Symantec Security Gateway 5420

jimp

100W? Yowza that is a lot.

I've had normal PCs (small form factor) that only ran in the mid 30s.

emerio

I am guessing that since we turn off ACPI in our boot up combined with any BIOS settings that would disable power management we have those results. I am not sure what is using so much juice! It is just a celeron with an HD…

emerio

Just to add to the versatility of this box is that I was able to load ClearOS (Linux) on this box in much the same fashion. One problem is that you'll have to use a terminal session to configure the NICs.

Tego

I picked up a couple of 5420s after reading this thread. THX!
After installing I re-enabled ACPI on one box. On boot the box prints out to the
LCD (Only shows up when ACPI is enabled). The box seems to run OK with ACPI
as long as I don't use the console port. When/if I get time I'll put the Symantec drive
back in and see if I can find out more about the LCD (and possibly the front "buttons").

mr_clark

May have made a stupid purchase but I picked up a 5420 on ebay that doesn't power on. Let's see if I can get it working and I'll post my results here….

Has anybody tried 2.0 Beta on one of these?

emerio

Yet another upgrade to this post.

I am using the pyramid driver with LCDProc and can see the load. The display works sort of. What drivers are other people using? Any?

Also, in terms of upgrades, I have put a 2.6 GHZ Pentium 4 in my box (533 MHz). A moment of sheer terror when I fired it up the first time. It didn't boot. When I rebooted it again it booted up just fine. I assume the BIOS is catching the change and waiting for input which it never gets because I don't have the console hooked up.

mr_clark

My non-booting 5420 arrived today. Popped open the case and hooked up a full size power supply and the unit boots great! To top it all off, I opened the power supply and I couldn't see the usual signs of a dead power supply (blown capacitors, etc) so I tested the fuse with my multimeter and it looks like the problem is just a blown fuse. Unfortunately, nobody in my small town here carries the 20mm 5A fuses so I had to order some in and they won't be here until Thursday.

Oh well. I'm glad that my purchase wasn't a complete waste of money.

One question, has anybody tried adding more RAM to one of these? Any issues?

Thanks.

mr_clark

The power supply went POP with a new fuse. So definitely a problem there. Picked up a replacement PS on Ebay. Now I've got a project for the weekend to get this installed and running.

Couple of questions:

Has anybody had further luck with getting the LCD working? Any instructions?
Anybody know of a quieter fan that can be used on the CPU? That blower is darn noisy.

Thanks.

focalguy

Good luck getting it running!

I have not had any luck getting the LCD working so I can't help you there.

I have not tried another fan and I am using it in our server room so I'm not concerned with noise. The noise and the power consumption made me decide not to use this for a home box though.

mr_clark

Anybody know which socket type the processor is on this box? I'm still trying to research a quieter fan.

Thanks.

bradfordgiosa

Hello All,

Just wanted to give a shout out and leave an initial post as I just registered. ::)

I enjoyed reading this thread and have prepared to install Sense on a 5420 thats been collecting dust on my bench for a while.
I picked it up on eBay in November 09 for about $40.

I did however pop another PC2100 512mb stick in and it seems to boot fine with it in.
The console reports 768mb of ram!

I have been unable to test the PCI slot yet so Im not sure if it works..
I do have a PCI POST tester so we will see what that says when I get a chance..

I have a few 15 pin VGA headers laying around but I have not been sucessful in getting any video out of this box.
Any body have any ideas?

Any further recommendations before I start this new project?

Thanks!

Brad

bradfordgiosa

@mr_clark - Yea it's a Socket 478.

mr.rosh

Hi All,

i recently got a Symantec Security Gateway 5420 from Trademe (kiwi version of the ebay) and am in the process of identifying the haredware etc, in particular getting the vga output via PCI, has any one managed to do so.
there's a riser card built in the motherboard, but i can't plugin my vga card, due to allignment issues, what about the vga pinout/connector?

any help in the right direction would be really appreciated.

Regards
mr.rosh

bradfordgiosa

@mr.rosh - In the past 3 days I have worked very hard on getting into this machine.
Since then I have sucessfully conquered some daunting tasks.
One of which just happens to be getting a video output on the PCI slot.
However to boot, it appears that the PCI slot is disabled by the bios.
I will be doing a full and complete write up on my blog and I will let you know when I post it later this weekend.

