Watchguard XTM 5 Series
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I know this thread / topic is quite but I am just now getting into "flashing" an XTM 525 that I have had for years and didn't know where to begin nor really had the time. To be completely transparent, I am above average in knowledge in IT networking etc, but am definitely not up there with some of you guys. I encountered an issue while flashing and have no idea what it could be. The box powers on and that's pretty much it. Fans run like hell, full speed, never come down. The lCD is backlit and that is all. I was following a tutorial, I have actually seen it referenced here. Here is the link.
https://alpha-labs.net/2017/08/pfsense-on-watchguard/
I removed the CF Card in order to boot from the SSD's as instructed but the fans and the lcd are all I get. No serial output, nothing.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
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You should see some output on the console even if there is no boot drive installed.
It should also beep and the fans should slow down when it POSTS.
If you don't see any of that it's probably failing to POST which is usually a hardware issue. Have you added any hardware components?Steve
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Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, I swapped the cpu for an Intel E5700, put in 2 new ram modules (2gb each, non ecc), and was going to boot from 2 ssd's that have pfsense installed by another pc. Tried to boot from the ssd's and that was the 1st occurrence of the issue. I put all of the original hardware back in as well to no avail. I also put the CF card in a reader and it appeared to have been corrupted.
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Hmm, try resetting the CMOS. Just pull the battery if the jumper is not obvious.
I assume it did boot correctly before you swapped in the CPU and RAM?
The CF card still had the WG OS on it?
The E8400 is better CPU choice IMO. As long as your RAM will run at 1333. 3x the L2 cache of the Pentium E5700. Or it will run a Core2Quad if you need it.
Steve
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Sorry it's been so long. I abandoned the project for a little bit due to work and life circumstances. I am starting to think I followed a botched tutorial or somehow missed something and botched it myself. I have since acquired another 5 series and have it running pfsense without any bios mods. On the previous box, discussed in my last comm, I had installed 2 ssd's, updated RAM, and the E3400 CPU. When I traced back everything I did, nothing stood out as a root cause of this issue. I have tested the box with another power supply and get the same reponse. Fans sound like they're going to lift off, all leds near the fans and cpu are illuminated. Is it possible for BIOS to have been wiped somehow? I am willing to purchase the appropriate kit/s and attempt to flash the bios via spi.
Regards
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It's possible the BIOS was damaged but unlikely.
It's probably cheaper to get a different XTM5 than SPI flash interface so it depends why you're doing this.
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Just a learning experience more than anything really. I got the 1st box for free from a previous employer when they upgraded their network. IT guy told me to "Have at it" with the contents of the big pallet boxes of various equipment they were sending off to the recycling company. At the time I knew what it was but I didn't know it's potential and how sought after of a device it may have been more so at the time (2015). They took really good care of their equipment. Not a scratch, dent, or ding. I must be mistaken on what is required equipment wise to flash it. I take it the aardvark and not the usb with the battery jumper looking clip lol.
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@bryanjlaz said in Watchguard XTM 5 Series:
Just a learning experience more than anything really. I got the 1st box for free from a previous employer when they upgraded their network. IT guy told me to "Have at it" with the contents of the big pallet boxes of various equipment they were sending off to the recycling company. At the time I knew what it was but I didn't know it's potential and how sought after of a device it may have been more so at the time (2015). They took really good care of their equipment. Not a scratch, dent, or ding. I must be mistaken on what is required equipment wise to flash it. I take it the aardvark and not the usb with the battery jumper looking clip lol.
Forgot to add. The fact that it was such a good find for free, I hate to see it go to waste.
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@bryanjlaz said in Watchguard XTM 5 Series:
Just a learning experience more than anything really
Oh well go for it then. I learned a lot playing with that box in.... 2012. (Wow).
Technically you can flash the chip using 4 resistors and a parallel port!
Anything that can write to SPI should do it.What you are seeing currently is what happens if the BIOS is corrupt. But it's also what happens if it fails to post for some other reason like bad ram, bad CPU etc.
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Is there any positive outlook on any of the newer units? M200, 400 etc..
