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Networks Intel Atom Powered Router

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by modster, 23 Nov 2008.

  1. modster

    modster What's a Dremel?

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    Hello all, I have just gotten so sick of my router dropping the connection that I want to invest in a new one. There are 4 people using the router and whenever someone starts torrenting, the route drops the connection. I know there are plenty of routers out there that can run ddwrt and might solve my problem. But I rather make an one time investment and never buy a router again. So, I have decided to go with intel atom for its computing power and low power consumption. So here is a list of questions I have. (newbie questions too... I am not too familiar with network stuffs)

    First of all, will our dsl modem be a bottle neck? I don't want to spend all this money on a super router and have the modem cause connection problem. Second, I want the router to handle all the torrent jobs so everyone can turn of his/her computer at night. Is that even possible? Router and torrent machine in one box? Will the pci nix be a bottle neck since the pci interface has a speed limit. Last, any other cool things I can do with this box? I am looking at a $150 investment. I feel like I need a few more reasons to justify this. :p

    Thanks in advance.
     
  2. eeevan

    eeevan Dremel Master

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    1. No such thing as an Atom-powered router. Not yet, and not for <$500.
    2. Essentially any router you buy will be bottlenecked by your DSL connection, well, unless you're in Japan.
    3. You're not going to find quality network hardware with bittorrent integration for less than $225. Look here.
    4. Although the speed of your NIC could potentially bottleneck local networking operations (see 10/100 vs. Gigabit), your "internet speed" will not be effected.


    Bump up the budget, or lower the expectations.


    Or wait.
     
  3. notatoad

    notatoad pretty fing wonderful

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    i think he's talking about making his own router, not a commercial product.

    $150 is pretty tight budget, but it should be possible. atom is overkill though, you should be able to find some old celeron or something that could do the job. a router is just a linux box, shouldn't be a problem to throw rtorrent on there. a dsl modem is definitely a bottleneck, but it shouldn't be causing connection problems. any other cool things? network accessible storage. webserver. scheduled backups. home automation (with a bit more hardware).
     
  4. modster

    modster What's a Dremel?

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    hmm... thanks for the reply. I don't think I made things clear enough. I was thinking about using a low power pc with intel atom as a router. I know that can be done. I know DSL connection is the major bottleneck, but I was worrying about the modem handling all the connections. I know my internet speed is far from hitting the limit of the PCI speed, but I am really looking at a server-router hybrid and I will probably want to stream files off this thing, so speed might be a limitation.

    I think my budget is pretty reasonable. This board is only 80 bucks and i have other old computer parts sitting around. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121359
     
  5. modster

    modster What's a Dremel?

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    Sweet. Those are the answers that I am looking for. I know atom will be an overkill, but any other processor will use more power. I just don't want my electric bill to go up. Besides, a motherboard with a processor attached cost less than those top notch router. Also, I have some extra ram and a psu here. It seems like I just need another NIC card and a beefy hard drive to go with it. Is there anything else that I should add?
     
  6. modster

    modster What's a Dremel?

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    Actually, will an internal PCI dsl modem work better than an external one?
     
  7. notatoad

    notatoad pretty fing wonderful

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    the atom boards only have one PCI slot. you'll probably want to save that for a gigabit NIC.
     
  8. wharrad

    wharrad Minimodder

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    There's loads of options for you, as long as you can build a working machine for your budget. You don't need the power of the atom to handle what you're looking to do, but considering the price and power usage it's a great start.

    Anyway, once you get that up and running you need some software... You can do it all yourself in linux from say ubuntu... but google some of these (I'm sure others will throw in a few options too)...

    IPCop
    Clarkconnect
    Endian
    Smoothwall
    Monowall
    Coyote


    Personally I use IPCop as it just worked, plugged an ADSL modem in, installed and entered settings and it's been running years on a low power VIA board with 512 RAM and 10Gig disk (still overkill).



    Oh, and as long as your internet connection is below 100Meg, you're going to be limited by the cable... Above that you might need to consider your network, but even in New York I doubt you have to worry about that. As for torrenting at night, there's addons for that sort of thing, but I'm afraid I don't know the answers to that one.




    On a side note, although this new router will not fall down from torrenting, or anything you'll use your net for, it might be that your router is not actually dying. It may be that the torrent software is saturating your upload bandwidth and then preventing anything from downloading. So have a look if you can slow your uploads, if this fixes your problem you've saved a few dollars.
     
    Last edited: 24 Nov 2008
  9. herbs

    herbs Nobody but us chickens

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    The atom 330 BOXD945GCLF2 board has a gigabit onboard nic, so unless you need two nic's this should free the pci slot up.
     
    Last edited: 26 Nov 2008
  10. DougEdey

    DougEdey I pwn all your storage

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    A router needs two NICs generally one input (DSL) one to a switch/hub/networking equipment...
     
  11. cyrilthefish

    cyrilthefish What's a Dremel?

