PCEngines alix2c3 (Substitute for WRAP) boot failes

sullrich · Jan 3, 2008, 7:37 PM

The board has shipped. Hopefully should have it soon.

gmckinney · Jan 3, 2008, 11:03 PM

The board has shipped. Hopefully should have it soon.

If Pascal shipped from his location then it will take about a week - at least that is how long it takes hardware from him to reach me here in Florida (USA).

gm…

blueice · Jan 6, 2008, 9:35 AM

I hope the rc4 released after all this problems fixed :)

lepole · Jan 7, 2008, 10:28 PM

@pcengines:

Some notes:

If you plan on re-using the CF card later, I suggest making a back-up of the blank CF card with dd. Repartitioning
CF cards can be tricky.

Current BIOS = 0.99. Going back to v0.92 could cause stability issues.

Xmodem reprogramming is not implemented yet. Sorry…

Do NOT rename the alix*.bin files, sb.com will automatically pick the right file depending on which board you have

Page fault issue: unless somebody pushes my snout towards the right problem, I assume this is a FreeBSD problem.

Reboot issue: ALIX does not have a keyboard controller, and does not attempt to emulate one. To reboot, please
use port 92h or the CS5536 specific reset registers.

Bonus points for changing the default baud rate to 38400. Come on guys, life is too short to work at 9600 baud...
(dd-wrt / openwrt uses 115200 !)

Questions / comments to PC Engines -> please email, I cannot monitor this forum.

sofar I´ve been running pfsense "1.2-RC3 built on Fri Dec 14 14:42:07 EST 2007" on an alix with bios 0.99 without any problems. Its been up 24 days, 02:21 right now and never let me down. I have yet to try a new pfsense snapshot an duse vlans…
Reboots never failed or hung! The hardest part was getting the bios up to date but with the image of free dos posted by someone before in this thread it was no problem at all! I just copied the newest firmware into the img and flashed away! Once that was done it just worked (after setting the baud rate - wasn´t there a menu item once for setting the pfsense baud rate?)

So what I really want to say is THANX for the great product (both pfsense and pcengines!)

blueice · Jan 14, 2008, 8:05 AM

@sullrich:

The board has shipped. Hopefully should have it soon.

hi,
finally you have receive the board?
Thanks,
Christos

sullrich · Jan 14, 2008, 8:50 PM

@blueice:

@sullrich:

The board has shipped. Hopefully should have it soon.

hi,
finally you have receive the board?
Thanks,
Christos

Nope.

gmckinney · Jan 15, 2008, 3:29 AM

Sullrich,

You should see the board about any time - mine just arrived Saturday (but had to wait until today to get it)…

gm...

fcspaul · Jan 18, 2008, 3:08 PM

Since this is the board I am looking at I was wondering if you have received the board and had a chance to look at it.

sullrich · Jan 18, 2008, 7:15 PM

The board arrived but I do not have a power supply. Will have to pick one up.

fcspaul · Jan 25, 2008, 4:20 PM

Any update on this issue? I am planning a project that is based on this board and this is a show stopper.

gmckinney · Jan 25, 2008, 10:02 PM

@sullrich:

The board arrived but I do not have a power supply. Will have to pick one up.

A Linksys 12-VDC WRT54G power supply works well with them - unless it is the ALIX 1C - then you need a different power connector (sure makes me wonder why the use of two different sized power connections for basically the same boards - hmmmmm)…

gm...

xbipin · Jan 30, 2008, 8:49 PM

i just got my alix 2c3 with 3 ethernet and 2 usb and i tried pfsense1.2rc4, doesnt work at all.
monowall latest beta works rock solid, i read somewhere that they r not supporting alix anymore and trying to make it as a firewall for full install only but if an embedded pc can do the job then y not atleast make a last version for it, saves the hassle of a dedicated PC as well as cost effective.

index1489 · Jan 31, 2008, 7:12 AM

You have to log in via serial console and assign interfaces with pfsense, m0n0wall was patched to do this automatically.

xbipin · Jan 31, 2008, 8:57 AM

ok i have got the latest snapshot to work finally with the latest bios version which is 0.99. pfsense uses 9600 as baud rate so i guess that was the problem y i was seeing garbage.

n3b · Jan 31, 2008, 1:07 PM

Just got the same hardware and am trying 1.2RC4. I get the same hang after the DHCP service starts.

WIll try BIOS up/down grade

CHeers
Neil

naughtyusmaximus · Feb 1, 2008, 7:40 AM

I finally got around to trying the latest RC, and it works for me!
I've gone through the changelog between RC3 and RC4, and I can't seem to find what would have made the difference - but I'm very glad that there is one ;)

xbipin · Feb 1, 2008, 7:46 AM

@n3b:

Just got the same hardware and am trying 1.2RC4. I get the same hang after the DHCP service starts.

WIll try BIOS up/down grade

CHeers
Neil

upgrde to 0.99 bios, then set the serial baud rate to 9600 as pfsense uses that and then use the latest snapshot and try and it will work for sure. by default when i got the board, it had the 0.98 version of bios installed so definately needs a bios upgrade.

safrax · Feb 3, 2008, 4:31 AM

Is there any way to upgrade the bios without having a null modem cable to connect the thing to my desktop to see the output? I just discovered today all I have is a male to female serial cable and I cannot get a female to female locally anymore (in fact the people at best buy laughed at me :( )

rpsmith · Feb 3, 2008, 8:00 AM

@safrax:

Is there any way to upgrade the bios without having a null modem cable to connect the thing to my desktop to see the output? I just discovered today all I have is a male to female serial cable and I cannot get a female to female locally anymore (in fact the people at best buy laughed at me :( )

I used the FreeDOS method and edited the FDAUTO.BAT to look like this:

@prompt $p$g
@path=c:\bin
sb.com

rpsmith…

ircman · Feb 3, 2008, 11:15 AM

Sullrich,

Did you allready tried out the board ?