Watchguard Firebox M400/M500
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First consider that flashing the BIOS is potentially risky. Do you actually need to flash it?
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@stephenw10 it still has the bios that came with it and i want to be able to stop it from useing 40w constanly
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This is what I did: https://forum.netgate.com/post/836153
Others have done it using an external SPI programmer.
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So ive managed to get pfsense up, ive replaced the ram with 2 sticks of Kingston PC3-12800E, and changed the fans, Im looking to change the proc, could someone confirm working procs
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@MathewPope
i3-4130T + 8GB Ram without any problems. Has enough power for 1Gbit fiber in combination with pfblockerng, two subnets, tailscale, ntopng.
CPU load is 11% average. -
Does it reboot correctly with that CPU?
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@stephenw10
Yes, it does. -
Hi all,
I thought I would finally look into upgrading the BIOS on my unit, I have FREEDOS on a CF card which is booted and the output is showing in Putty. The problem is I cannot type anything. I seem to recall I had this problem in the past either with an XTM5 or the old X750e.
The last time I just hard coded the BIOS commands and hoped for the best. Any suggestions? I did wonder if it was Putty.
Any other free Windows Terminal emulators worth trying?
Thanks
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@dlucas46 I’ve always preferred Tera Term over putty for anything involving a serial port.
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@MathewPope M400 running here with an i5-4590T and 4GB of RAM. Like some other processors swaps, this one does not reboot correctly.
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No joy with Tera Term. Same behaviour.
I am using the autoexec bat with the Bios file. Speed 9600 baud 8, 1 Parity None Flow Control Xon/Xoff
Anybody else seen this behaviour? I might try a different COM port and see if that makes any difference.
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@dlucas46 Did you edit the autoexec to change the keyboard language to English per the instructions? I believe that, as downloaded, it's set up for German or something.
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It could be the terminal not reflecting what you type. Or the cable might not have Tx connected. Are you able to type things into the BIOS setup as expected?
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@stephenw10 said in Watchguard Firebox M400/M500:
It could be the terminal not reflecting what you type. Or the cable might not have Tx connected. Are you able to type things into the BIOS setup as expected?
Not flashed the BIOS yet, so no console output.
The cable works fine if I boot the pfsense install image and the install works fine.
This must be freedos specific
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@dlucas46 I ran into similar problems last time when I flashed my 2nd M400. The 1st one I flashed went without a hitch following the instructions. If I remember right, I ended up having to set the BAUD rate to 115200 despite the instructions saying to use a lower rate. If I did any other rate, the text on the screen looked like Chinese characters or jibberish. It was kind of scary because the "GUI" wasn't rendering properly at the higher rate - I thought I was going to end up bricking my 2nd unit.
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The terminal code in FreeDOS (and usually in the BIOS setup) is crude. It requires the additional flow control lines where as the code in pfSense does not. So it could be the cable only has three pins connected.
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I thought the Cisco branded cables were all pins connected?
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I would expect them to be.
Can you interrupt the BIOS POST to reach the password prompt? That would show you can send something.