For now one thing you can try to get the PCI slot to work is the following:
Next to the bios battery there is a jumper set with 3 pins.
1. Turn off your machine.
2. Take the jumper and set it to the unjumped pin and the middle one.
3. Next turn the switch on.

You should get no response and power but the bios should be cleared to defaults.
You can also try removing the battery for 5 mins.

Reverse the operation and insert a video card. Power up and see if it works.
Make sure the video card is good first!! I had this problem originally.

Please let me know your results so I can add them to the write up… If this does not work you will have to follow the directions I will provide later.

Bradford Giosa

bradfordgiosa

Whoops sorry about that, I read your post wrong.
I personally have not been able to get the correct pin out of the vga header..

I do know that I had to take the mounting bracket off my vga card to get it in..

bradfordgiosa

IWill 478 / Symantec 5420 Motherboard J13 / VGA Port Pin Out:

Pin 1 - RED
Pin 4 - GREEN
Pin 6 - SDA
Pin 7 - BLUE
Pin 9 - HSYNC
Pin 12 - VSYNC
Pin 15 - SCL
Pin 16 - NA
Pins 2 , 3, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14 - GND

Now you have to match these up to the standard VGA pin outs which can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VGA_connector

Don't worry about the GNDs, as long they are grounded out the display will work.
Just makes sure the standard VGA pins are connected to the correct one listed above.

-Brad Giosa

Gryphon

I have just sucessfully installed pfSense on a Symantec Gateway 5420.

Luckily I had a 40GB drive identical to the drive in the machine. I followed the instructions that others have left on the forum and had a pretty easy time of it.

I never permanently disabled ACPI. I found that by not using the "disable ACPI" option the appliance would Power Off (HALT) with the ACPI. This is my preferred option because when I was doing the initial install I powered down with the power switch and had to run fsck to fix inconsistencies in the file system.

Once the interfaces were configured I was into the WEBGUI right away. I enabled the WAN connection and used the package manager from the WEBGUI to install LCDproc. I now have lots of information from the boot process showing up on the LCD. The final message is "Enter an option:" this is coming from /etc/rc.initial. I edited the file so that the number 6 option now became "A" (pressing the front panel buttons gives A - B - C - D and it looks like the s button is select). The LCD recycles back to "Enter an option:" obviously the input is not what it's expecting.

The worst part of this adventure so far is that I have lost the serial console menu (displays on the LCD as above). If I issue a "Halt" command from the WEBGUI I do get to see the shutdown happening from the console and I have a console on bootup until the LAN interface comes up. Then the LCD takes over. I have checked the files /boot/loader.conf and /boot/defaults/loader.conf to see if I could find the necessary places to enable both the LCD and the console. I haven't been able so far. And, because I don't have a console I can't run normal commands to find other files. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to look for the init files to change and how?
The LCDProc files are also not in the default locations, any suggestions as to where they are?

All-in-all I have a working firewall that is fast with lots of options.I'm liking it, I would just like to tweak it.

BTW: the speaker is working on the 5420 so when the LAN interface goes up or down it makes noise!

focalguy

Thanks for sharing Gryphon. I'm glad you got it working! That's interesting about the ACPI. I admit I didn't test too much with that after I got it working.

How did you get LCDproc to work? What driver/settings did you use? I never was able to get it to display anything.

As for looking for files, why not just enable SSH and use that to get into the box instead of the console?

anaxagoras

so does anyone know how much power this uses with acpi turned on? The 100 watts stated on page 2 is with acpi turned off i believe.

stmcknig

Happy to report another successful conversion - although I have been unable to get the LCD to quit proclaiming "Symantec OK" in some cheeky challenge. I had a Symantec 1660 which I was hoping to use due to its smaller form factor and gigabit Ethernet but it was DOA and I couldn't figure out how to revive it. I guess 100MB should be okay for now on a home cable modem.

I've disabled ACPI for now but if enough folks think it would be okay to re-enable that would be great. Having to manually turn off the machine when HALT is called is a little annoying.

Does anybody know if the CF card slot is live on this motherboard and could be used for a diskless boot?

Overall though, I'm very happy with my new to me 1U firewall box in place of the rescued Dell Optiplex desktop tower.