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    Watchguard Firebox M400/M500

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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      You can lower the fan speed existing fans to reduce the noise using WGXepc

      That seems quite hot though. I assume you replaced the heatsink compound when you fitted that?

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        acsaba @stephenw10
        last edited by

        @stephenw10 said in Watchguard Firebox M400/M500:

        That seems quite hot though. I assume you replaced the heatsink compound when you fitted that?

        Yes. I did.

        What is a normal temperature on your end ?
        Many thanks.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by stephenw10

          Depends on the ambient temp I guess but for a 'T' rated CPU I expect lower. My M500 with a 4670S runs slightly cooler than that at max:

          last pid: 57560;  load averages:  4.20,  3.66,  2.22                                                                     up 0+00:13:56  19:53:36
          187 threads:   9 running, 157 sleeping, 21 waiting
          CPU 0: 29.1% user,  0.0% nice, 70.9% system,  0.0% interrupt,  0.0% idle
          CPU 1: 29.9% user,  0.0% nice, 70.1% system,  0.0% interrupt,  0.0% idle
          CPU 2: 30.7% user,  0.0% nice, 69.3% system,  0.0% interrupt,  0.0% idle
          CPU 3: 32.7% user,  0.0% nice, 67.3% system,  0.0% interrupt,  0.0% idle
          Mem: 106M Active, 9212K Inact, 339M Wired, 118M Buf, 7411M Free
          Swap: 192M Total, 192M Free
          
            PID USERNAME    PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE    C   TIME    WCPU COMMAND
          44930 root        135    0    12M  2076K RUN      2  10:53  99.97% yes
          44987 root        135    0    12M  2072K CPU1     1  10:52  99.88% yes
          44788 root        135    0    12M  2072K CPU0     0  10:54  99.87% yes
          45189 root        135    0    12M  2068K CPU3     3  10:52  99.86% yes
              0 root        -60    -     0B   672K -        3   0:00   0.05% [kernel{if_config_tqg_0}]
          57560 root         20    0    14M  3992K CPU2     2   0:00   0.03% top -HaSP
              6 root        -16    -     0B    16K pftm     0   0:00   0.02% [pf purge]
          
          [24.03-RELEASE][root@m500.stevew.lan]/root: sysctl dev.cpu.0.temperature dev.cpu.1.temperature dev.cpu.2.temperature dev.cpu.3.temperature
          dev.cpu.0.temperature: 58.0C
          dev.cpu.1.temperature: 54.0C
          dev.cpu.2.temperature: 57.0C
          dev.cpu.3.temperature: 55.0C
          

          The fans are pretty loud at that point!

          [24.03-RELEASE][root@m500.stevew.lan]/root: ./WGXepc64 -f
          Found Firebox M400/500
          Current fanspeed is 78, minimum fanspeed is 1b
          

          Also it's the hotest day of the year today in the UK so the ambient is ~30C in my 'office'.

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            acsaba @stephenw10
            last edited by

            @stephenw10
            Many thanks for the info. I will replace the heatsink compound again. Currently I'm using a Ceramic polysynthetic thermal compound which should not be bad :)

            chpalmerC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              I wouldn't expect to need anything too special there. Just not trying to reuse the crusty stuff Lanner put on it 10 years ago!

              For reference at mostly idle I see:

              [24.03-RELEASE][root@m500.stevew.lan]/root: sysctl dev.cpu.0.temperature dev.cpu.1.temperature dev.cpu.2.temperature dev.cpu.3.temperature
              dev.cpu.0.temperature: 40.0C
              dev.cpu.1.temperature: 38.0C
              dev.cpu.2.temperature: 40.0C
              dev.cpu.3.temperature: 42.0C
              [24.03-RELEASE][root@m500.stevew.lan]/root: ./WGXepc64 -f
              Found Firebox M400/500
              Current fanspeed is 2e, minimum fanspeed is 1b
              
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              • chpalmerC
                chpalmer
                last edited by

                Don't know if anyone else has tried yet (and I have no reason to think it wouldn't work but..) I successfully upgraded to Pfsense+ on my M400 today running an i5 processor..

                More to support Netgate and Pfsense than anything.. but in case anyone else is holding back.. ;)

                Triggering snowflakes one by one..
                Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz on an M400 WG box.

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                  xxup
                  last edited by

                  More news on the Intel CPUs that don't reboot properly on M400/500.

                  Intel i3-4350T - is also no good.

                  After re-reading this thread, the conclusion is that only the i3-4130 seems to work correctly.

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    The i5-4670S reboots correctly. And provides a nice performance upgrade. 😉

                    Not quite as low power as one of the i3-T CPUs but not much difference at low loads.

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                    • chpalmerC
                      chpalmer @acsaba
                      last edited by

                      @acsaba not sure how I missed your original posts but my Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T generally sits at 50C.. I did replace the fans with a quieter model linked earlier in this thread.. and they're not running anywhere near full speed.

                      This is also the first I'm seeing about some Intel CPUs not rebooting correctly.. Guess I have to do some rereading because mine seems to have that issue.

                      Triggering snowflakes one by one..
                      Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz on an M400 WG box.

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                        acsaba @chpalmer
                        last edited by

                        @chpalmer In the meantime I solved the problem installing arch Linux and controlling the fan speed properly. For the moment I'm not using the WG because of the power consumption and noise, so I will convert back to the original WG firmware.
                        Anyhow, many thanks for sharing the info.
                        Keep in touch.

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                          xxup @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10 Thank you. I will keep looking on eBay - there are a few in the USA, but the shipping cost and exchange rate are a killer. As a home box, the i3 has plenty of power.

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                            xxup @chpalmer
                            last edited by xxup

                            @chpalmer Yep. It is a doozy of a thread, but there is tonnes (metric of course) of information in here. I never did get the VGA working, but I had a tonne of fun playing with the BIOS writer - never needed to use one before this project.

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                              xxup
                              last edited by

                              I wonder if the i5-4670K or i5-4670 will work? There are plenty of these available. I can see that the K is only slightly slower and uses more power, but the home box has never seen more than about 40% CPU usage that I have observed.

                              I have just bought a i5-4670K and a i5-4670 off eBay. I will report back with the reboot test results.

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                              • stephenw10S
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by

                                The K CPUs were usually the unlocked version preferred by overclockers. So capable of the maximum possible performance. And cost! Of course that also means many have had a hard life. 😉

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                                  Mookatroid @stephenw10
                                  last edited by

                                  @stephenw10
                                  Avoid the i7-6700
                                  Worked great until it died
                                  At which point I realized the heatsink could not dea

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    That definitely wouldn't work in the M400/M500. I assume you tried that in an Mx70?

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                                      Mookatroid @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10
                                      Sorry, yes.
                                      Mx70
                                      The i7-6700 runs too hot for the Mx70 heatsink and eventually just cooks itself.

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                                      • stephenw10S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        Urgh, best avoid that then! 😬

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                                          xxup
                                          last edited by xxup

                                          @xxup said in Watchguard Firebox M400/M500:

                                          i5-4670K

                                          I have installed the i5-4670K into the M500 and I can confirm that it reboots from both the console and the GUI. The i5-4670 should be here next week, but I am confident that it will boot okay as it is older than the K version.

                                          ***** Edit ***** The K runs about 3-4C hotter than the old i3-4130. I will keep this one in the test lab box and the i5-4670 in the home (production) box.

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                                            xxup
                                            last edited by

                                            The i5-4670 has just been installed into the home network's M400 and the reboot test was successful. Certainly runs cooler than the i5-4670K.

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