Watchguard Firebox X Peak platform

fastcon68

I have gotten the n series driver for the Tenda 311U. what is the best way to install this new driver?

I just got my new used 40 gb hard drive for my x6000. what it the procedure for doing the install. I currently have it connected to a USB converter.

Last but not least here is the mbmon data:
Temp.= 35.0, 18.0, 41.5; Rot.= 21774, 22500, 21093
Vcore = 1.50, 1.92; Volt. = 3.33, 5.08, 12.16, -12.04, -0.67

Can somebody explain the values? This would be perfect to made into widget for the home page.

I have item left to do and that is the arm/disarm light. The x6000 is a awesome piece of technology. Stephen10 was talking about 2 different add on cards. what are the and what do they do?
RC

wallabybob

@fastcon68:

I have gotten the n series driver for the Tenda 311U. what is the best way to install this new driver?

There is a driver for the Tenda W311U in snapshot builds of pfSense 2.0.

stephenw10

@fastcon68:

I just got my new used 40 gb hard drive for my x6000. what it the procedure for doing the install.

The easiest way to do this probably to put the drive in a laptop then boot the laptop from the pfSense install cd and install from there.

@fastcon68:

Last but not least here is the mbmon data:
Temp.= 35.0, 18.0, 41.5; Rot.= 21774, 22500, 21093
Vcore = 1.50, 1.92; Volt. = 3.33, 5.08, 12.16, -12.04, -0.67

Can somebody explain the values? This would be perfect to made into widget for the home page.

I've never been completely sure about this, the middle temp value probably an unconnected sensor. I think the last value is CPU and the first value is probably the chipset.

@fastcon68:

Stephen10 was talking about 2 different add on cards. what are the and what do they do?

There are no add on cards for the X-Peak as far as I know. The only expansion possibility is the mini-PCI slot. There is an expansion card for the X-E series, the 'tacoma' module, which adds advanced encryption for VPNs. It doesn't work in pfSense.

Steve

fastcon68

I just order a disk caddy for my 2.5 - 40 GB hard drive. I reading through the forum on installing to a HD. The problem that I have is I only have is, That I do not have a laptop that I can put the hard drive in to install PFsense.

The caddy came from England, it should be here this upcomming weekend. I have is a USB to IDE converter. I would like to get the hard drive prepared before it comes in.

What options do I have. Does anybody have a base image that is 40GB in size that I could install on my HD.

Thanks
RC

mmiller

I tried to upgrade my memory to 2 Gigabytes last night in my X8000. I figured I would max it out and ran into a roadblock. When I installed the new memory all it would do it make a beeping sounds. Nothing would come up on the LCD screen. What I ordered was DDR1 400 PC3200 ECC. Can anyone provide me with a type of DD1 400 with or with out ECC. I really would prefer ECC though. An I guess if anyone else has the same type of ram maybe they can test as well. I didn't think to download the hardware guide to try and reset the BIOS via the jumper. Do you think that might be my issue the BIOS expects 512 megs. I also didn't see the VGA connector on the X8000. I had thought the 2x8 2mm pitch IDC 16 connector was on the X8000.

stephenw10

Hmm disappointing. :(

Doesn't the original P4 2.8GHz cpu run with a 533 FSB?
The bios behaves just as a standard desktop bios as far as ram settings are concerned. I'd be very surprised if it was locked at 512MB, though I haven't tried it. I don't think the standard ram is ECC.
I have seen some bioses that through out an error when you change the ram. It could be saying something you can't see.
The 2mm pitch VGA header is only in the X-e box as you have found. I don't beleive the X-Peak has any vga hardware at all.

Steve

mmiller

That is very disappointing. I'm going to continue on my quest to get more ram for the X8000. Maybe I will have a talk with the mother board manufacturer. I was able to get a 4 gig CF card to boot with out making any changes to the BIOS settings. Well I can't really make any changes to the BIOS. It would be nice to see the BIOS screen with out flashing the current BIOS.

charlie0440

@stephenw10:

I trying to buy a x8000 and have read the whole thread. Thanks for all the work steve.

What is the best way to integrate Wifi into the firebox? I can see you have an antenna, what are the options ie USB or minipci? Model number of working devices would be appreciated. I don't mind modding the case but I have never done any soldering so hopefully none is needed.

mmiller

I have a x8000 and your only option is the minipci slot. There is only one USB slot and it's a v1.0 or 1.1 not v2.0 USB. You could try usb but get less than the 12 megabits of bandwidth you would be expecting.

charlie0440

So will this one work: Atheros AR5213A AR5004G Super G 108 Mbps Mini PCI Card.

