A Question on Network Cards, and my choice of hardware….
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Yeah, pfSense in my experience is almost hardware agnostic in this sense. I've pulled a harddrive with pfSense installed on it from one machine and plugged it into another machine that shared 0 common components and it worked great.
In order to switch out your NIC, you'll just have to reassign the interfaces when you boot back up. It will prompt you in the console on boot, so plug a monitor into it when you do the swap.
EDIT: there is an issue (I believe it's specific to a certain version of pfSense in specific configurations) where the reboot will appear to hang when reinstalling packages. I don't think that it applied to what you are doing, but if it does look like your system is hanging while installing packages just walk away and make a cup of coffee, it rectifies itself after ~20 minutes.
Again, I don't think this applies to what you're describing but I thought I'd mention it since it's a really easy fix but can be very frustrating if you don't know to just give it time. Sorry to be so ambiguous.
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Thanks that is just what I wanted to read..!
Also…..
Just read about the dual core ASRock J3355B-ITX 2DDR3(SOD)/2S3/GL M-ITX Motherboard.
Doesn't matter about being dual core for my needs and it is ITX and has a full size PCI-e slot.
Excellent as I would prefer the small firm factor albeit i would need to buy SO-DIMMS.
Thanks again
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Yeah those are great boards, I have one for an HTPC and have tested it out on pfSense with great results.
If you'd rather buy RAM than have a larger board then I think it would be great for you.
For your needs, with an i340 you could even virtualize it with ESXi and run pfSense and an HTPC on any of the Apollo Lake boards! ;)
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Although it would be "down the road" the virtualization was something that I knew a i340 could offer me.
Whilst we do enjoy our Odroid C2 for our media needs I can appreciate what virtualization could offer with that ITX board and i340.Thanks yet again.
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ASRock J3355B-ITX 2DDR3(SOD)/2S3/GL M-ITX Motherboard.
Thermaltake Core V1 Mini ITX Cube Case
Crucial 8 GB Kit (4 GB x 2) DDR3L 1866 MT/s (PC3L-12800) SODIMM 204-Pin Memory
Ordered
Thanks again
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Congratulations, please let us know how it works out for you and ask any questions you may have about configuration!
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My hardware arrived and with what I had already the build includes….
ITX cube case, didn't use the case fan.
ASRock J3455M Apollo Lake 2xD3/2xS3/G M-ATX
8GB SO-DIMM memory, way too much I know.
Old SSD drive
Be-Quiet 80+ Gold 500w PSU, from an old build.
i340 T2 Intel dual port LAN card from eBay.It took me a while to figure out that pfsense would not boot from the USB drive as the BIOS is in UEFI mode and so compatibility mode needs to be enabled. You would not believe how many times I created several sticks to find that one out...!
Install was uneventful, in other words it worked....! All connected now with my PPPoE connection and DHCP enabled for the LAN.
My R7000 is now in AP mode for wireless.
The box is very very quiet. I can't even hear a PSU fan, if it is running. As there are no other fans it should be as near silent as possible. It is in a well ventilated area.
My next major challenge will be.....
https://airvpn.org/topic/17444-how-to-set-up-pfsense-23-for-airvpn/#entry40138
how to set up pfsense to use as a client for my AirVPN connection.
I have read the above guide and I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment....!
As yet I'm continuing to use their desktop client for just my PC to use the VPN connection, hopefully that might improve one day...!
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Just keep asking questions here! The forum is here to mitigate feeling of being overwhelmed. I can't help with specifically AirVPN, but I'm sure others can!
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Thanks :)
As you have one of those motherboards, I have asked this in the Asrock forums but not got a response as yet….
Before installing pfsense I decided to let it boot to the SSD I had fitted, it happened to have a Windows 10 x64 build installed. All went well.
This allowed me to test the board out beyond what I would otherwise know by using pfsense.
What I noticed was if I used CPU-Z and CPU-Temp I could stress the CPU load to 100% and this would raise the CPU frequency to 2400mhz, 24x100.
But as this CPU is rated by Asrock to be 2500mhz I assumed I would have seen 25x100 to equate that maximum speed...?
Have you noticed this...?
Thanks
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My hardware arrived and with what I had already the build includes….
ASRock J3455M Apollo Lake 2xD3/2xS3/G M-ATX
this CPU is rated by Asrock to be 2500mhz
IDK if ASRock mistyped something somewhere but Intel is the place to go for CPU specs,
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J3455 is 1.5GHz burst to 2.3GHz
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J3355 is 2.0GHz burst to 2.5GHz
Did you get a J3355?
Either way, when you're speccing out your system use the base frequency to evaluate the kind of performance you can get.
Burst frequency will only happen when the conditions are right and only for a short period.
If you keep your computer in a hot room you might never see much of any bursting happening because the CPU doesn't have the thermal overhead for it.
If you were to keep the computer in an ice cold room or use excellent cooling on it you would see it hitting its full burst frequency a lot because it would have so much thermal overhead. -
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My hardware arrived and with what I had already the build includes….
ASRock J3455M Apollo Lake 2xD3/2xS3/G M-ATX
this CPU is rated by Asrock to be 2500mhz
IDK if ASRock mistyped something somewhere but Intel is the place to go for CPU specs,
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J3455 is 1.5GHz burst to 2.3GHz
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J3355 is 2.0GHz burst to 2.5GHz
Did you get a J3355?
