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    New Alix board for 2013

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
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    • T
      tmueko
      last edited by

      I just testet the new APU-Board from PC-Engines and I am very disappointed:

      Network performance is very poor, below 15MB/sec scp from host to /dev/null

      aes-128 is about 2% of Alix as Hardware-Crypto ist missing!

      using: "openssl speed -evp aes-128-cbc -mr"

      |

      | | 16 bytes | 64 bytes | 256 bytes | 1024 bytes | 8192 bytes |
      | apu(i386) | 17647920.62 | 19119871.30 | 19119871.30 | 19856786.89 | 19884175.64 |
      | apu(amd64) | 31838188.68 | 33707485.47 | 35294343.25 | 36019144.06 | 36141132.37 |
      | alix(glxb) | 9330604.35 | 51383196.64 | 228813355.80 | 571595559.02 | 21593993900.75 |
      | hifn799(miniPCI) | 29525399.38 | 88806702.25 | 455857889.95 | 1052874486.91 | 20549906447.53 |

      So, for <= 100MBit, use Alix; for >= 100Mbit, use other Hardware (Intel-Chipset) and Hardware-Encrytion.

      Just my 5 ct. |

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • forbiddenlakeF
        forbiddenlake
        last edited by

        @MaxPF:

        Just when I decided to go with the 2GB model instead of waiting for the 4GB, it sold out.

        what country are you in?  Check their other distributors.  I just ordered an APU1C from mini-box.com (free US shipping!).

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          @tmueko:

          Network performance is very poor, below 15MB/sec scp from host to /dev/null

          Why use SCP? That's testing crypto and network in combination. Hardly a fair test unless you're running that specifically.

          Steve

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          • W
            watercooled
            last edited by

            Add -elapsed to that openssl command to measure elapsed time, rather than CPU time. As the code doesn't run on the CPU with the hardware test, you get massively inaccurate results. Just think about the results for a second - ~20GB/s throughput?

            This is more the sort of result you should be getting with -elapsed: http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/bx/blosxom.cgi/index.front?-tags=geode

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            • T
              tmueko
              last edited by

              I aslo tried to just use the APU as Gbit-Gateway with the ame bad results.

              Using the "-elapsed" Option gives complete different results!

              APU
              type            16 bytes    64 bytes    256 bytes  1024 bytes  8192 bytes
              aes-256-cbc      25906.20k    27743.31k    28145.80k    28552.07k    28663.62k
              aes-128-cbc      31903.42k    34736.06k    35349.14k    35994.51k    36190.80k

              ALIX
              aes-128-cbc        439.80k    1711.46k    5388.38k    15939.21k    28228.88k
              aes-256-cbc      3880.35k    4004.79k    4381.44k    4132.74k    4014.75k

              NA820(hifn)
              aes-128-cbc        617.01k    2462.52k    7257.86k    13492.76k    21152.43k
              aes-256-cbc        616.61k    2412.38k    7626.04k    15504.02k    23657.20k

              I think I'll try to find a bottleneck … maybe a brocken cable...

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • W
                watercooled
                last edited by

                Do you have a way of measuring idle/load power consumption?

                Also, what's the thermal solution like? Retailers I've checked say it comes with an aluminium heat spreader, but don't go into much detail about how the system works.

                For example, does the heat spreader come bonded to the processor die somehow and contact the enclosure via some thermal paste?

                Edit: NVM, I've just found this page, linked by a retailer: http://www.pcengines.ch/apucool.htm

                Edit2: connorxxl beat me to it. :P

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • C
                  connorxxl
                  last edited by

                  See http://www.pcengines.ch/apucool.htm.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • A
                    Anaximelis
                    last edited by

                    Power consumption on apu1c with ssd + wifi card is 9.5 watt Idee / 13 watt load

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • ?
                      Guest
                      last edited by

                      @olivier:

                      Here is a network performance bench of the APU1c (2Go of RAM) under FreeBSD 11-current.

                      It's going to be a while before we run 11 under pfSense.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • ?
                        Guest
                        last edited by

                        @Clown:

                        Would be nice to have for the new APU board:

                        • LED Support

                        working
                        @Clown:

                        • Thermal sensors

                        working, but won't be enabled by default.  Can be enabled via 'Advanced' menu.
                        @Clown:

                        • as mentioned in an other thread (GPU prozessors as crypto device)

                        not even going to bother, (as mentioned in other thread)

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • R
                          router_wang
                          last edited by

                          Gonzo, what is the current and roadmap for Wifi cards that I can use with this board?

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • C
                            connorxxl
                            last edited by

                            Gonzo, any hints about how to enable thermal sensors? I tried the advanced settings (AMD K8, K10, etc.), but no temperature… At least not in the Thermal Sensors Dashboard...

