PfSense with Gigabyte GA-J1900N-D3V
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ok, so the difference is that I don't have win8 so to update the bios I downloaded the latest (F3 - 2014/04/14) and made a boot disk with Rufus and applied it. It took it without a problem. I've since flashed it again and it's happy.
No amount of disabling stuff made a difference - it had the panic time after time. :(
However….
I found another post somewhere about 2.2 and that some got it working. I downloaded the latest beta version (30th July) and booted into that without a problem.
Obviously, this leaves me in a weird place as I don't really want to be using beta but I'll see how it goes in the coming weeks. There are a number of people who say 2.2 is just fine for them and they've had no problems so here's hoping....I would have loved for it to work easily from the word go but hey ho.... This should be ok :)
Strange, works fine for me after the first reboot. I just tested 2.2 nanobsd (30th july) and can confirm, it boots just fine.
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I just tested 2.2 nanobsd (30th july) and can confirm, it boots just fine.
Yup, I'm sticking with that for now and seeing how it goes. Happy it at least works :)
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So, nearly two weeks on and I am super happy with how it's working. It's a full install on a 32GB SD I had lying around.
I am on 125Mb down / 10 up and speed test shows me 125 down and 10 up :D The CPU goes to 3% but can't really say if that is the download load or not.
Something unexpected though, I set up a VPN with PIA and routed traffic through there. Works very well and very quick. I actually get faster speeds (150 / 32) when ging via the VPN than I do normally. I am guessing it's because I have compression turned on.
When doing a speedtest via the VPN the CPU goes to 8%.In a nutshell, the board is ideal for home (and soho?) it seems to have more grunt than is needed.
When I get my wifi setup as I want it and various subnets doing their thing then it might load up a bit but if this is anything to go by… I can't see me having a problem.happy Camper...
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Thank you FarmerB3d for your comments, I'm in the process of setting up a similar config, it's great to hear that it works fine.
The only bummer with this board would be the PCI slot, no PCI-e network cards can be installed.
I don't know how effective the USB3.0 is with network adapters.
For now I'll just stick with a PCI two ports Broadcom network card for a total of 4 ports.Cheers.
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The PCI thing is a bit of a bummer - why the still put 1980's tech on these boards I don't know :o
I wonder if something like this would work?
http://linitx.com/product/mini-pci-express-card-to-pci-express-x1-socket-9cm-cable-left-sided/12894 -
Yeah it probably will, still only 1-port network cards can be conected but that makes three in total, better than only two
For example, this Intel card will fit:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106033
Good find, not found on Ebay sadly, I came up with this:
http://amfeltec.com/products/flexible-minipci-express-to-pci-express-adapter/
It has to conform to PCI-e 2.0 spec though, the website does not specify that.As far as bandwidth concerns, PCI-e 2.0 can transfer 500MB per lane, so that should be enough for a 1 port LAN card.
The J1900 Celeron supports 4 PCI-e x1 lanes, but I suspect those are taken by the two SATA connectors and the two LAN ports.
Best way is to try and see how it holds up at giga speeds.Edit:
Why bother? On the same site there is a Mini PCI-e LAN card with two ports. And the best thing, it's Intel:http://linitx.com/product/jetway-dual-gigabit-lan-mini-pci-express-card/13534
http://www.logicsupply.com/components/expansion-cards/admpeidla/
Easiest way to expand the LAN ports.
Cheers.
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You might be better off getting a mobo fit for purpose rather than shoe-horning the bits in.
I got that mobo because it was fine for my requirements - small, low power consumption, two NICs. Everything else is nice-to-have.Why not get a "normal" board with two PCIe x 8 on and get a couple of Intel dual cards or a quad card. Job done.
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Why bother? On the same site there is a Mini PCI-e LAN card with two ports. And the best thing, it's Intel:
http://linitx.com/product/jetway-dual-gigabit-lan-mini-pci-express-card/13534
http://www.logicsupply.com/components/expansion-cards/admpeidla/
Easiest way to expand the LAN ports.
Cheers.
Yes that is a nice card, I have two of them. :)
Unfortunately I don't think it will fit here. It is a full length PCI-E Mini card and the board in the topic of this thread to me appears to only have a half length PCI-E Mini card slot.
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You might be better off getting a mobo fit for purpose rather than shoe-horning the bits in.
I got that mobo because it was fine for my requirements - small, low power consumption, two NICs. Everything else is nice-to-have.Why not get a "normal" board with two PCIe x 8 on and get a couple of Intel dual cards or a quad card. Job done.
Sure, that would be the easiest option. Only one problem: None of the J1900 boards have two PCI-e x8.
Only the Asrock mATX Q1900M has a full length PCI-e slot, that still operates in x1 mode.
In my case, space is not a problem so I might as well get the Asrock mATX.
