4590T and 4GB of RAM. Like some other processors swaps, this one does not reboot correctly.

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                              dlucas46 @eisenb11
                              last edited by

                              @eisenb11

                              No joy with Tera Term. Same behaviour.

                              I am using the autoexec bat with the Bios file. Speed 9600 baud 8, 1 Parity None Flow Control Xon/Xoff

                              Anybody else seen this behaviour? I might try a different COM port and see if that makes any difference.

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                                eisenb11 @dlucas46
                                last edited by

                                @dlucas46 Did you edit the autoexec to change the keyboard language to English per the instructions? I believe that, as downloaded, it's set up for German or something.

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                                • stephenw10S
                                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                  last edited by

                                  It could be the terminal not reflecting what you type. Or the cable might not have Tx connected. Are you able to type things into the BIOS setup as expected?

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                                    dlucas46 @eisenb11
                                    last edited by

                                    @eisenb11

                                    Hi yes changed keyboard to UK.

                                    That was the only change.

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                                      dlucas46 @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10

                                      Hi,

                                      It's a Cisco console cable on a prolific USB adapter.

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                                        dlucas46 @stephenw10
                                        last edited by

                                        @stephenw10 said in Watchguard Firebox M400/M500:

                                        It could be the terminal not reflecting what you type. Or the cable might not have Tx connected. Are you able to type things into the BIOS setup as expected?

                                        Not flashed the BIOS yet, so no console output.

                                        The cable works fine if I boot the pfsense install image and the install works fine.

                                        This must be freedos specific

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                                          eisenb11 @dlucas46
                                          last edited by eisenb11

                                          @dlucas46 I ran into similar problems last time when I flashed my 2nd M400. The 1st one I flashed went without a hitch following the instructions. If I remember right, I ended up having to set the BAUD rate to 115200 despite the instructions saying to use a lower rate. If I did any other rate, the text on the screen looked like Chinese characters or jibberish. It was kind of scary because the "GUI" wasn't rendering properly at the higher rate - I thought I was going to end up bricking my 2nd unit.

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                                          • stephenw10S
                                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                            last edited by

                                            The terminal code in FreeDOS (and usually in the BIOS setup) is crude. It requires the additional flow control lines where as the code in pfSense does not. So it could be the cable only has three pins connected.

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