Atom 230 DIY Router?

[KenjiUmino]

Hi folks,

 

I have a mainboard with an atom 230 CPU + 2gb DDR2 RAM sitting on a shelf collecting dust and want to use it to replace the ISP provided router

 

the board has integrated 100mbit LAN and a PCI slot 

 

my internet connection is 50 mbit down / 10 mbit up 

 

I have 6 or more clients to serve internet to, not counting smartphones and game consoles.

 

Internet is used a lot most of the time, gaming and twitch broadcasting is a thing.

 

is the atom strong enough or should i get something beefier ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dzonidev]

To put things into perspective, my Mikrotik gigabit router that can route 1gbps, runs on a 650Mhz single core processor and 128MB of ram.

 

I think you won't have any issues, apart from the port that is at 100Mbps.

[System Error Message]

It will work fine using the intel atom. It may not be a strong CPU but as long as you dont run a network anti virus on it it will be fine. As for throughput it really depends on your WAN speeds, see about getting yourself an intel server NIC and installing pfsense. If the PCI slot is PCI than you can only have 1 gigabit NIC, if it is a PCIe x16 slot than you can have a 10Gb/s NIC. intel quad port NICs require x4 slot at least

[Nikolithebear]

Sure! Go pfsense and test it out

[dlink377]

I really doubt it will give better speed than your current router from ISP, since your Internet is only 50M/10M, which most cheap router is fast enough to route all those packets, especially on less than 10 users environment. I see it as just wasting extra power to power the x86 system (Not really sure what is Atom 230 power consumption looks like). You could still try pfSense or OpenWRT. Just buy another 100M PCI card and you are good.

 

I am more a Mikrotik guy, so I really prefer Mikrotik more.

8 hours ago, dzonidev said:

To put things into perspective, my Mikrotik gigabit router that can route 1gbps, runs on a 650Mhz single core processor and 128MB of ram.

 

I think you won't have any issues, apart from the port that is at 100Mbps.

It is only possible on 1Gbps when fast track and very minimal set of firewall rules, which is probably what the OP usage was. If fast track not enabled it only routes 200M-300M. If performance wise, I believe Ubiquiti has much more better performance device with the same price. I still use Mikrotik just because the Winbox GUI and how easy to configure the mangle, packet connection mark, etc.

[System Error Message]

Actually some routers are faster than others. My mikrotik CCR is 2ms faster than my ISP given router. My asus router is 1ms faster than my ISP given router, this is with ping tests to google. So using routers with good CPU and direct CPU connected ports results in lower latencies as long as the CPU is fast enough.

 

Another thing is bufferbloat, QoS and such. Even firewall and the protection you gain is much better than ISP given router.

[dlink377]

19 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

Actually some routers are faster than others. My mikrotik CCR is 2ms faster than my ISP given router. My asus router is 1ms faster than my ISP given router, this is with ping tests to google. So using routers with good CPU and direct CPU connected ports results in lower latencies as long as the CPU is fast enough.

 

Another thing is bufferbloat, QoS and such. Even firewall and the protection you gain is much better than ISP given router.

Hmm I guess you are right about that, I just think about normal usage when people will not cure about those stuff, just the need of stable Internet. I also never read the fact that OP is a gamer and do twitch streaming, extra router performance will be beneficial enough for the use cases.

 

I guess OP can try the Atom 230 setup first, if not satisfying, OP can try to look better hardware offering from Ubiquiti or Mikrotik, or any other enterprise hardware.

 

PS: How is the CCR? I am planning to change my 951G to CCR 9 core 2GB, but my usage is very limited, as my Internet is just plainly 10Mbps now, which most router can achieve without problems. Or I better do with Mikrotik x86 (or CHR) and buy 4 port Gigabite PCI-e? The only problem this router has is the PCQ uses 100% CPU, probably because I don't have the skill to correctly set it up. I even setup any QoS yet.

[System Error Message]

2 hours ago, dlink377 said:

PS: How is the CCR? I am planning to change my 951G to CCR 9 core 2GB, but my usage is very limited, as my Internet is just plainly 10Mbps now, which most router can achieve without problems. Or I better do with Mikrotik x86 (or CHR) and buy 4 port Gigabite PCI-e? The only problem this router has is the PCQ uses 100% CPU, probably because I don't have the skill to correctly set it up. I even setup any QoS yet.