                            Thanks for your help.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • nesenseN
                              nesense
                              last edited by

                              @gonzopancho:

                              @Clown:

                              Would be nice to have for the new APU board:

                              • LED Support

                              working
                              @Clown:

                              • Thermal sensors

                              working, but won't be enabled by default.  Can be enabled via 'Advanced' menu.
                              @Clown:

                              • as mentioned in an other thread (GPU prozessors as crypto device)

                              not even going to bother, (as mentioned in other thread)

                              BlinkLED does not work with the APU board:

                              "Mar 22 01:06:49 php: /pkg_edit.php: The command '/usr/local/bin/blinkled -i 're2' -l '/dev/led/led2'' returned exit code '2', the output was '/usr/local/bin/blinkled: 1: Syntax error: "(" unexpected'
                              Mar 22 01:06:49 php: /pkg_edit.php: The command '/usr/local/bin/blinkled -i 're1' -l '/dev/led/led3'' returned exit code '2', the output was '/usr/local/bin/blinkled: 1: Syntax error: "(" unexpected'"

                              Same for thermal Sensors, ACPI  or amdtemp both do not show temperatures.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • stephenw10S
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by

                                Clearly that's not going to be for 2.1 since the board has only recently become available. At the very least it would be a 2.1.1 build but more likely he is referencing a 2.2 build.

                                Steve

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • T
                                  tmueko
                                  last edited by

                                  Can somebody measure throughput on his APU?

                                  I startet a "nc -l 8888 > /dev/null" on a device on WAN Interface.
                                  then I startet "cat <big file="">| nc <ip_from_device>8888"

                                  I dont get more then 10 MByte/s.

                                  What am I doing wrong?</ip_from_device></big>

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • T
                                    tirsojrp
                                    last edited by

                                    Testing with a 100Mbps equipment?

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • T
                                      tohil
                                      last edited by

                                      hi

                                      i tried to install the embedded version on a 4GB Kingston SD Card. but it doesn't fit, so i used the 2GB nanobsd edition.
                                      but when i try to boot, i got errors about mounting the root parition, wrong geometry aborting startup

                                      can i fix this by this
                                      https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Soekris_6501_USB_Flash_installation#Root_Mount_error

                                      or the USB Boot Problem article?

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • 0
                                        0x55
                                        last edited by

                                        @tmueko:

                                        Can somebody measure throughput on his APU?

                                        I startet a "nc -l 8888 > /dev/null" on a device on WAN Interface.
                                        then I startet "cat <big file="">| nc <ip_from_device>8888"

                                        I dont get more then 10 MByte/s.

                                        What am I doing wrong?</ip_from_device></big>

                                        <big file="">Using Debian Wheezy 64bit, 'nc hera 7777
                                        root@hera:/# netcat -l -p 7777 | dd of=/dev/null bs=1024
                                        8503772+19682 records in
                                        8513324+0 records out
                                        4358821888 bytes (4.4 GB) copied, 45.7555 s, 95.3 MB/s

                                        Pretty close to the theoretical maximum of 1 GBit when considering TCP/IP overhead, however the CPU is nearly at max (90-95%, 1 core), so the APU can cope with the GBit traffic, but is stressed to the limit in this simple test.
                                        When doing packet forwarding solely in kernel space (without user space processes and thus a lot less context switches/copy operations) the CPU should be able to handle the traffic with ease. Didn't test throughput with smaller, sub-MTU packets though, this should stress the CPU a lot more.

                                        Overall a huge improvement over the good old ALIX (had 2 ALIX, now 2 APUs), crypto could be a little faster (~ 30MB/s AES128 CTR + umac128  when doing a simple cat /dev/zero test via SSH connection, compression (obvioulsy) turned off), but since the APU does not have an onboard hardware crypto engine, that's ok in my opinion  :)</big>

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • T
                                          tmueko
                                          last edited by

                                          @tohil:

                                          hi

                                          i tried to install the embedded version on a 4GB Kingston SD Card. but it doesn't fit, so i used the 2GB nanobsd edition.
                                          but when i try to boot, i got errors about mounting the root parition, wrong geometry aborting startup

                                          can i fix this by this
                                          https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Soekris_6501_USB_Flash_installation#Root_Mount_error

                                          or the USB Boot Problem article?

                                          Yes, that are the steps, you have to go, but 'set kern.cam.boot_delay="5000"'  will be enough.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • forbiddenlakeF
                                            forbiddenlake
                                            last edited by

                                            Is there a way to speed up crypto? Like a Mini-PCI crypto accelerator?

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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