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    Need recommendation for pfsense computer hardware

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    • F Offline
      firefox
      last edited by

      Intel EXPI9301CT
      Intel PWLA8391GTBLK
      Intel PRO/1000 PF
      Intel EXPI9400PTBLK
      Intel Pro/1000 GT
      INTEL PRO/1000 CT

      this is a few of what i saw
      What is the difference between the  cards

      all difrent price

      what i need to look for ?

      why intel and not

      d link
      level one
      tp link
      TRENDnet
      hp
      edimax

      What wireless network card
      Most suitable
      And has drivers in pfsense

      I want a wireless card not for a AP

      I want to make it as wan connection

      When Internet connection falls
      Access will be via the mobile phone network
      {Wireless card Accesst  the phone's AP}

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      • A Offline
        Atlantisman
        last edited by

        Intel cards have the best support in pfsense.

        They're also the best cards all around.

        Just get the least expensive out of all the intel options.

        pfsense has terrible support for wireless cards and at the moment only supports wireless G i believe.

        You will want to check the pfsense hardware support lists over carefully before you buy a wireless card, just a small revision in the model can make it so pfsense doesn't support it at all.

        https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Supported_Wireless_Cards - hardware supported lists.

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        • J Offline
          jasonlitka
          last edited by

          @firefox:

          If you want Snort, Squid and HAVP at 1Gpbs go are going to need some powerful hardware.

          How strong
          I currently have these packages installed on an old computer with 756 MB memory

          and it works

          No offence, but I find that difficult to believe.  Snort eats an enormous amount of RAM if you want it to perform well, I use ~3GB per interface as a general rule for hardware planning, and it's also very CPU intensive.  If you've got snort, squid, and havp all on the same box then you've either not got them actually doing anything (installed doesn't mean working), are running WAY less than 1Gbit/s, or are using much faster hardware than you're implying.

          I can break anything.

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          • F Offline
            firefox
            last edited by

            Currently my Internet connection is 10 MB
            I'm upgrading the hardware
            Because I am going to increase the connection to 150 MB or 200
            Perhaps more if I need

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            • stephenw10S Offline
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              [pedantry]
              A quick point of information. 10MB, Mega Bytes is 80Mb Mega bits.
              Also Mb is quantity, Mbps is a rate.
              Might not seem important but it can cause all sorts of confusion.
              [/pedantry]

              The important part of a NIC is not who made the card but what chipset it uses. Those manufacturers you listed make many cards with many different chipsets from other manufacturers. Some are good many are bad. Generally speaking the prefered chipsets for use in pfSense (in order of preference) are :
              Intel
              Broadcom
              Everyone else (Marvell, Atheros, Nvidia etc)
              Realtek
              That's somewhat of a simplification. Check the forum for actual reports. Almost all Intel cards work well. They generally give slightly higher throughput with less CPU loading. About the only exception to that is the Pro/1000 VT about which Jason said recently:
              @Jason:

              then light the card on fire and buy a i350. The fewer VT cards that remain in this world the better.

              :P

              What CPU were you running in the 756MB box?

              Steve

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              • F Offline
                firefox
                last edited by

                The important part of a NIC is not who made the card but what chipset it uses. Those manufacturers you listed make many cards with many different chipsets from other manufacturers

                The bottom line
                To buy Intel network card
                Does not matter which
                As long as it 10/100/1000
                and it is not VT

                Which of the cards I wrote earlier is VT ?

                Intel EXPI9301CT
                Intel PWLA8391GTBLK
                Intel PRO/1000 PF
                Intel EXPI9400PTBLK
                Intel Pro/1000 GT
                INTEL PRO/1000 CT

                What CPU were you running in the 756MB box?

                Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz

                A quick point of information. 10MB, Mega Bytes is 80Mb Mega bits.
                Also Mb is quantity, Mbps is a rate.
                Might not seem important but it can cause all sorts of confusion.

