Spotty internet on fresh install but when I just run livecd it works perfectly

[freelowdr]

Hi All,

I'm new to opnsense but it seems user friendly enough with some knowhow. The situation I'm facing should be straightforward but I'm having problems. Namely, when I run the livecd version, it works really well, very fast and internet browsing is responsive, all default opnsense settings. After I install opnsense on my M.2 SSD, it works but the internet is spotty and pages only partially load or don't load at all. I can get to web console fine. I left everything default just like the livecd. I don't understand what could be happening. To be on the safe side I also tried install to 500GB HDD and when I loaded it up, same issue. In general, I did also notice that from the livecd the resource utilization is lower, cpu rarely goes over 60% but with install version it hit 100% pretty often. Any help would be appreciated

I guess I should also mention it's behind another router, but that should be no issues since it's working form livecd.

Old Dell Optiplex Micro
i3 4th Gen CPU
4GB RAM
16GB SSD
500GB HDD
Onboard NIC (LAN)
USB NIC (WAN)

[CJ]

What version are you testing with?
Did you perform all of the updates after installing?
How long are you testing for?
Have you done any hardware testing?  Mem, cpu, SMART etc?

The only thing different between the live and installed versions that I can think of offhand would be writing to the disk, which makes me think that you have a hardware issue.

That said, USB NIC are generally problematic and should be avoided.  You'll be best off switching to an actual NIC.

[freelowdr]

I can now see the error "arprequest_internal: cannot find matching address"

Trying to look up info and see what to do but not sure how to proceed. I made sure the MAC address of the WAN interface matches the MAC address of the WAN NIC. Still receive the error

Sparticle posted having the same issue and symptoms previously. I see some other discussions but still unsure.
https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=18994.0

I've been testing for about 3 days now. Many reboots. The hardware is fine and I had run hardware tests before I started. Also the fact that it runs perfectly in livecd indicates to me that there is potential for it to run flawlessly.

I'm running version 23.7 and I installed all updates. With regards to the writing to disk that you mentioned, I'm assuming the logs are being spammed. The issue might also explain the higher resource utilization. I'll keep testing and investigating. Thanks

[freelowdr]

It appears that replacing the USB NIC with a mini pcie nic has resolved my issue. Thanks again

I'll continue to monitor but it seems fine.

[CJ]

It appears that replacing the USB NIC with a mini pcie nic has resolved my issue. Thanks again

I'll continue to monitor but it seems fine.

Weird, but not unsurprising.  Glad it's working now.