PC Engines apu2 experiences

Qinn

@soder said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

after the firmware upgrade is completed, YOU MUST SWITCH THE APU OFF completely. E.g. power it off! It was earlier not written very clearly, but fortunately the Coreboot firmware page for APU (pcengines.github.io) has been updated to explain this better: at the end of the successful firmware update, you must turn the hardware off completely to clear some leftover registers in the system, that cannot be cleared via software-initiated restart. If you don't do this, the result is not guaranteed.

Thanks for the info and powering off after a firmware update I did not know ! Can you point out to me were this is written, on their site, as I can't seem to locate it.

Thanks and Cheers Qinn

psp

Thanks @soder, your report is really appreciated. I've still have some of these APU2 running in HA for over 700 days in a datacenter without any issues. These devices are quite good cheap solutions for datalines up to 100 Mbps.

Qinn

@psp said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

Thanks @soder, your report is really appreciated. I've still have some of these APU2 running in HA for over 700 days in a datacenter without any issues. These devices are quite good cheap solutions for datalines up to 100 Mbps.

What kinda hardware would you recommend for higher speeds, than 100Mbps?

psp

@Qinn
Any Intel Atom E3940 or (better) C3558 based boards for up to 1Gbps.

logan5247

@Qinn, check out this Github page.

https://github.com/pcengines/apu2-documentation/blob/master/docs/firmware_flashing.md#corebootrom-flashing

fireodo

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

Hardeware: APU2C4 16gb mSATA SSD - Bios: Coreboot Mainline Version 4.10.0.0 - Firmware: Latest-stable-pfSense (amd64)

May I ask you if you use the apuled.ko kernel module to drive the 3 Front-LEDs and if so is this still working after update to the mainline coreboot bios?

Thank you,
fireodo

logan5247

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@psp said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

Thanks @soder, your report is really appreciated. I've still have some of these APU2 running in HA for over 700 days in a datacenter without any issues. These devices are quite good cheap solutions for datalines up to 100 Mbps.

What kinda hardware would you recommend for higher speeds, than 100Mbps?

Supposedly the APU2 is pretty decent out-of-box up to 600Mbps, but can be tweaked to run at 1Gbps.
https://teklager.se/en/knowledge-base/apu2-1-gigabit-throughput-pfsense/

Stewart

@logan5247
So it's just adding

hw.igb.rx_process_limit="-1"
hw.igb.tx_process_limit="-1"

that does the trick? I wonder what those actually do. Don't limit what? Isn't it a cpu cap anyway? I'll have to try those out and see what I get. I usually tell people they are good for 500Mbps and most of the time they can with Suricata, Squid, and pfBlocker on. Not a lot of wiggle room, though. Not sure if these would help boost that number or not but it sure would be nice to be able to hit 1Gbps speeds with these boxes. I wonder if there is development on a more powerful model based on a Ryzen CPU but I don't know of any with a low enough TDP. These Geode's are only 6W TDP. The lowest Ryzen I've seen is 12W.

Qinn

@fireodo said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

Hardeware: APU2C4 16gb mSATA SSD - Bios: Coreboot Mainline Version 4.10.0.0 - Firmware: Latest-stable-pfSense (amd64)

May I ask you if you use the apuled.ko kernel module to drive the 3 Front-LEDs and if so is this still working after update to the mainline coreboot bios?

Thank you,
fireodo

Sorry I can't tell, as I do not use it, if you test it would be nice when you report back.

Cheers Qinn

soder

@Qinn Sure, its here:
https://pcengines.github.io/ --> Documentation -->Cold reset - document describing reset types for the platform.

leads you here: https://github.com/pcengines/apu2-documentation/blob/master/docs/cold_reset.md

After flashing new firmware it is highly recommended (sometimes even necessary) to perform a cold boot. It is not always an option for remote devices, so tests were made to find another way of forcing cold boot path in firmware. Note that this cannot guarantee that when any device on board entered an unexpected state it can be brought back to defined state without full power cycle.

fireodo

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@fireodo said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

Hardeware: APU2C4 16gb mSATA SSD - Bios: Coreboot Mainline Version 4.10.0.0 - Firmware: Latest-stable-pfSense (amd64)

May I ask you if you use the apuled.ko kernel module to drive the 3 Front-LEDs and if so is this still working after update to the mainline coreboot bios?

Thank you,
fireodo

Sorry I can't tell, as I do not use it, if you test it would be nice when you report back.

I made a test on a spare Apu2 and the apuled.ko is loading but has no effect :-( ( in /dev/led/ are only the igb0 and igb1)
Flashing back the bios 4.0.27 and everything is fine. I guess in Bios v4.10.0.0 its the "enable basic ACPI support for GPIOs" that kills the apuled function ...

Cheers,
fireodo

soder

@logan5247 if the WAN setup is set to PPPoE, you cant tweak it any further than 400-600 Mbit. I tried it in the past 1 year. Couldnt manage to overcome it. Many people tried to prove the opposite, still there was no single list of parameters under *sense that magically removed the builtin hidden slowdown component.

Veldkornet

@fireodo said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@fireodo said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

Hardeware: APU2C4 16gb mSATA SSD - Bios: Coreboot Mainline Version 4.10.0.0 - Firmware: Latest-stable-pfSense (amd64)

May I ask you if you use the apuled.ko kernel module to drive the 3 Front-LEDs and if so is this still working after update to the mainline coreboot bios?

Thank you,
fireodo

Sorry I can't tell, as I do not use it, if you test it would be nice when you report back.

I made a test on a spare Apu2 and the apuled.ko is loading but has no effect :-( ( in /dev/led/ are only the igb0 and igb1)
Flashing back the bios 4.0.27 and everything is fine. I guess in Bios v4.10.0.0 its the "enable basic ACPI support for GPIOs" that kills the apuled function ...

Cheers,
fireodo

Probably best to log it as an issue

fireodo

@Veldkornet said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

Probably best to log it as an issue

... Done ;-)

fireodo

@fireodo said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@Veldkornet said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

Probably best to log it as an issue

... Done ;-)

I got an answer from Michał Żygowski: temporary solution for now: https://github.com/pcengines/apu2-documentation/blob/master/docs/gpios.md#known-issue
for all user that uses the apuled driver.

fireodo

This post is deleted!

Qinn

New update 4.10.0.1 and the led's not working is mentioned in known issues https://pcengines.github.io/#mr-26

fireodo

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

New update 4.10.0.1 and the led's not working is mentioned in known issues https://pcengines.github.io/#mr-26

Yes, i know! Thanks anyway!

Qinn

Recently I encountered a few people that pull the power plug on the APU to revoke a "cold boot"

So just to be on the safe side:

As it is best to have "cold boot" after a bios update, the elegant way to shutdown an APU (as it has no power button) is:

Diagnostics -> Halt System

and then wait until the APU is powered down, so all led's, including the network led's, have gone down.

Qinn

I experienced something strange, after an update to bios 4.10.0.1 my internal network speeds were halved, so I went back to 4.10.0.0 and they were restored! Can anyone confirm this, as I cannot test it at the moment?