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    Echoing a few of the others here, but an atom is severe overkill :p

    I'm personally sharing 20MB cable on an old P2 450mhz running smoothwall (with QoS, Squid webcache, active firewall, AV scanner), and thats still overspecced for what i need :lol:

    If you're planning to use a linux distro like smoothwall or similar, steer well clear of these as they generally don't support them (or if they do, just one specific model) and can be a huge nightmare to get drivers and configure.
    On top of that, external ethernet modems will all be hardware based, while internal and USB modems will be like the winmodem dial-up types of old, where software drivers do the processing work for the modem

    you really want to stick to an ethernet connection to the cable/adsl modem if at all possible
     
  12. notatoad

    notatoad pretty fing wonderful

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    ok, cool. i thought that it didn't. maybe that was the single-core model.

    if you are using a PCI DSL modem you wouldnt't need the input ethernet port.
     
  13. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    I think that you are going about it the wrong way. An Atom CPU is overkill not only in terms of processing power, but also energy expenditure and heat. Facts, here: An Atom 230 CPU uses 4 Watts. It was specifically designed by Intel to be a low power/low heat solution. but Intel being Intel it decided for reasons of cost to pair this CPU with a 945G Express chipset which has a TDP of 22W. That 40mm fan is for the chipset, not the CPU... In total the motherboard takes about 32 to 35W.

    The Atom Z500-Z540 series are a much better choice, with a TDP of 2.5W maximum and a chipset contributing only a few watts more. unfortunately they are not yet sold as a component motherboard solution.

    Now consider: you will presumably be running this thing 24/7. You don't want it to clock up the electricity bill, nor contribute to the ambient noise with an incessant whine of its 40mm fan. You want something that is low power as a whole platform, and passively cooled, and can take loads of NICs. Presenting: the Jetway J7F2 1.2Ghz Eden CN700 Mainboard. At a total TDP of around 16 Watts, it comes passively cooled and offers the possibility of a cheap optional expansion board that adds three 10/100 LAN ports or even three GigaLAN ports to the existing fourth port on the motherboard. It doesn't even take up extra space --all connectors fit on the standard blanking plate.

    Add 10W TDP for the PicoPSU, a Flash memory module for the OS, a WD10EACS GreenPower 1Tb harddrive (very quiet and very low Watts) and the whole thing uses no more than 34 Watts. Maximum.
     
  14. modster

    modster What's a Dremel?

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    Ok, the more I think about this, the more I don't understand. Assuming I go with the intel atom route, how do i get all those extra ethernet ports and wireless? If I add a switch or hub in between, it seems to defeat the whole purpose of a router.
     
  15. wharrad

    wharrad Minimodder

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    The router just routes the traffic between the internet and your home network, you can put the switch after it.... Here's an example...

    xDSL -> Router -> Switch -> Computer 1
    -> Computer 2
    -> Wireless Access Point
    -> etc etc etc

    So you don't need ALL the ports on the router box, infact you need a minimum of 2 - one for the internet and one for your network (and one of those could be USB to the internet modem if you wish).
     
  16. LordLuciendar

    LordLuciendar meh.

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    There are two solutions I would recommend:

    First, the DIY approach that you seem to be leaning to. This is an interesting approach using the Atom based motherboard, most times people run it on retired hardware. I would highly recommend using a Jetway motherboard like NC92-N230-LF which allows for a daughter board to multiple network ports. This would allow you to add 1 or 3 10/100 or 10/100/1000 network ports (for up to a total of 4 Gigabit network ports) while keeping the precious PCI slot free for the ADSL modem card. I would highly recommend mini-box.com as a starting point for this project. Not only are their prices cheap and their support knowledgeable, for $20 they'll assemble the system and test it on their end before shipping it to you if you purchase one of their cases (M200/300). If you just so happen to be in the UK and interested in this as well, for once I have a UK vendor! Mini-ITX.com Also logicsupply.com has some very interesting offers. From there I would recommend m0n0wall as a router operating system, and I have confirmed that it supports ADSL add on cards. However, it does not have a torrent client and the system is limited to 64MB usable system memory. There may be other better software solutions available, including configuring any standard Linux distribution to run as a firewall/router.

    Second, the professional approach. This is how I would solve your scenario, with a RouterBoard.com solution featuring RouterBoardOS by MikroTik. They produce routers and wireless equipment for wireless ISP, law enforcement, everyone and anyone and are hands down the best router solution. They do not have the ability to integrate ADSL internally and they do not have a torrent app either.
     
  17. modster

    modster What's a Dremel?

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    I do have some old components that I can put together a computer, but it's going to use a lot more power compare to these mini itx. I am leaning toward atom mainly because of its price. I love the Jetway motherboard, but it costs twice as much as the atom. I am still thinking :-\

    Btw, how is the processing power compare to atom. I am having trouble finding some comparable benchmark.
     
    Last edited: 12 Dec 2008
  18. barry99705

    barry99705 sudo rm -Rf /

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    I wouldn't worry too much about processing power for a router. I'm pretty sure the cisco pix routers run the equivalent to a mac ppc g3 processor. ipCop will run on a 486, and run really well.
     
  19. LordLuciendar

    LordLuciendar meh.

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    He means the electrical power running into the box.

    Modster, I understand the price point, but the money is well worth it. You're going to need at least two network ports on the atom board, and their is only one way to do it if you want to integrate the ADSL modem. If you're concerned about price... use the old PC. If not, commit all the way to building a box that works and will work for a long time. That way you'll save money to... eventually.
     

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