Watchguard XTM 5 Series

stephenw10

What speed are those connections?
Whilst I've not benchmarked the box (and I'm only running an E4500 anyway) I'm not sure it's going to get to 2Gb/s if that's what you have. Not with those packages anyway. :-\

Steve

mgfair

The bandwidth of PCCW's fastest fiber service is 1000Mbps…...but doubt I ever achieve anything near that!

spiro2k6

I'm looking for a replacement for my firebox x750e and came across this thread. While looking at the processors this supported (socket775) i came across a small adapter that allows you to use a LGA771 processor in a 775 motherboard which opens up the possibility of running xeon processors in this box which can be had for cheap.

for example http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-SLANT-E5462-2-8GHz-12M-2800-LGA771-CPU-Processor-1059-/261767606847?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cf290b23f

The xeon e5462 that i linked to benchmarks higher than a core2quad q9550 and has a FSB of 1600Mhz

Anyway, it was just some food for thought, i found it interesting and thought some of you may as well.

stephenw10

At least one person is using a modified 771 CPU such as that:
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=43574.msg421215;topicseen#msg421215
I don't think 1600MHz FSB is supported though. 1333MHz is.

Steve

chpalmer

Ive got a friend who has a core2quad q9650 that he is going to donate to me. :)

This one should work in an XTM 5 shouldn't it? Ive got 4gb of 800mhz DDR2 ready to go in as well.

stephenw10

That's a 95W CPU so it might be pushing the cooling system and psu which are smaller than that in the FW-7580 it's based on. That never claimed to support C2Q either but we know it does. ;)

Steve

chpalmer

Ill upgrade the PSU to something bigger and adjust the fan speed accordingly. It will be a good experiment. ;)

Thanks Steve!

stephenw10

It's likely it will work fine anyway but the XTM PSU is 150W against the original 220W. Unless you're testing it you probably won't push it anywhere near the 95W level. ::) I'll be interested in your results.

Steve

chpalmer

Ill throw everything together as is and see what happens before touching the PSU.

Next upgrade will probably be a hard drive so the eventual extra power will let me sleep better.

unknown001

I'm please to report that with the help of people on this forum, I'm able to get Xeon L5410 to run on XTM510. Using 771 to 775 adapter.

Now, I'm looking to flash the bios. I followed directions on from earlier on this thread. I was able to download the xtm5_83 file and verified md5 matched. Before going any further and breaking the xtm5, I want to see if someone can point me in the right direction. Maybe I should just stick to the watchguard bios? After installing flashrom using the method "pkg install flashrom." I'm getting the below error. I cannot read or write to the flash device because flashrom could not detect the chip.

[2.2-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/root: flashrom -p internal
flashrom v0.9.7-r1711 on FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE-p4 (i386)
flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org

Calibrating delay loop... OK.
Found chipset "Intel ICH7/ICH7R". Enabling flash write... OK.
No EEPROM/flash device found.
Note: flashrom can never write if the flash chip isn't found automatically.

stephenw10

Ah, that's disappointing. :(
I don't know why it might not be detecting your bios rom. Since we know it works I would suggest going back to an earlier version just to do the bios flash.
Nice work with the Xeon though. :)
50W TDP is nice, do you have any power figures for box with that installed?

Steve

unknown001

On Intel Xeon L5410
79.6 Watt at boot
66.4 Watt while running idle
Have not ran it to full capacity, because I don't know what to use on pfsense for load test. Any pointers would be appreciated.

Got some good and bad new to report about my xtm5 experience, I have two of these. One is the xtm505, this is the dead unit I was trying to revive from early post with SPI header cable. The motherboard is version 1.2 with Watchguard OS 11.5.1. I was able to bring this unit back to life and it's running xtm5_83.rom. Thanks stephenw10.

Strangely, the other unit, a xtm510 with motherboard version 1.0A (with Watchguard OS11.6.1) could not be flashed. I suspect Watchguard may have implemented some type of software lock on the bios in later Watchguard OS. Meaning that if you upgraded the Watchguard it will flash the bios with a software lock. Because I have tried multiple times with SPIPGM2 and flashrom and could not detect this bios.

Untitled.jpg_thumb

stephenw10

Unlikely a software lock but maybe a hardware lock of some kind. The reader is seeing code FFFFFF so every bit is 1. That's almost certainly because it's not reading it correctly and that could easily be because it's not powered or that some pin on the SPI connector is grounded (or requires grounding) etc. The earlier board powered the chip when it was in standby but there's no requirement for it to do that, most SPI programmers provide power so you can programme the chip even with the board completely unpowered.