If I can find the right Intel PCI-e LAN cards to work with.Also, I agree that trying to stuff in a full-size mini PCI-e card in a half-size mini PCI-e slot is less then ideal.
For me that's pretty much back to the drawing board again. Oh well.Cheers.
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Decided to do some testing, WAN->LAN.
C:\iperf>iperf.exe -c 213.x.x.x -u -b 200000000 -P 6 -t 30
–----------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 213.x.x.x, UDP port 5001
Sending 1470 byte datagrams
UDP buffer size: 64.0 KByte (default)[ 8] local 10.0.0.50 port 54846 connected with 213.x.x.x port 5001
[ 6] local 10.0.0.50 port 54844 connected with 213.x.x.x port 5001
[ 7] local 10.0.0.50 port 54845 connected with 213.x.x.x port 5001
[ 5] local 10.0.0.50 port 54843 connected with 213.x.x.x port 5001
[ 4] local 10.0.0.50 port 54842 connected with 213.x.x.x port 5001
[ 3] local 10.0.0.50 port 54841 connected with 213.x.x.x port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 8] 0.0-30.0 sec 671 MBytes 188 Mbits/sec
[ 8] Sent 478742 datagrams
[ 6] 0.0-30.0 sec 671 MBytes 188 Mbits/sec
[ 6] Sent 478793 datagrams
[ 7] 0.0-30.0 sec 671 MBytes 188 Mbits/sec
[ 7] Sent 478715 datagrams
[ 5] 0.0-30.0 sec 672 MBytes 188 Mbits/sec
[ 5] Sent 479377 datagrams
[ 4] 0.0-30.0 sec 671 MBytes 188 Mbits/sec
[ 4] Sent 478965 datagrams
[ 3] 0.0-30.0 sec 671 MBytes 188 Mbits/sec
[ 3] Sent 478753 datagrams
[SUM] 0.0-30.0 sec 3.93 GBytes 1.13 Gbits/sec
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You might be better off getting a mobo fit for purpose rather than shoe-horning the bits in.
I got that mobo because it was fine for my requirements - small, low power consumption, two NICs. Everything else is nice-to-have.Why not get a "normal" board with two PCIe x 8 on and get a couple of Intel dual cards or a quad card. Job done.
Sure, that would be the easiest option. Only one problem: None of the J1900 boards have two PCI-e x8.
Only the Asrock mATX Q1900M has a full length PCI-e slot, that still operates in x1 mode.
In my case, space is not a problem so I might as well get the Asrock mATX.
If I can find the right Intel PCI-e LAN cards to work with.Also, I agree that trying to stuff in a full-size mini PCI-e card in a half-size mini PCI-e slot is less then ideal.
For me that's pretty much back to the drawing board again. Oh well.Cheers.
Not that you want to drop the cash, but the supermicro x10sba/x10sba-l both work solidly out of the box, have two intel intel nics built in (i210s, they work fine on 2.1.4) & have a physical pci-e x8 slot that runs at x2. That's another option, albeit, $150 option. It's supermirco, they cost a pretty penny, but are some of the most solid boards in the world. This'll be my 3rd & I have had no hick ups besides a temp sensor issue & I think it's a pfsense problem as the bios reports it properly.
One of the more positive aspects concerning a no-tinker attitude about the board is that you have Lan/Wan working out of the box. You'll have the freedom to experiment with dual & quad nic cards w/o bringing the whole system down for longer than a simple pcie card install & reboot would take.
FarmerB3rd, don't be all that concerned with beta bioses from Gigabyte. I ran one on an ITX rig I built that was focused on gaming & overclocking. No hickups, no instability (once I dialed the overclock in). If the beta is stable in all testing methods you throw at it, you're set. Sometimes, the final version is not as good as the beta. I've had that happen a few times in the past from different vendors.
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Only just seen your reply…
Well, a few weeks in and I have had a few problems - I'm not overly bright it would seem :D.
The board though is working perfectly. Temp (reported) is 28C with no fans in the case (case is very perforated though).
Throughput tops out at 125Mb/s (ISP cap) and when using OpenPVN for certain traffic it musters 185Mb/s (VPN compression).
I've never seen the CPU go above 5%.The supermicros are nice but they cost more - double the price of what I paid (in the UK). Looking at the charts of packets per second, you get about 20% more through the Intel NICs but seeing as I am still way under what the board is capable of, this is not a worry for me…
For those thinking of getting one, well worth it for the price :D
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@FarmerB3rd:
Only just seen your reply…
Well, a few weeks in and I have had a few problems - I'm not overly bright it would seem :D.
The board though is working perfectly. Temp (reported) is 28C with no fans in the case (case is very perforated though).
Throughput tops out at 125Mb/s (ISP cap) and when using OpenPVN for certain traffic it musters 185Mb/s (VPN compression).