Im using the CCR1036-8G-2S+. The fastest in internet the UK has to offer doesnt register any CPU usage on the router. Its very noisy all the time so i did a mod (you can read about it here:http://www.snbforums.com/threads/silencing-and-servicing-a-noisy-ccr1036.34467/ explaining some stuff about the CCR too).

 

In terms of performance its great, i try to offload as many tasks as i can to it. You can also run the dude server on it as well which is another nice feature. I've not used PCQ on it yet but i plan to in the future. As far as performance goes, cost per performance the CCR is faster than x86 for performing NAT and QoS but if you want features like snort or anti virus than an iseries CPU running pfsense would be a better choice. With my use i have the CCR also powering a raspberry pi using usb port and swapping the PSU with a beefier and better quality PSU (its very much like a laptop PSU but 24V 5A). Every CPU core of the CCR router is faster than any MIPS based router mikrotik has but i would peg it about similar in performance to each cpu core of the RB1100Ahx2. You can imagine the CCR1009 to be 4.5 times faster than the RB1100Ahx2 but only 3x faster in VPN speeds.

 

The only weakness about the CCR is the PSU, seems like mikrotik's PSU supplier is shoddy. However i have written about replacing the PSU in it which is relevant if you get the standard DC connector. The hot swap dual PSU however uses a different connector.

 

PCQ should be per connection qeueing so the best way to make use of the CCR is to have seperate specific rules to catch each connection and try to have the firewall be as parallel as possible so seperate flows for each type of traffic/client.

[dlink377]

22 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

Im using the CCR1036-8G-2S+. The fastest in internet the UK has to offer doesnt register any CPU usage on the router. Its very noisy all the time so i did a mod (you can read about it here:http://www.snbforums.com/threads/silencing-and-servicing-a-noisy-ccr1036.34467/ explaining some stuff about the CCR too).

 

In terms of performance its great, i try to offload as many tasks as i can to it. You can also run the dude server on it as well which is another nice feature. I've not used PCQ on it yet but i plan to in the future. As far as performance goes, cost per performance the CCR is faster than x86 for performing NAT and QoS but if you want features like snort or anti virus than an iseries CPU running pfsense would be a better choice. With my use i have the CCR also powering a raspberry pi using usb port and swapping the PSU with a beefier and better quality PSU (its very much like a laptop PSU but 24V 5A). Every CPU core of the CCR router is faster than any MIPS based router mikrotik has but i would peg it about similar in performance to each cpu core of the RB1100Ahx2. You can imagine the CCR1009 to be 4.5 times faster than the RB1100Ahx2 but only 3x faster in VPN speeds.

 

The only weakness about the CCR is the PSU, seems like mikrotik's PSU supplier is shoddy. However i have written about replacing the PSU in it which is relevant if you get the standard DC connector. The hot swap dual PSU however uses a different connector.

 

PCQ should be per connection qeueing so the best way to make use of the CCR is to have seperate specific rules to catch each connection and try to have the firewall be as parallel as possible so seperate flows for each type of traffic/client.

Thank you. It seems I better go with DIY Intel i3 1U setup and add x86 or CHR license and some used 4 port pci-e gigabit ethernet. I don't want the hassle to fix loud fan noise and change the PSU, as my 1U server is relatively very quiet, only a PSU fan and CPU fan. I also want a proxy, which require more RAM and SSD space, and the cheapest CCR only have 1GB with micro SD expansion slot.

 

My throughput is not that big, the best I want to achieve is only 1Gbps without fast track (because I still not really sure how to set it up correctly until now).

[System Error Message]

10 minutes ago, dlink377 said:

Thank you. It seems I better go with DIY Intel i3 1U setup and add x86 or CHR license and some used 4 port pci-e gigabit ethernet. I don't want the hassle to fix loud fan noise and change the PSU, as my 1U server is relatively very quiet, only a PSU fan and CPU fan. I also want a proxy, which require more RAM and SSD space, and the cheapest CCR only have 1GB with micro SD expansion slot.

 

My throughput is not that big, the best I want to achieve is only 1Gbps without fast track (because I still not really sure how to set it up correctly until now).

There is CCR1009 with passive cooling and you can power the CCR1009 over POE. Doesnt the cheapest CCR have usb?

 

fast track is very easy to set up. You need 2 rules really, one to fast track and one to accept the connection.

 

If your plan is to use proxy for cache i suggest pfsense as its better at that job.

