My New Router

January 31, 2009 in Computer, Hardware

After my almost 10 years old P3/500 Compaq Deskpro EN made some ugly noises a few weeks ago I felt like I should replace it Especially because it’s my gateway to the Internet.

The old one

This old boy is big, noisy and probably wasted a lot of energy, but it ran more than just well as a dsl router, a vpn gateway, a packet filter, a proxy, a dns server, a ntp server and possibly other things for the last three years and for almost one year without even a reboot using OpenBSD 4.2.

Nevertheless it was time for something new. I wanted something smaller, something more quiet and something with less power comsumption. I came accross these new Intel Atom CPU’s. But after a lot of research I have not found a suiteable (small, low-power, fanless, inexpensive) Implementation of this CPU.

So I bought this one: Intel D945GCLF2. It has an Intel Atom 330 CPU with a TDP of 8W and an Intel 945GC chipset with a TDP of 22W . If you look at the pictures you can see a fan. This fan doesn’t cool the CPU, it cools the Northbridge! But hey! it’s available for less than 70€… a totally fanless board like the MSI IM-945GSE-A costs almost 200€.

Combine the D945GCLF2 with a case, a PSU, some RAM, a CF-Card and an additional NIC and you’ve got a nice and small router.

This is what I bought:

MDT 1024 DDR2-800 Ram
Kingston Compactflash 2Gb
M300 Case with included CF-Reader
PicoPSU-90 DC-DC and a 60W/12V AC-DC Adapter

*waiting two weeks, because I ordered the Case and the PSU in the US because it’s 50€ cheaper over there*
… today I recieved the package

… and this is the whole stuff

The Board & Stuff

The Case & PSU

Now that I’ve got everything I wanted to play arround a bit. Isn’t that a geeky setup?
Test Setup

I directly replaced the Northbridge fan with a Scythe, but even the Scythe is too noisy for me. So I replaced the original and small Cooler with a big Zalman ZM-NB47J.
img_0481-2

Sadly the temps raised up to 90°C in the closed case. Which is why I currently keep it open:

hw.sensors.cpu0.temp0=63.00 degC
hw.sensors.cpu1.temp0=63.00 degC
hw.sensors.admtm0.temp0=55.00 degC (Internal)
hw.sensors.admtm0.temp1=73.00 degC (External)
hw.sensors.admtm0.temp2=65.00 degC (External)

These were the temps with the original cooler/fan combo:

hw.sensors.cpu0.temp0=22.00 degC
hw.sensors.cpu1.temp0=22.00 degC
hw.sensors.admtm0.temp0=33.00 degC (Internal)
hw.sensors.admtm0.temp1=43.00 degC (External)
hw.sensors.admtm0.temp2=36.00 degC (External)

And with the original cooler + the scythe fan:

hw.sensors.cpu0.temp0=25.00 degC
hw.sensors.cpu1.temp0=25.00 degC
hw.sensors.admtm0.temp0=35.00 degC (Internal)
hw.sensors.admtm0.temp1=49.00 degC (External)
hw.sensors.admtm0.temp2=41.00 degC (External)

I think I will drill a 80mm (or maybe 120mm) hole into the case top and place a low-noise fan outside the case.

After I was done playing around, I wanted to install OpenBSD 4.4-CURRENT to the 2Gb Kingston CF-Card. It didn’t work this 2Gb card always gave me timeouts and other strange errors. I tried the old card I used in the P3 and it worked. Hopefully the card doesn’t die so fast…
Now that I was able to install OpenBSD, this little system runs like a charm and performs very well with MP kernel. I can get about 50MB/s from the DMZ to my LAN. Didn’t check pps.

And this is the Atom’s new home: