Cheap hardware recommendation for first time OPNsense / home firewall

[passeri]

If the mini PC is in free air, it should be fine. If it seems actually hot or is enclosed then a fan like Patrick mentioned will do a great job on its lowest speed. I use AC Infinity fans where needed; like the euroharry but more expensive! If the device is in free air then another option is to get a large flat-based heatsink from an electronics shop and plonk that on top, improving fin area. I prefer passive cooling solutions. It is only my patch panel cabinet where I have added forced airflow from necessity

[Seimus]

Same here as mentioned. And yes I agree if the miniPC is in open space the temps are okay (same when I open the doors of my rack). You are absolutely right if these devices are in Racks or any other enclosement its needed to add some airflow.

Regards,
S.

[Mombro]

I would advice before you do anything start to do with the device to check the BIOS for P1 & P2 values, and set the accordingly to the CPU W values. I have N5105 and its P1 P2 were over the moon had to set them correctly, got much more better thermals.

Also in regards of Patrick's advice of the fan. I did yesterday Install a 140mm low profile FAN from Arctic (ARCTIC P14 SLIM PWM PST - basically put it on top of the chassis finstack). You see my FW is in a small rack, which doesn't have much clearance thus temperature in the rack tents to keep constantly high. The FAN decreased the Temps on the Device around 20C. See the picture.



Regards,
S.

That's kinda insane brother! I have a small rack, too, so will Definitely do that, too. Heat is an issue in there anyway, but the case had cost 150€ and the vendor's proprietary fan costs 180€, so...

[Mombro]

If anyone cares, the OPNsense is running very smoothly at ~42°C outside the rack.

It's basically configured with unbound, ISC DHCP (which has dropped support for sometime soon ... ugh), Gateway failover ... works like a charm. I'll probably order another cheap PC as a backup machine for high availability :D

[Seimus]

Glad to hear you were able to get a unit without a need of further modification :)

Regards,
S.