                I know
                always get confused between them
                the rate is 10 Mbps

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                • J Offline
                  jasonlitka
                  last edited by

                  @firefox:

                  Which of the cards I wrote earlier is VT ?

                  Intel EXPI9301CT
                  Intel PWLA8391GTBLK
                  Intel PRO/1000 PF
                  Intel EXPI9400PTBLK
                  Intel Pro/1000 GT
                  INTEL PRO/1000 CT

                  Thankfully, none of them.

                  Those are:
                  82574L - Relatively-new Workstation/Entry Server
                  82541PI - Desktop adapter (PCI, and really old)
                  82572 - Older Server (useless unless you've got a multi-mode fiber connection with LC connectors)
                  82572 - Older Server (same as above except twisted pair)
                  82541PI - Same card as the first one of these, just the retail name instead of the bulk part number
                  82574L - Same card as the first one of these, just the retail name instead of the bulk part number.

                  If these are your choices, the cards based on the 82574L are way out in front.

                  @firefox:

                  What CPU were you running in the 756MB box?

                  Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz

                  Ok, that would have no problems with the packages you mentioned at 10Mbit/s.

                  I can break anything.

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                  • F Offline
                    firefox
                    last edited by

                    I saw the list of supported wireless cards in pfsense

                    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AojFUXcbH0ROdHgwYkFHbkRUdV9hVWljVWl5SXkxbFE&hl=en#gid=0

                    By accident
                    I have a card with a chip from the second row
                    That supports All

                    This card is a 5 years old maybe more
                    If I want to buy a new
                    Today everything is standard on N or AC
                    is there any supported cards?

                    Is it possible to know with which chip the network card is manufactured
                    On the packaging of the product
                    Or just check online ?

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                    • stephenw10S Offline
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      There is currently (2.1.3) no support for 802.11N at all. Some 'N' cards are supported but only in 'G' mode. This is mostly because of the lack of support in FreeBSD 8.3 on which pfSense is built. pfSense 2.2 will have much better support because it's built on FreebSD 10. Still no 'AC' support though.

                      Exactly which card do you have? Since you've already got it you may as well try it.
                      A good place to look up wireless hardware is: https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Main_Page

                      Most people will recommend you use an external access point for wifi. They can be bought very cheaply these days and will give you better features and usually better coverage.

                      Steve

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                      • F Offline
                        firefox
                        last edited by

                        Most people will recommend you use an external access point for wifi

                        I do not need the wireless card for wifi
                        I already have AP connected to pfsense

                        I want the card to be kind of a backup internet connection

                        Internet connection occasionally falls because a power outage or infrastructure work

                        Cellular Internet connection is still active
                        I want to turn the AP  option in the cell phone
                        Then connect to it with a wireless card

                        I do that in several cases
                        But without success

                        https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,67694.msg387570.html#msg387570
                        https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=75362.0
                        https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,71096.0.html

                        Exactly which card do you have

                        Tp link card TL-WN650G

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                        • stephenw10S Offline
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          That card is an older chipset it should work well. I have a very similar card my home box.

                          Steve

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                          • F Offline
                            firefox
                            last edited by

                            How much memory should be put on the computer ?

                            Which processor

                            amd can be good or just Intel

                            Thanks for the help

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                            • J Offline
                              jasonlitka
                              last edited by

                              @firefox:

                              How much memory should be put on the computer ?

                              Which processor

                              amd can be good or just Intel

                              Thanks for the help

                              Snort+Squid means "as much RAM as possible.  To be honest though, using squid will likely slow you down.  Squid is useful when you've got a bunch of users on a slow connection.  You don't have a slow connection.

                              With a 1Gbit/s connection you will want a CPU with the fastest clock speed you can find.  An Intel i3-3240 is a good option, though an i5 would be a better one since those add AES-NI (not terribly useful now, will be under pfSense 2.2) and ship with 4 cores instead of 2 (useful with snort on multiple interfaces, squid, and multi-threaded pf in pfsense 2.2).

                              I can break anything.

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