Watchguard Firebox M400/M500

stephenw10

Read about its development here if you're interested:
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/29470/as-good-as-solved-watchguard-firebox-arm-disarm-led

Steve

pglover19

Is the SFP ports on the M400 1 or 10g?

stephenw10

They are 1G

ghengis5

@eisenb11 How is the CPU/ram temperature with the less powerful fans? The Noctua don't push anywhere near the amount of air the Sunon.

eisenb11

@ghengis5 I'm very happy with the thermals so far.

I have the M400 in the second top spot of a full (and hot) 22U rack in my office. Ambient office temp is in the low 70s F. When I last checked, the M400 was running at 27.9 C (~ 82 F), I believe.

The only thermal-specific changes that I made was the Noctua fans and I switched the TIM to Arctic Ceramique when I replaced the CPU.

stephenw10

The sunon fans run waaay faster than required. I have the lowest speed set far lower, they are very quiet at idle, and the CPU temp stays cool. I have no doubt the Noctua fans are more than adequate. The cooling solution in that chassis was designed for higher TDP CPUs.

Steve

ghengis5

@stephenw10 I have the i3-4130 is 54 TDP. Not sure if the fans will cool the CPU...

stephenw10

They will. That's only very slightly higher than the standard CPU. But bare in mind that is the maximum power dissipation required. It's given so that system designers can use an appropriate cooling system. The CPU will be using only a fraction of that power most of the time. The entire system uses a lot less that 54W most of the time unless the CPU is worked hard.

Steve

eisenb11

This post is deleted!

eisenb11

@scorch95 said in Watchguard Firebox M400:

I recently found my m400 has issues doing reboots. It seems to hang at the end of the shutdown and never actually restarts. It can perform a halt correctly just not a reboot. Anyone else have this issue?

I can confirm that I'm having this issue as well when I select "Reboot" from the Diagnostics -> Reboot GUI option.

The system appears to hang, so I need to turn it off (hold the power button for a few seconds) and turn it back on. Happens 100% of the time.

I'm on the latest release version: 2.4.4

Minor annoyance, but would be neat if anyone knows how to fix this?

stephenw10

It's usually some ACPI issue when that happens. Did it happen with the default CPU?

Steve

eisenb11

@stephenw10 said in Watchguard Firebox M400:

It's usually some ACPI issue when that happens. Did it happen with the default CPU?

Steve

I rebooted it once from the serial console without issue when I did the install. Didn't try the GUI option because I shut it down once I had it configured.

Then it stayed off until I put it in service after the CPU swap.

Edit -

Actually in hindsight, I think I did reboot it once from the GUI with the original CPU without issue.

stephenw10

Reboots no problem here with the original Celeron. I wouldn't actually expect a CPU swap to cause that really. Maybe reset the CMOS to be sure you haven't picked up some odd setting.

Steve

eisenb11

@stephenw10 said in Watchguard Firebox M400:

Reboots no problem here with the original Celeron. I wouldn't actually expect a CPU swap to cause that really. Maybe reset the CMOS to be sure you haven't picked up some odd setting.

Steve

Perhaps it more likely has to do with the storage swap?

I believe that Scorch and I both have our systems booting from SSD. I have no CF card loaded into the reader.

stephenw10

Could be. I'm running from CF and hence have no SWAP and have /var and /tmp as RAM drives.

Steve

eisenb11

@stephenw10 is there a shutdown option via the GUI? I could just as easily use that when I want to reboot and then just press the power button. Or just ssh in and halt?

It’s a workaround but, realistically, rebooting is a rare occasion.

Thanks

stephenw10

Yup, Diag > Halt System.

You can also do a graceful shutdown using the button. It works as an ACPI power button.

Steve

eisenb11

@stephenw10 Awesome, thanks!

zanthos

Hi there,
I recently purchased a used M400.

What about upgrading to a Intel Xeon E3-1285L v3 3.1GHz?
If the microcode in the BIOS should be missing, I guess it could be injected and thus enabled…

Any other suggested CPU upgrade?

stephenw10

Might work. The Lanner unit it's based on lists i3, i5 and i7 only. They don't list Celeron though so....

Steve