Watchguard Firebox M400/M500
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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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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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@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.
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@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. -
@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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@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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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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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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@stephenw10
Avoid the i7-6700
Worked great until it died
At which point I realized the heatsink could not dea -
That definitely wouldn't work in the M400/M500. I assume you tried that in an Mx70?
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@stephenw10
Sorry, yes.
Mx70
The i7-6700 runs too hot for the Mx70 heatsink and eventually just cooks itself. -
Urgh, best avoid that then!
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@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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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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thanks all for the great reading and !BIOS! file,now running on Peplink balance 710 (i3-4330+2g ram +4gb cf),now 8gb ram+sata ssd
it was usable with default bios,but i have 2,so i said myself why not...(i have bios backup and some spi tools too,so i was not scared)...also fans are a bit less noisier(still loud for router...)..and the options in bios..wow i like it..
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To add to the topic, I also acquired a (free) firebox m400 - came with 8Gb ram - stock cpu. Stock CF card and one extra empty one (both are generic transcend cards).
Serial cable also included, used a USB-serial adapter to view the terminal.Flashed Grub on the second card to chainload Arch installed on SSD.
Works great!The firebox didnt want to boot from SSD directly with stock bios,
but happily boots grub from a CF card which then enables booting from the SSD anyway.With the CF card handling boot, the sata port didnt matter for the SSD (using UUIDs in grub) so switching the SSD between sata ports didnt matter.
All nics detected and operational.
Now waiting for a i5-4590T,
will probably upgrade the fans, possibly PSU, add some acoustics insulation - to quiet it down for home use. -
@ajnsan said in Watchguard Firebox M400/M500:
Now waiting for a i5-4590T,
Be aware it may not reboot with that CPU.
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so for those noctua 'fans' out there,since the fan is moving such a low volume,you should probably seal everything you can on the path between fans and cpu cooler(careful around power stage to keep air flowing there a bit maybe),and that means mainly:space under board,space under cooler,space around those 2 aluminium rails(mainly below,big holes),i have 4590t(also does not reboot well,with v6 bios,thanks for the mod btw!)
i have similar/same machine(lanner was busy:) )
i think(early testing) it is making massive difference on silent mode,since it is not pulling air through the gaps
i also tried updating microcode in bios,but i did it wrong,or it did not work (you don't actually need bios update for microcode update),but still locked on reboot..no clue why it freezes
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okay,this is another BIG one! (at least for me) :) @zanthos @stephenw10
i managed to make i5-4590t supported and reboots okay
main problem was intel me firmware(that is part of bios),but that bastard is not easy to mod and to flash too (need to be carefull when replacing,there are registers and shi* that needs to stay the same,so skip configuration,intel fit,replace and rebuild)
you need 9.1 version for haswell refresh,that's iti have different machine,but same board,i used m400 v6 bios up here somewhere(thanks for that!)
long story short:
- the jumper just beside cmos clear is me disable(those jumpers are zig-zag,outer is cmos clear,inner is me disable),you need to flip it so bios can operate on this region(and after that flip it back)
- i also set me fw image reflash to enable in bios,to be sure (version is not displayed for you(yet :) )
- boot from flash(i'll attach right away,fat32,partition 100mb is enough if you are not sure) into efi shell (or use your tools)
--efi shell use tab same as linux to quickly finish commands and file names-use it :) - command: afuefix64.efi m400-91.rom /me
---this will flash me image,if it seems stalled,it might be reading file from flash(for minute or two,use flash with led if you are not sure) - power off,jumper back,close,power on,it will reset about 3 times and then the usual beeps
- go to bios,me fw version 9.1.40.1000
- profit
i wonder what cpus it might support....
as usual,no warranties,but compare for yourself,use uefitool and meanalyzer
i would prefer that some pro here check it and confirm independently before you all start flashing,even though i use bios found here,my machine has different colours :)file is here
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Ooo fun. So that's the full rom file but you are just flashing the me section from it?