I've never seen the CPU go above 5%.The supermicros are nice but they cost more - double the price of what I paid (in the UK). Looking at the charts of packets per second, you get about 20% more through the Intel NICs but seeing as I am still way under what the board is capable of, this is not a worry for me…
For those thinking of getting one, well worth it for the price :D
I have been watching this thread due to the desire of wanting to get a j1900 board for a low power build to replace a power hungry I5 that is overkill for my use.
Since I only need 1 Wan and 2 Lan (1 regular, 1 management), this seems like a great option since I do not need high throughput for the management interface and can use a slower NIC. With that being said, have you tested any packages to see what type of load they place on the board? I currently use snort but have been trying to find time to test others.
I am also on 50/10 teir with my ISP but 1Gb is being talked about within the next year or so for my area.
Thanks
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I've got snort running (only just added it) and the CPU is not moving. It nearly always sits at 0% with normal "stuff".
Doing a speed test though excites it a bit. 150Mb/s down via VPN (compression is turned on) makes it hit 12-13%.If you're looking at a Gb WAN then perhaps this board would not be right for you. What a First World problem you have ;)
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@FarmerB3rd:
I've got snort running (only just added it) and the CPU is not moving. It nearly always sits at 0% with normal "stuff".
Doing a speed test though excites it a bit. 150Mb/s down via VPN (compression is turned on) makes it hit 12-13%.If you're looking at a Gb WAN then perhaps this board would not be right for you. What a First World problem you have ;)
Thanks for the update friend, my last question for you would be what kind of power do you think your setup is pulling from the wall?
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Due to the problems with the nic on bare-metal pfSense I've decided to use esxi and run pfSense on top of that. As it turns out this is something I should've done right from the beginning, it works perfect.
Have you run into any issues after you've had some time with this config? What kind of link do you have it connected to? What kind of CPU usage? How's the power consumption?
I've used this method in the past to get around some driver issues and didn't have any issues before…then again I was on 0.7.1 with ESX 3.5 (it's been a few years).
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@pete.s.:
The only drawback is that it's PCI and not PCIe if you want to add a dual or quad network card. A regular pci slot can handle one gigabit without trouble. But perhaps it's academic anyway since there are usually data bottlenecks elsewhere in the chipset and the cpu.
In theory one could use the mini-pcie slot available. There are adapters out to pin-covert it to a pci-e 1x slot (http://amzn.com/B00JIV9AZS) which then you can use any multi-port pci-e nic that is in a 1x form factor.
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I was tempted to buy this Gigabyte board, but just like FarmerB3rd said, shoe-horning the bits in (Mini-PCI-e cards) is far from ideal.
Another show stopper was the absence of any sata-3 ports, and no PCI-e slot.I like to be able to re-purpose hardware if the need arises.
When searching for some alternatives, the only (cheap) board with sata-3 connectors is the Asrock Q1900 itx.
The Asrock Q1900M has some PCI-e slots, but lacks sata-3 as most other brands.But in the end I decided for the Supermicro X10SBA (as noted by Synthetickiller), it has everything I needed.
Yes, it costs nearly twice as much as the other boards, but at least I can re-purpose later on as a Linux/BSD based file server.
I plan to use 2x4GB SuperTalent sodimm 1.35v with micron D9 chips.
The idea is to have a solid piece of hardware that keeps me online 24/7.Wolly mentioned esxi and PFSense on top of that. I'd like to avoid that (probably not even needed with the X10SBA) because it adds another layer
of complexity. Plus the fact that I like PFSense to run independent from other servers, so that Internet connectivity won't be affected if something goes south on the file server for example.When it comes to PFSense I'm a complete n00b, please correct me if I'm mistaken.
Cheers.
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Greetings,
Just double checking:
Will Intel PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter, 1x 1000Base-T, PCI 66MHz (PWLA8391GT) work on Gigabyte GA-J1900N-D3V?
http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/adapters/pro1000gt/pro1000gt-overview.htmIt is listed on FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE Hardware Notes as supported HW: http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.3R/hardware.html#ETHERNET
- Intel PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter (82541PI)
Thanks
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@mal_reynolds:
@FarmerB3rd:
I've got snort running (only just added it) and the CPU is not moving. It nearly always sits at 0% with normal "stuff".
Doing a speed test though excites it a bit. 150Mb/s down via VPN (compression is turned on) makes it hit 12-13%.If you're looking at a Gb WAN then perhaps this board would not be right for you. What a First World problem you have ;)
Thanks for the update friend, my last question for you would be what kind of power do you think your setup is pulling from the wall?
Just had a look now - 13W idle, 14W when downloading at 150Mb/s. Not quite the 10W the marketing material says but not exactly bad. The Pf is 0.45 though so the difference could be in there. Either way, it's not going to break the bank.