Steve

chpalmer

Success!

:)

Running 4GB of DDR2 800 which I might try and replace with something closer to 1200mhz later. Or just leave it for now.

4core.jpg_thumb

stephenw10

Nice! :)
Any power consumption figures with that CPU? How does it compare with the L5410 above?

Steve

taherio

Hello watchguard gurus, I have been trying to follow the steps mentioned to get pfsense running on "xtm 505".
I am able to dd the nanobsd image to the 1GB cf card no trouble, however when I try to boot the LCD always stays at "WG Bios v1.3".
So I assume there is something that I need to do through the console to let the system boot past the bios ?
( I also tried removing the cf and putting a sata drive with nanobsd image, same results ). Will the LCD display something specific when boot is completed successfully ?

My BIGGEST problem is that I cant seem to get the console (RJ45) to serial com port working correctly ( I never dealt with RJ45 to serial before ) , I connected it to my pc using putty ( 115200 8 N 1 XOFF/XON) I also tried 9600 for speed, I tried putty on windows and ubuntu, I also tried minicom, screen and cu with no success. the closest thing I could get is some random non-readable characters that was streaming non stop for a while, I thought it could be interference with the wire of some sort ?. Then most of the time I connect to console keep rebooting and not get a single sign on putty. I tried different cable to make sure that the cable is not defected. I really ran out of ideas I feel that the answer is so simple but I am just too stupid to get it.

I would be really grateful if someone was able to give me some insight regarding how to get past this , I have read the thread but I no hint for the noobs like me :D seems like you all are experienced pfsense flashing users.

(I am also new to this forum and this is the first thing I wrote here)

stephenw10

Hi,
The LCD wont show anything else until you load the driver and program to control it in pfSense.
You shouldn't need to anything to boot pfSense other than swap out the CF card. Even with no CF card you should still see the BIOS output on the serial console. It sounds like you have a bad cable somehow.

Have you confirmed that the hardware is good by booting the Watchguard OS?

Steve

TuxToaster

Hello all,

I've got a 505 on the way, as well as a quad core 8200S + low profile fan and heatsink. I've been digging through this thread and a couple of others, and hopefully the install will go smoothly, but I've got a few questions:

Is the max RAM allowed 4 GB or 8 GB? I see the note that the chipset supports 8, but seems like everyone is doing 2-4 GB. I'm planning on running Snort on it, so more is better. But I saw that the FW-7850 says it supports up to 8, though it sounds like that might be an optional configuration:

Up to 8 Gb of Memory: With 2 additional 240p DIMM slots this network appliance can hold a maximum 8 GB of RAM

Specifically what memory is needed? DDR2 800mhz? Or does it support something different?
I saw a comment elsewhere referencing this thread saying removing the CF card will allow USB to be booted so that you can install on to a HDD/SSD directly. Is this correct?
And finally, can we put together an updated list of versions or links to the most recent BIOS image, DSDT, WGXepc and lcdproc? This thread has only been going for 3 1/2 years, so it's kind of fun to figure out which mentions of images, etc. are the most current and which were from earlier testing.

gharris

I'd also love to see that as I'm also going to very soon be in the same type of boat.

TuxToaster

Here's what I've figured out so far:

Max memory - I did finally find the other thread where someone mentioned more memory, BUT I can't tell if he meant to say "I didn't boot with more than 4GB" meaning he didn't try, or "It didn't boot with more" meaning it failed to boot.

I did determine that what a few people have run into is that any 4GB sticks are going to either be high or low density chips, and high density is only supported on AMD platforms. So for this you'd need 4GB low density sticks, and those are not nearly as cheap or as plentiful.

I've taken the plunge and ordered 2x4GB DDR2 800mhz low density sticks at a cost of $144 to see if they work, so I'll be sure to let everyone know. If they don't, I'm definitely getting a refund, as I don't have anything else that will need them ;-)

Memory speed - Best I can tell 800Mhz is probably the best to get here. I don't think the board supports anything faster, and it appears at least other boards with the G41 chipset don't handle overclocking well, not to mention that is likely not an option on this board given the limited BIOS.
HDD - From a couple other posts it seems that the USB can be made bootable in the BIOS. I'm still not sure whether this is done by disabling the CF or a separate option, but I'll find out and make a note once my box arrives.
List of links and updates - I'll try to compile a list of the latest links I can find as well as what upgrade options appear to be supported. Then we'll see if we can get someone to update the Wiki page with it.