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@bryanjlaz From what i have experienced with the XTM 800 Series I had, somehow the watchgaurd device would only want to boot from the CF card as the first device.
Obviously my CF card was not faulty. So I ended up using WIN32DiskImager and imaged the pfsense 2.5.1 image to the CF card.
placed in and rebooted the CF card, and viola, the pfsense booted up.couple of things.
- do not format your CF card. there appears to be a specific sector or something that watchgaurd bios reads from cf card. just image it using the WIN32DiskImager [run as administraor]
- unplug the power adapter and then plug in the CF card.
- only plug in disk, in the 1st sata port, not 2nd sata port. watchguard would not boot up.
- do all of this in the stock hardware[cpu and ram, this way u know all works, and install pfsense]
- once installed, then u can upgrade cpu/ram.
hope this helps.
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@bryanjlaz said in Watchguard XTM 5 Series:
Is there any positive outlook on any of the newer units? M200, 400 etc..
The M200/300 are ARM based so not worth trying currently. The M400 works fine.
Steve
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Hello Guys,
I've had a working pfsense XTM 5 for 4 months, than after upgrading to 2.5 when it came out, it started to crash sometimes and never understand what was causing it, even using 2.4.5.
Left the watchguard on the side for other 6 months and went with a pfsense VM, but after going without internet when doing maintence on the server was a no go.
So I'm revisiting the watchguard pfsense again.
This time I installed the 2.5.2 pfsense version on a new 120gb SSD, new sata cable, and reflashed the bios and looks like its working.
But before going further with pfsense configs and getting it in production I want to ask you guys what changes do you do in the BIOS beside the AHCI option ?
What about the ACPI, you keep it at v1.0 or change it to 2.0 or even 3.0 ?
Any more changes worth doing ?ps: should we choose the MBR Dos partitions or GPT GUID partition table on the install ?
Thanks
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I would use the defaults for partition type. So MBR for UFS and GPT for ZFS if you choose that.
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@stephenw10
When installing pfsense 2.5 the default showed was GPT ZFS and now in 2.5.2 it shows me MBR UFS and got confused.
Using a single SSD for pfsense is better to use the ZFS or UFS ?
I choosed ZFS don't knowing if it was better. -
Not much in it if you have stable power IMO. If you might see power interruptions ZFS is far more robust, far less likely to suffer filesystem damage in the event of an outage.
If you can run RAM drives that removes that problem but isn't really suitable for packages like Snort or pfBlocker. Though it can work.Steve
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Figured I'd try here first.
I've got an XTM 5 series that was running great until I went to upgrade to 2.5.2 last week. The system never came up and when I went to check on the box it was sitting there with the fans running on high and the LCD display has all black boxes showing.
I've done the following with the same results.
Pulled the battery to clear the CMOS.
Tried new RAM.
Tried a new to me CPU.
Disconnected the hard drive and SATA cord.
Tried the original flash drive.
Nothing on the mainboard appears to be fried.
I cannot remember if I flashed the BIOS to something other than what it came with when I first set this up.Any other suggestions or is this thing toast? It doesnt POST. No beeps, no nothing but fans on high and 5 green lights by the fan connectors on the mainboard. Nothing on the console either.
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Mmm, probably nothing you can do if it won't POST even after swapping the CPU and RAM.
I would guess it's bad caps on the board. You might try a different PSU if you have not already.
Steve
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@stephenw10 said in Watchguard XTM 5 Series:
Mmm, probably nothing you can do if it won't POST even after swapping the CPU and RAM.
I would guess it's bad caps on the board. You might try a different PSU if you have not already.
Steve
I have not tried a different PSU but will track one down to try. Its a bummer, this thing was running great before this lol.
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@frosty It's the same problem I had with mine!
Try to let it sit with no power for a day or so.
With mine I could get it up and see it boot this way.It's strange, maybe some faulted hardware or is a Bios/harware incompatibilty with 2.5 version.
Witch cpu does your have?
PS: When I have some time and if I find it again, I will try to test with the original Bios.
