Pfsense box for cheap $72

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foureight84

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Jun 26, 2018
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I picked up a Datto DNA-VZ5 not too long ago for $40. If you can find one of those that would be a great PFsense box. The model I picked has a revised atom c2000 with the hardware bug corrected. There were a few sellers on eBay a month back off loading them for $80 brand new. Hopefully that deal will resurface.

I believe you can mod it to add 3 more ram slot to get 32gb out of the thing. I haven't had the time to solder on the ram slots to validate this theory. If it works, it would be a great Proxmox PFsense and openwrt lxc all in one box.
 
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e97

e97

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If you can spend a bit more, I'd suggest the Wyse 5070 with J5005 for $109, bit faster single core performance and quad core vs dual core of 3215U, 10W vs 15W TDP and 7x the L1 cache.

Passmark Comparison: Intel Pentium Silver J5005 @ 1.50GHz vs Intel Celeron 3215U @ 1.70GHz [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

www.ebay.com

DELL WYSE 5070 THIN CLIENT PENTIUM SILVER J5005 1.5GHz 8GB RAM 256GB SSD | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for DELL WYSE 5070 THIN CLIENT PENTIUM SILVER J5005 1.5GHz 8GB RAM 256GB SSD at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com

Thats the extended version so you can use a half height PCIe NIC or swap the Wi-Fi into another NIC which is what I did


Make sure you get the card with the pins going horizontally otherwise the case won't close. They also have 2.5G card available now.

There's also a 3D printed bracket adapter: Dell Wyse 5070 Ethernet Adapter by examiner

I have a couple extra brackets, send me a PM.
 
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aloe

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Aug 17, 2019
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e97 said:
If you can spend a bit more, I'd suggest the Wyse 5070 with J5005 for $109, bit faster single core performance and quad core vs dual core of 3215U, 10W vs 15W TDP and 7x the L1 cache.

Passmark Comparison: Intel Pentium Silver J5005 @ 1.50GHz vs Intel Celeron 3215U @ 1.70GHz [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

www.ebay.com

DELL WYSE 5070 THIN CLIENT PENTIUM SILVER J5005 1.5GHz 8GB RAM 256GB SSD | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for DELL WYSE 5070 THIN CLIENT PENTIUM SILVER J5005 1.5GHz 8GB RAM 256GB SSD at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com

Thats the extended version so you can use a half height PCIe NIC or swap the Wi-Fi into another NIC which is what I did


Make sure you get the card with the pins going horizontally otherwise the case won't close. They also have 2.5G card available now.

There's also a 3D printed bracket adapter: Dell Wyse 5070 Ethernet Adapter by examiner

I have a couple extra, send me a PM.
Click to expand...
Nice points
 
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elvisimprsntr

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May 9, 2021
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Another seller has them for $60. Qotom Q310p 3215u Mini PC COM Serial Port IPC POS Computer RS-232 4GB 32GB SSD | eBay

What's nice about the Qotom Q305P/Q310P are the serial ports. You can connect a Garmin GPS 16X/18X to run a NTP Stratum 0 GPS Source.

github.com

GitHub - elvisimprsntr/pfsense-ntp-gps: pfSense NTP GPS Server

pfSense NTP GPS Server. Contribute to elvisimprsntr/pfsense-ntp-gps development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

I added a Crystalfontz LCD display and submitted a pull request to add a NTP screen to the LCDproc package.

forum.netgate.com

LCDProc package version 0.11.4_2

@jimp said in LCDProc package version 0.11.4_2: either set a log level that has less messages, or disable logging entirely Perfect! Thanks! (now I dont hav...
forum.netgate.com forum.netgate.com
 
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bvd

bvd

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e97 said:
If you can spend a bit more, I'd suggest the Wyse 5070 with J5005 for $109, bit faster single core performance and quad core vs dual core of 3215U, 10W vs 15W TDP and 7x the L1 cache.

Passmark Comparison: Intel Pentium Silver J5005 @ 1.50GHz vs Intel Celeron 3215U @ 1.70GHz [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

www.ebay.com

DELL WYSE 5070 THIN CLIENT PENTIUM SILVER J5005 1.5GHz 8GB RAM 256GB SSD | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for DELL WYSE 5070 THIN CLIENT PENTIUM SILVER J5005 1.5GHz 8GB RAM 256GB SSD at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com

Thats the extended version so you can use a half height PCIe NIC or swap the Wi-Fi into another NIC which is what I did


Make sure you get the card with the pins going horizontally otherwise the case won't close. They also have 2.5G card available now.

There's also a 3D printed bracket adapter: Dell Wyse 5070 Ethernet Adapter by examiner

I have a couple extra, send me a PM.
Click to expand...
This is the way to go IMO - they've a lot more horsepower than their 4 cores would have you believe, outperforms the 8 core rangeley CPU (which was used in TONS of network gear from various vendors for years) in just about every way, and at roughly half the power usage to boot!
 
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aloe

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Aug 17, 2019
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bvd said:
This is the way to go IMO - they've a lot more horsepower than their 4 cores would have you believe, outperforms the 8 core rangeley CPU (which was used in TONS of network gear from various vendors for years) in just about every way, and at roughly half the power usage to boot!
Click to expand...
Excellent points. You seem to have found the real deal!
 
