Help with Install & setup
-
I have a few questions and I apologize in advance but I am rather new and I am trying to learn as I go.
I did manage to get pfSense installed and set up. However I noticed a constant 20% cpu load even at idle. I did some research and found out that there was an irq 16 em0? Sucking up all my cpu cycles. Possibly related to a usb port? I read that I should try to disable what I can in bios to free up resources. However to my dismay, I couldn't access my bios!? F2 gets me into bios but I don't even get a bios splash screen anymore upon bootup. How do I get into my bios now?
Also what is bootblock? and what is packet mode? Does this have anything to do with my problem? Do I have to install bootblock? It's late, I got frustrated and I reformatted and reinstalled and still had the same issue. I need to get into my bios. ???
System specs:
Intel Pentium Dual Core G2030
Intel thin mini-Itx DQ77KB
Kingston Digital 2-Inch 30GB SSDNow mS200 mSATA
Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3L 1600 (PC3L 12800)
Antec Mini-ITX Case ISK110-VESA -
I need to get into my bios. ???
The OS installed has no effect on whether or not you can access your BIOS, since BIOS access happens before the OS has even booted up. In other words, pfSense isn't responsible for you not being able to get into your BIOS.
I did manage to get pfSense installed and set up. However I noticed a constant 20% cpu load even at idle.
You probably have some funky network card that is causing a lot of interrupts to the CPU. Try playing with the settings at System - Advanced - Networking - Network Interfaces.
-
The OS installed has no effect on whether or not you can access your BIOS, since BIOS access happens before the OS has even booted up.
That's the way that I understood it. So then why can't I get into BIOS? I press F2 at boot and all I get on the screen is "^2" and it continues to load pfSense
-
No idea. Bad keyboard? Disconnected keyboard? Poorly-connected keyboard? A stuck key perhaps? You're not pressing F2 at the exact right time as some systems are picky like that? Who knows.
-
@KOM:
No idea. Bad keyboard? Disconnected keyboard? Poorly-connected keyboard? A stuck key perhaps? You're not pressing F2 at the exact right time as some systems are picky like that? Who knows.
Well for the hell of it I made a bootable dos usb stick. Booted with that and the motherboard splash screen came up and I was able to enter the bios. Seems very strange? I'll try to dig into it further later. I disabled everything that I wouldnt be using but still am at a constant 20% cpu load and I'm not sure what may be causing it.
As far as the network settings the only 2 things that are checked are: Hardware TCP Segmentation Offloading and Hardware Large Receive Offloading.
$ top -SH last pid: 49490; load averages: 0.14, 0.32, 0.27 up 0+00:23:10 15:21:11 103 processes: 3 running, 83 sleeping, 17 waiting Mem: 59M Active, 34M Inact, 168M Wired, 68M Buf, 7557M Free Swap: 1024M Total, 1024M Free PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE C TIME WCPU COMMAND 11 root 155 ki31 0K 32K RUN 1 22:44 100.00% idle{idle: cpu1} 11 root 155 ki31 0K 32K RUN 0 17:26 59.67% idle{idle: cpu0} 12 root -88 - 0K 272K WAIT 0 5:31 43.90% intr{irq16: ehci0} 29531 root 20 0 224M 42028K piperd 0 0:00 0.20% php-fpm 0 root -16 0 0K 224K swapin 0 0:41 0.00% kernel{swapper} 23771 root 20 0 14540K 2252K select 1 0:01 0.00% radvd 12 root -60 - 0K 272K WAIT 0 0:01 0.00% intr{swi4: clock} 5 root -16 - 0K 16K pftm 1 0:00 0.00% pf purge 12 root -92 - 0K 272K WAIT 0 0:00 0.00% intr{irq266: em1:rx 0} 15 root -16 - 0K 16K - 0 0:00 0.00% rand_harvestq 12 root -72 - 0K 272K WAIT 0 0:00 0.00% intr{swi1: netisr 0} 97116 unbound 20 0 42932K 14600K kqread 0 0:00 0.00% unbound{unbound} 44609 root 20 0 14664K 2328K select 1 0:00 0.00% syslogd 68069 root 20 0 12464K 2296K select 1 0:00 0.00% apinger 37262 root 20 0 28176K 18060K select 0 0:00 0.00% ntpd{ntpd} 97116 unbound 20 0 42932K 14600K kqread 1 0:00 0.00% unbound{unbound} 0 root -92 0 0K 224K - 1 0:00 0.00% kernel{em0 que} 12 root -88 - 0K 272K WAIT 1 0:00 0.00% intr{irq269: ahci0}$ vmstat -i interrupt total rate irq16: ehci0 203403484 152934 irq23: ehci1 2689 2 cpu0:timer 1499391 1127 irq264: xhci0 311 0 irq265: em0 6791 5 irq266: em1:rx 0 21816 16 irq267: em1:tx 0 8395 6 irq268: em1:link 4 0 irq269: ahci0 4391 3 cpu1:timer 35149 26 Total 204982421 154122 -
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=40462.0
Check that thread. It's long, old, and lots of suggestions.
-
Beta me to it.
irq16: ehci0
Turn off EHCI in BIOS if you can, or disable your USB stuff and then try. Seems to be a FreeBSD issue with some specific motherboards/chipsets.
-
Im looking through the thread now tim.mcmanus thank you.
If I disable USB then how am I going to use my usb keyboard and mouse? I dont think my bios has any options to disable EHCI. I can only disable USB
-
start by removing the mouse (it isnt of any use when dealing with pfsense)
try a different keyboard to see if that makes any difference (as basic as possible) -
start by removing the mouse (it isnt of any use when dealing with pfsense)
try a different keyboard to see if that makes any difference (as basic as possible)I unplugged both the keyboard and mouse and did a reboot. Seemed to work. CPU usage is at 0% idle. Ill try connecting the keyboard and doing a reboot and see what happens.
EDIT:
Plugged keyboard back in without the mouse.CPU usage at 0%.
$ vmstat -i interrupt total rate irq16: ehci0 345 1 irq23: ehci1 458 2 cpu0:timer 236204 1124 irq264: xhci0 50 0 irq265: em0 391 1 irq266: em1:rx 0 2824 13 irq267: em1:tx 0 664 3 irq268: em1:link 1 0 irq269: ahci0 2189 10 cpu1:timer 2310 11 Total 245436 1168Thank you guys! Hopefully the issue doesn't return. Now ill spend my time tinkering around.
