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    Thoughts on Celeron N2930 with Intel NICs

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    • P
      pfcode
      last edited by

      @dopey:

      I've been looking at the Jetway N2930 units.  i'd really like to do the 8-core C2758 build, but not sure I can really justify the cost.

      The celeron should be capable of doing gigabit routing through NAT with enough leftover for PF/NAT overhead right?

      If its for home use, C2558 should be enough.

      Release: pfSense 2.4.3(amd64)
      M/B: Supermicro A1SRi-2558F
      HDD: Intel X25-M 160G
      RAM: 2x8Gb Kingston ECC ValueRAM
      AP: Netgear R7000 (XWRT), Unifi AC Pro

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      • D
        dopey
        last edited by

        @pfcode:

        If its for home use, C2558 should be enough.

        Sure, I know the C2558 should be enough, but that's not the point.
        The Celeron N2930 is alot cheaper than even the C2558 which honestly isn't that much cheaper than a C2758 build.

        So I'm curious just what kind of throughput could be expected of the N2930.

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        • G
          grdk
          last edited by

          I finally received the unit, and am now running pFsense 2.2.4 on it.  It handles my connection just fine, compared to my older Atom D525 which would sometimes experience slowdowns.  I'm only using 3 ethernet ports (WAN, LAN, OPT1) out of maximum of 5.  I noticed that annoying, the NIC daughtercard's ports don't get recognized in order (I think mine, from the left, is em0, em3, em1, em2) which gave a minor headache figuring out which port was which.

          I've got snort, squid, installed but haven't had time to configure it yet.  I've implemented heavy traffic shaping to prioritize accordingly VoIP, p2p, streaming, and OPT1 (which my housemates use).

          If anyone can point me to how to run some network tests, I'll gladly do it and post the results.

          Overall, the barebones unit has more depth than my old Atom D525's M150 chassis, by a few inches, so that could be a consideration for some people, but it's not a dealbreaker for me.

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          • A
            andyblac
            last edited by

            @grdk:

            I finally received the unit, and am now running pFsense 2.2.4 on it.  It handles my connection just fine, compared to my older Atom D525 which would sometimes experience slowdowns.  I'm only using 3 ethernet ports (WAN, LAN, OPT1) out of maximum of 5.  I noticed that annoying, the NIC daughtercard's ports don't get recognized in order (I think mine, from the left, is em0, em3, em1, em2) which gave a minor headache figuring out which port was which.

            I've got snort, squid, installed but haven't had time to configure it yet.  I've implemented heavy traffic shaping to prioritize accordingly VoIP, p2p, streaming, and OPT1 (which my housemates use).

            If anyone can point me to how to run some network tests, I'll gladly do it and post the results.

            Overall, the barebones unit has more depth than my old Atom D525's M150 chassis, by a few inches, so that could be a consideration for some people, but it's not a dealbreaker for me.

            how did you install, i have got my box here, but when i try to install it is only finding the 1st lan port, hope you can help!!!!

            i used the memstick img is that correct ? pfSense-memstick-2.2.4-RELEASE-amd64.img

            Andy.

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            • L
              LizardJM
              last edited by

              First, been using pfSense since it first forked off of M0n0wall (started with M0n0) - great piece of software!

              Ok, so we tried to install pfSense 2.2.4 on one of these (JBC200F9N-2930-B), but with a 32Gig mSATA drive.  Installed fine, but will not warm reboot.  Cold boot works fine, but if you reboot from the console or the webGUI, it comes up and cannot find the drive (along the lines of 'No boot device - replace drive and try again').  Powering down, and then back on, and it boots just fine.  Reinstalled a couple of times - no change.  Replaced mSATA with a regular 120GB SSD, and it works fine - warm reboots without any issues.  With the mSATA, tried tweaking a number of settings in the BIOS - disabled other SATA port, disabled USB Mass Storage settings, disabled uefi - no help… Any thoughts?

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              • L
                LizardJM
                last edited by

                So, figured out the issue with the mSATA drive.  Turns out that the BIOS defaults to 'Gen1' for the mSATA speed setting.  Setting this to 'Gen1' seems to have fixed the issue (that is, pfSense 2.2.4 will now do a warm reboot correctly).  The mSATA drive in question (came with the box) is a SanDisk SD6SF1 32GB drive.  Seems to be some sort of timing or reset issue during a warm reboot.  I also found that the pfSense boot loader runs a little faster with the following BIOS settings (no serious testing here, mostly perception, but the boot loader seemed to pause a few times with these at default settings):

                All of the various Video size (memory, aperture, etc) settings:  minimum settings
                IGD Turbo:  Disabled

                I'm guessing that this SanDisk mSATA is not a Gen2 drive…

                And, yes, the NIC sequence is a bit strange - from left to right:  igb0, em0, em2, em3, em1

                Hope this helps someone else - these seem like nice boxes for pfsense...

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                • L
                  LizardJM
                  last edited by

                  Well, one more update on this mSATA issue.  Not totally happy yet as it turns out.  The box will warm reboot consistently now, but it is quite slow, with a lot of long pauses early in the boot process.  Much slower than booting from a USB 2.0 stick (!).  Might do some more research on the FreeBSD forums, as once it starts loading the pfSense config, it is nice and fast with no pauses, so may be more of a FreeBSD issue with this box/drive combo.  However, for now, for these two, we are going to revert to a couple of Crucial 120GB BX100 SSDs…

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                  • L
                    lanlubber
                    last edited by

                    Hi thanks for the helpful information.  I've recently bought the same Jetway and I'm running into the same issues as you.  Have you identified what might be causing the issue with using msata?  Thanks

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                    • L
                      lanlubber
                      last edited by

                      Ok, it looks like changing the SATA mode from AHCI to IDE solved the issue.

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                      • ?
                        Guest
                        last edited by

                        Ok, it looks like changing the SATA mode from AHCI to IDE solved the issue.

                        Thank you good to know.

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