# Silent PC for FreeBSD? Low power consumption, low price



## foster (Nov 3, 2015)

Hello,

I would like to buy a PC that is fully compatible with FreeBSD. I want to use Intel Graphics Drivers to avoid driver trouble. The system needs to be very silent - it would be great if it had no fans at all.
I do not have very much knowledge of current hardware and do not know how to manually put everything together.
If there is a barebone with everything you need except for the HDD, it would be optimal for me.

I would like to avoid problems like overheating and unusual high power consumption caused by insufficient FreeBSD compatibility.

I am fine with mini PCs. It would be great if there is space for an SSD and a 3,5" HDD.

I love low power consumption and low prices. Maybe like 300 US dollars at most. More if it is worth it.
Can you recommend a PC?

PS: I am not a native speaker, I hope you understand what I say


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## SirDice (Nov 3, 2015)

I'm not aware of a "complete" PC (although I'm sure there are some). But some time ago I bought a new mainboard for my firewall. It has an integrated Intel CPU that's passively cooled. Combined with an SSD and it's very, very quiet. The only "noise" it makes is the PSU. 

http://www.msi.com/product/motherboard/C847MS-E33.html#hero-overview


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## lme@ (Nov 4, 2015)

As you're from Germany, search for the "c't Bauvorschlag" article from January. Yes, it's quite old but I think you should still get most of the components and have a nice and quiet system which should run FreeBSD.
http://www.heise.de/ct/ausgabe/2015...nd-trotzdem-schnelle-Desktop-PCs-2483499.html


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## sebastianbrandner (Nov 4, 2015)

iI'm also searching for a low TDP solution. iI found a nice Zotac.

Really nice models are listed here: http://geizhals.at/?cat=barepc&asuch=zotac&bl1_id=30&sort=p&xf=3345_2015#xf_top All are released in 2015

So iI don't have to build it by myself and there is a low power power supply included. Much more energy efficient than a 300W+ Gold/Platinum power supply

Hopefully the Intel Celeron N3150 is supported by VMware vSphere Hypervisor, then iI'll want to run a OPNsense Firewall and a FreeBSD box.


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## SirDice (Nov 4, 2015)

sebastianbrandner said:


> Hopefully the Intel Celeron N3150 is supported by VMware vSphere Hypervisor, then iI'll want to run a OPNsense Firewall and a FreeBSD box.


Expensive bit of software to run on low cost, low power hardware. According to the Intel site it supports VT-x and VT-x with EPT. I think that should be enough for bhyve


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## sebastianbrandner (Nov 5, 2015)

SirDice said:


> Expensive bit of software to run on low cost, low power hardware. According to the Intel site it supports VT-x and VT-x with EPT. I think that should be enough for bhyve


hmm, iI don't get it. why is a free software expensive? 

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor/


> VMware vSphere Hypervisor is a free bare-metal hypervisor that virtualizes servers so you can consolidate your applications on less hardware.



and this low cost/power box is the best solution for a firewall and a little webserver in my opinion 


kr,
sebastian


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## SirDice (Nov 5, 2015)

Things may have changed but I always though it was ESXi (the actual hypervisor) that was free. vSphere is the software that can manage one or more ESXi hosts. But they may have shuffled those names around.

I've managed quite large vCenter/vCloud setups but I never had to buy the stuff, all licenses where already there.


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## tingo (Nov 5, 2015)

SirDice said:


> Expensive bit of software to run on low cost, low power hardware. According to the Intel site it supports VT-x and VT-x with EPT. I think that should be enough for bhyve


FWIW, I have the less expensive model, the ASRock BeeBox N3000, and I plan to learn about bhyve on it. So far, the vmm.ko module loads fine.


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## Phishfry (Nov 6, 2015)

I don't want to jack this thread but the byhve buzz is interesting.


SirDice said:


> According to the Intel site it supports VT-x and VT-x with EPT


Thanks for this. I was wondering how they were able to run VM on a chip without VT-d.

So how good is the hardware passthrough support?

Another interesting device for low power box is the Chromebox. I don't know if FreeBSD runs on them but they can run Linux.


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## SirDice (Nov 6, 2015)

Phishfry said:


> I don't want to jack this thread but the byhve buzz is interesting.
> 
> Thanks for this. I was wondering how they were able to run VM on a chip without VT-d.


Because it's not needed. 



> So how good is the hardware passthrough support?


Still very new but it should work if you have VT-d support.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve/pci_passthru


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