Either way, when you're speccing out your system use the base frequency to evaluate the kind of performance you can get.
Burst frequency will only happen when the conditions are right and only for a short period.
If you keep your computer in a hot room you might never see much of any bursting happening because the CPU doesn't have the thermal overhead for it.
If you were to keep the computer in an ice cold room or use excellent cooling on it you would see it hitting its full burst frequency a lot because it would have so much thermal overhead.sorry I did not explain it well enough….
I did get the J335 and it is noted as 2Ghz but its burst rate should be up to 2.5Ghz, as you also noted :)
But when I stressed it I then find it will show as 2.4Ghz and CPU-Temp will show it as 100x24.
This should show as 2.5Ghz and 25x100 if it was to meet the spec of 2.5Ghz. The CPU was cool and not being throttled at the time due to heat.
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Yeah I don't know why it wouldn't hit the top burst frequency.
There is probably a whole set of criteria for how Intel handles turbo boost and I don't know what it is.
It also might be a windows thing? I really don't know. -
Yeah I don't know why it wouldn't hit the top burst frequency.
There is probably a whole set of criteria for how Intel handles turbo boost and I don't know what it is.
It also might be a windows thing? I really don't know.No worries and many thanks
The point that CPU-Temp was able to show the multiplier at 24 and thus only 2.4Ghz is something set by Asrock, there is no manual override with this board for the clock frequency. I'm hoping that they will come back to me on that one within their forums and I've also contacted an Asrock rep.
If I get a reply from either I'll post back here
As a side note my AirVPN connection is now up and going.
But somewhere I'll have to figure out why the firewall within pfsense is blocking my Usenet clients from connecting on ports 119 and ports 563.
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I did get the J335 and it is noted as 2Ghz but its burst rate should be up to 2.5Ghz, as you also noted :)
But when I stressed it I then find it will show as 2.4Ghz and CPU-Temp will show it as 100x24.
This should show as 2.5Ghz and 25x100 if it was to meet the spec of 2.5Ghz. The CPU was cool and not being throttled at the time due to heat.
Did you stress it with a single thread or multiple? It's my understanding that the max boost speed would only apply if a single core is stressed, and then only if power and thermal limits allow it. If it's boosting to 2.4GHz on all cores then I'd say you're doing pretty well.
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Point taken about the cores.
Considering that I have managed to get pfsense working now with my VPN connection and at around 75Mb the CPU is showing around 20% load all seems good.
Just to satisfy my curiosity it would be interesting what Asrock will have to say. I still suspect that it is the BIOS limiting the CPU to a 24x multiplier. Which could be for thermal reasons due to the passive cooler fitted.
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my Asrock J3455-ITX is doing the same as your J3355, during multicore stress testing in prime95.
it should hit 2.3GHz, but I'm only seeing 2.2GHz (multiplier x22)
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That's interesting. I wonder if it is a Asrock / BIOS means of thermal or stability control as I would doubt that it would be an Intel limitation.
Asus also use some of these chips in similar boards but I haven't read about their limitations.They have not replied here….
http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=4787
... When I asked that question.
I do feel kinda cheated...! Lol
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It probably has something to do with what whosmatt mentioned. I very much doubt that a huge supplier (or any supplier) like ASRock is crippling hardware secretly.
This is probably just not the right way to test that.
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It looks like a moderator did answer you over there:
If we check the specifications of your board's J3355 processor, we find that 2.5GHz is what Intel calls the "Burst Frequency".
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/processors/celeron/j3355.html
Burst Frequency is similar to a Turbo speed of other Intel processors. The Turbo and Burst frequency/speed is not the maximum standard processor speed. Turbo speeds occur only on a subset of the processor cores under certain conditions and situations. The same is true for the Burst Frequency. Turbo and Burst speeds are not maintained on a continuous basis.
When stress testing an Intel processor with the Turbo feature, the maximum speed all the cores will achieve will be the maximum specified frequency, which is not the Turbo frequency. The same is true for the Burst frequency.
In the case of the J3455-ITX board, and its J3455 processor, the Burst Frequency is 2.3GHz:
http://ark.intel.com/products/95594/Intel-Celeron-Processor-J3455-2M-Cache-up-to-2_3-GHz
So this one is on Intel, or a slight misunderstanding of the specifications of these processors.
Similar response to what you got over here.
Especially since two people are seeing the same result on different CPUs, almost certainly either a misunderstanding of the technology, an error in testing method or both.
Highly unlikely (read, it isn't) a secret nerf from Intel or ASRock.Burst does not = Turbo Boost, but there isn't any clear paper explaining it by Intel (that I've found).
https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Atom-Z3000-Series-Review-Bay-Trail-and-Silvermont-Arrive/Intel-Burst-and-Ac -
I think that it is more of how the board was advertised at Amazon which, for me, started the confusion….
ASRock J3355B-ITX J3355 2DDR3(SOD)/2S3/GL M-ITX ASRock Super Alloy Intel Dual-Core Processor J3355 (up to 2.5 GHz)
And in the motherboard spec at Amazon......
Processor Speed 2.5 GHz
Which should be amended.
ASRock J3355B-ITX 2DDR3(SOD)/2S3/GL M-ITX Motherboard - Grey
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01M9EXCYB/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_0556ybD5VSKG1
At least we know.