PFsense Hardware check: ALIX 2D13 and DCMA82 WLAN
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This is my first post, and I am pretty much a newb. I have read most if not all of the pfsense book, and have already setup a router on it. I had some issues with the first router (which I ended up just putting m0n0wall on. It has me a little bit skeptical on the viability of pfsense running a WLAN hotspot, even on 2.0.)
The first router I used was a netgate 2D13 with this wireless card kit from Netgate (I used their m1n1wall kit) with http://store.netgate.com/KIT-5004MP-245-DUAL-P178.aspx
I had some issues with QoS, that were very strange. I started with version 1.2.3 of pfsense. Any time I enabled QoS (I used the wizard for basic setups), it would basically slow to a complete crawl with iphone and android. Most devices worked fine, except for mobile phones (Any iOS device or Android) would basically become inoperable over the router. I tested multiple devices and every time I would disable the QoS, it would start working fine again. This really didn't seem logical to me at all..it was the most basic setup. When I tried upgrading to 2.0, the same problem persisted. I tried so many things, spent hours on it..maybe it was a hardware problem, or a weird compatibility issue between QoS and this card/board. This was literally the only thing not working well.
So, I threw up m0n0wall, and within 20 minutes, I had Captive Portal, QoS all running great. With the exception of WPA2 not working at all, the router is running great and stable now.
Its time to buy another router and I want to give pfsense a try again, especially with it fully released. I think it would be best to try another card on the same board to see if I could get it running well, this is what I was thinking:
http://store.netgate.com/Netgate-m1n1wall-2D3-2D13-Black-P216.aspx
http://store.netgate.com/KIT-ALIX-DCMA82-DUAL-P192C34.aspxIts coming preloaded with PFsense 2. I will be running captive portal and QoS on it..a relative basic setup for a hotspot.
What do you guys think? What could have been my issue before? Should this board/card combination be ok for my next router?
Your comments/help will be appreciated.
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I had some issues with QoS, that were very strange. I started with version 1.2.3 of pfsense. Any time I enabled QoS (I used the wizard for basic setups), it would basically slow to a complete crawl with iphone and android. Most devices worked fine, except for mobile phones (Any iOS device or Android) would basically become inoperable over the router. I tested multiple devices and every time I would disable the QoS, it would start working fine again. This really didn't seem logical to me at all..it was the most basic setup.
The most basic setup is to accept default "QoS". My home pfSense 2.0 (and 1.2.3 before it) ran fine with default QoS. Since you don't say what you configured for QoS its pretty difficult to explain what you are seeing.
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I was always using the default QoS setup. In all honesty though, it wouldn't matter what was changed, it always acted like this.
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I can't reconcile:
@markiemark:In all honesty though, it wouldn't matter what was changed, it always acted like this.
with @markiemark:
Any time I enabled QoS (I used the wizard for basic setups), it would basically slow to a complete crawl with iphone and android. Most devices worked fine, except for mobile phones (Any iOS device or Android) would basically become inoperable over the router. I tested multiple devices and every time I would disable the QoS, it would start working fine again.
"It wouldn't matter what was changed, it always acted like this" seems to contradict "every time I would disable the QoS it would start working fine again".
If it works fine with QoS disabled then why are you enabling QoS?
What are the steps by which you "enable QoS"? What are the steps by which you "disable QoS"? I haven't used the setup wizard and can't see a QoS item in the main menus so I don't know what you mean by "enable QoS".
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What I meant was, it doesn't matter what internal QoS settings were changed, it would still act the same. I used the wizard and its default settings. If I turned off QoS, mobile phones had no problem connecting again.
Do you really want me to tell you how to turn on/off QoS? I think you understand.
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Is this really the extent of the help on this forum?