How do you attach an antenna to a minipci?

stephenw10

That should work ok although there are issues with the driver. I get the 'stuck beacon' report in the logs a lot if I'm on a busy channel.
You need to use a short adapter cable to connect to the minipci card known as a 'pigtail'. I recovered the antenna and cable from an old access point.

Steve

charlie0440

Thanks. Im gonna try this card: Atheros AR5008 (Model: AR5BMB-0072TA) plus it comes with the pigtail cables.

My x8000 should arrive in the next few days.

stephenw10: Noise is my concern I have a X700 sat here next to me and its LOUD. Do I need to replace the processor in the X8000 or can I leave the stock processor in and just change the heatsink fan. I read about your pin mod

stephenw10

The standard fans are loud!. The standard CPU, 2.8GHz P4, is a hot chip with a 70w TDP. Also it has no power saving features which means it runs hot even though you almost certainly won't be using most of it's processing capacity.
There are loads of compatible processors available for almost nothing that use less Watts. It's worth trying something cooler if you are fitting slower fans. Although I ran the original CPU and it wasn't running too hot with slower fans but I wasn't stressing it.

Steve

sevilla

Im using X1250e and bought a 4GB CF and tried to install it pfsense 2.0. I cant get signal from console. Its appears the CF isnt recognized. I tried from 512 CF with the same version (512MB version) and all works well.

Any idea?

stephenw10

The X1250e is not the X-peak platform, it's X-e a later model.
It's the same hardware as the x550e, x750e etc.

In order to boot from a CF card larger than 256MB you need to make some adjustments in the bios.
See the x550e thread, here, for a huge ammount of information!

Steve

WGFX5000

Watchguard Firebox X5000 Motherboard Diagnostic LED: D3 and D4 Green, D5 Red
LCD Flashing But Nothing On It.
System Can't Boot.

What's the problem of the hardware?Please Help

stephenw10

Hmm, it's been a while since I took the cover off mine but I don't remember it having any diagnostic LEDs.
Are you sure you don't have an X5500e?
I'll look tomorrow.

Steve

Edit: Wait are they next to the CF card?

WGFX5000

Model:X5000

LED.jpg_thumb

![Motherboard Model.jpg_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/Motherboard Model.jpg_thumb)
![Motherboard Model.jpg](/public/imported_attachments/1/Motherboard Model.jpg)

shanon

Thanks Steve for your response on the X700 thread.

I haven't made any further progress on my issue with the X8000 at this stage, but I have been ordering up some diagnostic equipment (POST diagnostic card, MINI PCI VGA adapter. Also a flash programmer / spare chips soon).

I have nil BIOS development experience, but I'm certainly willing to give it a go, should I get some spare time. I've had a look at coreboot (one of the open source BIOS firmware efforts) and at first blush there seems to be a better-than-even chance that I could get something out of it. There's also serial console redirection for most embedded SuperIO chipsets!

I don't expect that the issue will be with the size of the bootable partition or the size of the CF card, however that's something I'd like to experiment with further.

I had also pondered doing a firmware upgrade from the GUI… I'll likely give that a go over this coming weekend on a spare CF card.

I've also compared sector 0 between the original WG installation, v1.2.3RC1 and newer versions. There's not much evident yet -- all end with the MBR signature 0x55AA. There are three different sets of boot code, and different partition layouts. Perhaps the only thing that could be said for the non-working examples at the moment is that the first primary partition is the bootable one, and partitions start on head # > 0. I haven't de-compiled the code yet, but I'm wondering if the early stages of each bootloader may be using different CHS or LBA addressing?

Final piece of speculation for tonight: if I remember correctly, before I put back the lid, the label indicated that my BIOS was v1.1. I think I've seen a label with v1.2 photographed on this forum... perhaps leading credence to a theory that there are different BIOS firmware versions in the wild with slightly different defaults?

stephenw10

The BIOS in the Watchguard box is far more complex than a standard bios. However most of the extra functionality it provides is not necessary to run pfSense.
For example the Watchguard BIOS:

Has code to drive the LCD and read the keypad.
Can choose to boot different things depending on the keypad status
Has a complete copy of RedBoot built into it for restoring the OS remotely.

Clearly none of that is required for pfSense.
I looked at CoreBoot a few times but without external eprom equipment it looked too risky.
I don't think the serial port uses the SuperIO chip (though there are ports on that) it's using the built in ports on the ICH chip 6300ESB. Looking at a datasheet I could be wrong.

Just having two different bios versions would be interesting.
What is yours listed as?
You can see in the first post here that mine is 10/21/2004.

Steve

Edit: Actually I think you're right, it's on the SuperIO chip:


sio0 at port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on isa0
sio0: type 16550A, console

I must be getting confused with the X-e box. ::)