[KenjiUmino]

hey, thanks for responding everyone

 

as far as i know the atom 230 was one of the first atoms and probably the least power hungry (but also least performant)

it has one core at 1.6 GHz and 2 threads (i could successfully overclock it to 2 GHz with no problems)

 

and YES, the slot on the mainboard is plain old PCI - so no fancy 4 port cards for that one.

 

my guess is that even a PCI-bottlenecked 1gbit card for LAN would be ok for my connection and the 100mbit port for WAN should also be fast enough not to get in the way - or am i missing something here ?

I am not looking for a big speed increase - the speed i get with my ISP router is actually very close to the theoretical max according to speedtest.net

 

that test was done with only the machine running the test being active - so for a single user the speed is about perfect. 

 

but it seems to get dodgy when multiple users are hitting it - I had this situation where internet went all laggy on my computer in spite of my PC going wired gigabit directly to the router (so I can't blame bad wifi for that)

 

... looking into the routers UI, at least one of the active clients (not me) was shown to have 80+ connections open - he was not using up much speed, just had a ton of browser tabs open - that should not make it laggy for anyone else, right ? 

 

so what i am looking for is a connection that does not cripple internet for anyone else because of one or two heavy hitters.

 

I also dislike the fact that my ISP can "remote service" that router - while that might be convenient in case of trouble - if THEY can access and configure my router from outside then ANYONE ELSE can do that too - and once they got the router, they might have my NAS and basically the whole network by the balls - right ?
 

[KenjiUmino]

Is there any benchmark tool or established procedure to estimate how much hammering a router can take?

[Donut417]

On 10/4/2016 at 7:03 PM, KenjiUmino said:

Hi folks,

 

I have a mainboard with an atom 230 CPU + 2gb DDR2 RAM sitting on a shelf collecting dust and want to use it to replace the ISP provided router

 

the board has integrated 100mbit LAN and a PCI slot 

 

my internet connection is 50 mbit down / 10 mbit up 

 

I have 6 or more clients to serve internet to, not counting smartphones and game consoles.

 

Internet is used a lot most of the time, gaming and twitch broadcasting is a thing.

 

is the atom strong enough or should i get something beefier ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only issue you will have is that ISP supplied router is probably a Modem/Router Combo. So you will need to buy a modem. But I think it should work. 

[KenjiUmino]

5 hours ago, Donut417 said:

The only issue you will have is that ISP supplied router is probably a Modem/Router Combo. So you will need to buy a modem. But I think it should work. 

Yeah ... that's another problem I might be facing - getting a modem that is not too pricey but plays nice with my internet - gotta be VDSL compatible and maybe needs vectoring and whatnot ...

 

i am already researching wich models could be suitable and I found documentation on a VDSL modem my ISP used to sell to upgrade an older model line of non-VDSL modemrouters to VDSL (seems like they pulled any other trace of this off their website to sell the new model of their all-in-one modemrouters)  - interesting that they even thought of this option at all adding a WAN ethernet port and a phone line port to their routers (mine does have both ports too so i could use a fibermodem if i would live in an area where fiber to the home is already a thing) 

 

I might try walking into one of their stores and try to get one of the employees there to tell me what happened to that standalone modem and if they still sell these modems in spite of removing any trace of it from the website

[System Error Message]

The netgear DM200 is a vdsl modem. It does use a 100Mb/s port so their claims of 200Mb/s download cannot be stated (shouldnt be legal in my opinion). Its an inexpensive modem, this is if you cant put your modem/router combo into bridge mode.

[Donut417]

4 hours ago, KenjiUmino said:

Yeah ... that's another problem I might be facing - getting a modem that is not too pricey but plays nice with my internet - gotta be VDSL compatible and maybe needs vectoring and whatnot ...

 

i am already researching wich models could be suitable and I found documentation on a VDSL modem my ISP used to sell to upgrade an older model line of non-VDSL modemrouters to VDSL (seems like they pulled any other trace of this off their website to sell the new model of their all-in-one modemrouters)  - interesting that they even thought of this option at all adding a WAN ethernet port and a phone line port to their routers (mine does have both ports too so i could use a fibermodem if i would live in an area where fiber to the home is already a thing) 

 

I might try walking into one of their stores and try to get one of the employees there to tell me what happened to that standalone modem and if they still sell these modems in spite of removing any trace of it from the website

Another option is to see if your ISP will put the Modem/Router combo in to bridge mode. Effectively makes it in to a modem.