Additional GB-Ports on APU with mPCIe?

stephenw10

I have up to now an APU 1D4 with 7 NICs, great!

Nice. ;D

The Intel NICs are fastest by some margin. GruensFroeschli reported being able to push 650Mbps with Intel NICs and 2.2. The on-board NICs will not manage >500Mbps. Others have reported closer to 350Mbps in real world conditions.

https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=59555.msg405522#msg405522

Steve

Guest

Is this the same card with another OEM name?

http://www.commell.com.tw/product/Surveillance/MPX-210.htm

haunted

Dear Pishfry

As I know, it isn't the same card. It looks very different and even the main chip (Intel I210 versus Intel I310) is different.
I got my card here, where you can have a look:
http://www.cartft.com/catalog/il/1500
If you nevertheless buy and test the card, please tell us about your experiences.

Carcharodon

phil.davis

I am interested in this idea. Most of my offices only need 2 (small office, single LAN+WAN) or 3 (medium office with LAN + 2 WAN) network ports. So in the past Alix2D13 was good and now the APU is even better. It is nice to have the same main board in all places, if possible, so sparing is easy. But in some offices there are 2 WAN plus a couple of LAN, thus needing more network ports somewhere. Rather than bothering with a separate VLAN switch and having to have recovery procedures and spares for that, it would be nice to have an APU with 5 network ports available.

Can you share more details? Like what case have you mounted it all in?

And reading the thread I am a little confused about which card fits best, and which card works best?

Can you give a summary of your testing and experience?

stephenw10

Suitable enclosures are available. Not tried one personally though.
http://store.calexium.com/en/boitiers/324-pc-engines-alix-2d3-2d13-or-openvox-ipc100-110-120-case-with-hdd-wifi-black.html

Steve

haunted

Dear Phil,

I constructed a new case cover for the standard enclosure, which fits for both different cards.
http://250kb.de/JaLap0L
The Delock 95237 fits best, the Jetway is somehow tricky. Which card works best I have still to figure out.

Carcharodon

Guest

A little bit late and only for the archives if some one is stumbling on this thread over Google.

Here is a case shown that can house a PC Engines APU board and has two more spare outs for
two more GB LAN Ports, that truly can be gained by installing a miniPCIe card connected to two
GB LAN Ports. It adds also enough space for a 2,5" SSD.
PC Engines APU case
2 Intel GB LAn Ports from miniPCIe

streuspeicher

Hi all,

I create a 5 port network appliance with the following parts last week (mainly based on this thread):

pcengines APU 1d4
Delock 95237 Dual Port Gigabit Adapter
320 GB Harddisk (asa storage for proxy package)
The mentioned APU case from Calexium

You can find my report here: http://streuspeicher.de/2015/08/building-a-5-port-network-appliance-with-pcengines-apu-1d4-and-pfsense/
Spoiler: It works, but needs some manual hardware modifications to get the NIC and case play together. pfSense works fine.

Hope this helps.
Norbert

Guest

Hello Norbert,

I know also another Dual Port solution that is fitting better in the case, but I don´t know any
seller of this parts! Its a pity but no where in Europe I was found something like this;

And only one tip at least, please check the thermal cooling situation of this case, the PC Engines APU
boards are using a part of the case for colling down the cpu and if this parts would be not sold with the
case or board to you, you will need to fix it now, please before a damage occurs.

Please read the full story here: PC Engines APU board cooling instructions

Picture Source Nexcom

streuspeicher

Yes, that card would have surely made things easier!

The cooling should be ok. I followed the instructions you posted and the case had a marking inside to place the alu heat spreader.
You never know, but I think this aspect should be ok.

Thanks for your comment!
'Norbert