Installation on Intel D2500CC (atom with dual NIC board)

Tubs · Feb 22, 2012, 8:03 PM

64 bit:
the screen does not refresh, only the very last line of text is over writting part of last line (not sure how to describe this). tried safe mode and other modes, no luck and cannot really see what it is doing because of the graphic/text issue.

Same with me. I tried to use 64bit embeded nanobsd version on compact flash with SATA adapter. My idea was that the problem it is related to the SATA adapter because additional I got disc reading errors. I tried both AHCI and IDE mode. But seems to be a general issue.

Tomorrow I will try 32 bit version.

BTW. Before updating the BIOS to Version 30 from Dec. 2011 I got more errors.

noggin · Feb 22, 2012, 8:14 PM

Ah… Just ordered this motherboard for a pfSense build. Very useful to know. Hopefully we can find a way to get this sorted...

Tubs · Feb 22, 2012, 10:41 PM

@Tubs:

Tomorrow I will try 32 bit version.

With i386 version of pfsense 2.0.1 nanobsd I do not get graphic error any more. Disc reading error stays. But now I can read the error message.

ad4: failure read DMA timeout LBA = 15625215
ad4: timeout read DMA retrying
…

But after long time system is booting up and is running. When I try to save settings the same error message will pop up again.

Semms to be a conflict with CF to SATA adapter or an issue with SATA itself.

Tomorrow I will try to boot from USB.

chrisintaipei · Feb 23, 2012, 3:24 AM

very interestingly, under 64 bit, one other errors that i can make out was disk error reading the optical disk. i tried two different external USB optic drives, same error. i then stripped one of the external drive and connect that very drive via onboard SATA and whala the reading error is gone. in my case i would say it has something to do with USB rather than SATA. however under D525MW i used same USB drive and had no error installing 64 bit.

i did not try external USB optic drive under 32 bit though.

Tubs · Feb 23, 2012, 5:29 PM

@Tubs:

With i386 version of pfsense 2.0.1 nanobsd I do not get graphic error any more. Disc reading error stays. But now I can read the error message.

ad4: failure read DMA timeout LBA = 15625215
ad4: timeout read DMA retrying

So, issue seems to be solved.
After disabling S.M.A.R.T. in Bios, reading error is gone.
So far 32bit nanobsd Version semms to be is working fine with compact flash card installed in CF to SATA adapter.

But still I'm missing 64 bit support to be able to use 4 Gb RAM.
Hopefully pfsense 2.1 is comming soon will have better suport for D2500cc board.

jms703 · Feb 24, 2012, 12:14 AM

Where did you guys find this board?

noggin · Feb 24, 2012, 10:04 AM

Got mine from minipc.de in Germany (delivery costs to the UK weren't too bad). Logic Supply EU store suggest they will have it in stock from 1st March.

Boot from the live CD (some odd video corruption - some characters appear as blocks rather than the character typed when you enter WAN and LAN set-up information etc.), struggling to get an embedded image to boot properly from a USB flash drive (Geometry errors)

Jani · Feb 24, 2012, 10:06 AM

Does the reading of the thermal sensors work with this board?

//Jani

noggin · Feb 24, 2012, 11:31 AM

Not sure - still struggling to get embedded install to boot from USB flash drive. Keep getting GEOM warnings and boot stopping - which I think are to do with the way the image is being written to the flash drive (have tried physdiskwrite in Windows and dd in OS X on a Mac).

Booted once OK from a USB drive with 4GB embedded VGA i386 image but got fsck -y warnings - so re-flashed and now can't get it to fully boot at all.

Booting from USB CD drive fine - but I want an embedded install. May go down the SATA CF card route instead…

Tubs · Feb 24, 2012, 5:18 PM

@jms703:

Where did you guys find this board?

I bought it here
http://www.cartft.com/catalog/gl/78

Together with the M350 mini ITX case and the picoPSU power supply a small combination for a firewall/router.

Jani · Feb 24, 2012, 5:30 PM

@noggin

What happens if you try with a sata HD ?
Can you try to output the console to the serial port(s) instead?

(sry for the q;s i have been looking for this board myself, very interested in how it behaves :))

//Jani

noggin · Feb 24, 2012, 6:18 PM

@Tubs:

@jms703:

Where did you guys find this board?

I bought it here
http://www.cartft.com/catalog/gl/78

Together with the M350 mini ITX case and the picoPSU power supply a small combination for a firewall/router.

Yep - CarTFT and MiniPC.de appear to be the same company.

noggin · Feb 24, 2012, 6:25 PM

@Jani:

@noggin

What happens if you try with a sata HD ?
Can you try to output the console to the serial port(s) instead?