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heromode

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May 25, 2020
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elvisimprsntr said:
Another seller has them for $60. Qotom Q310p 3215u Mini PC COM Serial Port IPC POS Computer RS-232 4GB 32GB SSD | eBay

What's nice about the Qotom Q305P/Q310P are the serial ports. You can connect a Garmin GPS 16X/18X to run a NTP Statum 0 GPS Source.

github.com

GitHub - elvisimprsntr/pfsense-ntp-gps: pfSense NTP GPS Server

pfSense NTP GPS Server. Contribute to elvisimprsntr/pfsense-ntp-gps development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

I added a Crystalfontz LCD display and submitted a pull request to add a NTP screen to the LCDproc package.

forum.netgate.com

LCDProc package version 0.11.4_2

@jimp said in LCDProc package version 0.11.4_2: either set a log level that has less messages, or disable logging entirely Perfect! Thanks! (now I dont hav...
forum.netgate.com forum.netgate.com
Click to expand...
Nice, i bookmarked your post, if i someday get around to adding a local GPS based NTP source to my Wyse 5070 running OPNsense.

On the Wyse, as briefly discussed in another big thread about it, is one of it's serial ports has a "P" next to the ioio logo, which i assume means powered. That would be awesome for a GPS receiver needing only a single serial cable.

iirc nobody was able to find any reference or pinout, to identify which pin is powered. But i still hold on to my dream of hooking a GPS receiver to it.
 
E

elvisimprsntr

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May 9, 2021
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Florida
heromode said:
iirc nobody was able to find any reference or pinout, to identify which pin is powered. But i still hold on to my dream of hooking a GPS receiver to it.
Click to expand...
Powered RS-232 is likely pin 9. It would depend on regulated vs un-regulate voltage, and current capability.
Only the Garmin 18X LVC has a PPS output required for time synchronization and requires regulated 5V, which can be powered from USB. Similar situation for the Garmin 16X models.
 
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foureight84

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Jun 26, 2018
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foureight84 said:
I picked up a Datto DNA-VZ5 not too long ago for $40. If you can find one of those that would be a great PFsense box. The model I picked has a revised atom c2000 with the hardware bug corrected. There were a few sellers on eBay a month back off loading them for $80 brand new. Hopefully that deal will resurface.

I believe you can mod it to add 3 more ram slot to get 32gb out of the thing. I haven't had the time to solder on the ram slots to validate this theory. If it works, it would be a great Proxmox PFsense and openwrt lxc all in one box.
Click to expand...
FYI, my assumption was correct. I just soldered on another DIMM slot and added another 8GB. Bios detected it without issues. Going to spend tomorrow soldering the other two to see if 32GB is possible.

http://imgur.com/a/kimkSEl
 
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foureight84

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Jun 26, 2018
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foureight84 said:
FYI, my assumption was correct. I just soldered on another DIMM slot and added another 8GB. Bios detected it without issues. Going to spend tomorrow soldering the other two to see if 32GB is possible.

http://imgur.com/a/kimkSEl
Click to expand...
Really strange. Doesn't look like the other two DIMMs work / enabled. Unit doesn't POST with 4 sticks. Only posts when memory are in the configuration in the photo. Won't POST if the rear DIMM in the photo is not populated. I've checked all 4 DIMMs slots using one of those RAM slot testers and they all light up like the first slot so it's not likely a solder issue. As far as I can tell, capacitors and resistors around the DIMMs slots are populated even though physical slots were not installed.

This unit is definitely an Axiomtek NA361 (inside the Datto case also marks it as an NA361) and should support 32GB according to their documentation. I emailed their support asking for a bios file to see if that would resolve the issue. But for now, looks like only 16GB in the configuration shown in my image above works.

Edit: it turns out that the NA361 only came with the Atom C2358, a 2 core processor and only supported a total of 16gb. Highly likely that the motherboard was designed for only 2 dimm slots regardless of CPU installed.

EDIT 2: What I found above turned out incorrect. I came to the first conclusion while looking at a datasheet for a specific variant sold on Mouser. I found another datasheet that lists the NA361 to come with 2-8 core flavors. I reached out to the technical customer service email to see if there's a compatible bios they are willing to give that would enable full functionality. I doubt they would provide support but it's worth a try. I have looked at the bios after dumping it with flashrom but I don't see any type of capacity restrictions. It's quite weird that such a thing would even be implemented but it's just worth checking anyway.

EDIT 3: Axiomtech replied and after a few back and forth troubleshooting questions, 1) Bios version 8A361 I1.03 is the latest for the DNA-VZ5 2) Technically all 4 slots should work. However, I've reflowed all of the pins on the 3 slots I installed and they all look fine. Strangely, populating Slot 1 and Slot 2 or Slot 1 and Slot 3 the system boots without issues, but when Slot 1 and Slot 4, or Slot 1, Slot 2 and Slot 3, or all 4 slots the system will not POST. Going to debug some more.

EDIT 4: Success! See the following reply.
 
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