(sry for the q;s i have been looking for this board myself, very interested in how it behaves :))

//Jani

Don't have a spare SATA HD or a Serial capture option at the moment - as my D2500CC set-up is not being built at home but at a second location. Hope to be able to do both things soon, but at the moment I only have a USB DVD-R drive, a DVI monitor, some USB sticks and a couple of laptops to work with…

Tubs · Feb 25, 2012, 10:14 AM

@noggin:

Booting from USB CD drive fine - but I want an embedded install. May go down the SATA CF card route instead…

So far my system is running well on D2500cc, but i386 version only. I tested two installations so far:

Embeded 4 GB nanobsd version on CF card with CF to STAT adapter. The installation I did on my Windows PC with physdicwrite.
Normal installation on SATA HDD. The istallation I did by booting from USB pen drive with memstick build I created before on my Windows PC with physdiskwrite

Did you tried to update BIOS to Ver 30 and disable S.M.A.R.T. dunction in BIOS? I did not figured out what exactly was the root cause for my reading errors. But afder doing this and switching off in Bios all components I do not use everthing is working fine with i386 build.

Now I'm wondering why I bought the CF card. The intention was to create a low power system for home use. But I can not see a difference in power consumption between CF card in SATA adapter and 2.5" SATA HDD. With HDD I can use HDD cache for squid. But I'm not sure if this hardware (2.5" HDD) is perfect for 24/7 in fanless system.

Jani · Feb 25, 2012, 9:20 PM

Hello,

I placed an order for this mobo, i will report my results later.

I thought of running a small(<60Gb) SSD drive on this instead of a CF-solution.

Small SSD;s are quite priceworthy vs a CF-card

//Jani

katz · Mar 2, 2012, 4:18 AM

Building my first PFsense box, and saw this board recommended elsewhere on the forum based on its expected low street price (intel says $85 MSRP), its low wattage, and crucially the dual intel nics.

Besides getting a little tired of waiting for these to hit the USA retailers (just saw one site move their eta from march 5th to march 13), I'm wondering if some of the other canoe creek atom ITX boards would do just as well, or better.

D2500HN is only a single Lan, same everything else as the d2500cc, but readily available for as little as $70 shipped.

D2700MUD has a 2.13ghz cpu vs the 1.86ghz 2500, and has hyperthreading, which neither 2500 does.

Would adding a pci intel gigabit card to either of these boards give me the same throughput as the dual nic d2500cce? Worth noting that I only have 20/5 Fios internet at the moment,but my aim is to allow this box to last as long as possible.

wallabybob · Mar 2, 2012, 5:50 AM

@katz:

Would adding a pci intel gigabit card to either of these boards give me the same throughput as the dual nic d2500cce?

The best the PCI bus could do is run one direction of a gigabit ethernet at line speed in ONE direction. The dual nics are probably capable of running both NICs at line speed in both directions concurrently. I don't know if the limiting factor will be the hardware or the software.

Jani · Mar 5, 2012, 8:37 PM

Hello,

I got pfsense2.0.1-i386 running pretty much straight out of the box.

Updated bios to latest, attached a HDD and a USB-cdrom, chose "3", Boot Pfsense using USB.

A bit of artifacts on the install screen(s) but F10(refresh) helps (screenmap us-ascii_to_cp437.scm seemed a bit better)

Found on-board NICs without any problems, also installed a quad PCI NIC. All working.

kldload coretemp works for temperatures (http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=39595.0)

So far so good, been running it for 1,5h :)
Regards
Jani

![pfsense_core temps.png](/public/imported_attachments/1/pfsense_core temps.png)
![pfsense_core temps.png_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/pfsense_core temps.png_thumb)

firbc · Mar 12, 2012, 9:46 AM

@noggin:

Got mine from minipc.de in Germany (delivery costs to the UK weren't too bad). Logic Supply EU store suggest they will have it in stock from 1st March.

Boot from the live CD (some odd video corruption - some characters appear as blocks rather than the character typed when you enter WAN and LAN set-up information etc.), struggling to get an embedded image to boot properly from a USB flash drive (Geometry errors)

I have same character problem. Every fourth character is blanked. Did you maybe figure out how to fix it?

Same problem here http://149.20.54.209/showthread.php?t=30337

Jani · Mar 12, 2012, 9:51 AM

@firbc:

I have same character problem. Every fourth character is blanked. Did you maybe figure out how to fix it?

Same problem here http://149.20.54.209/showthread.php?t=30337

This kinda worked for me;

@jani:

A bit of artifacts on the install screen(s) but F10(refresh) helps (screenmap us-ascii_to_cp437.scm seemed a bit better)

//Jani