I don't follow your math (I am probably doing something wrong).
10 cents ---- 1000 Wh
x cents ----- 40 Wh
x = 400 / 1000 = 4/10 = 0.4 cents for each hour of 40W consumption; that would be 9.6 cents for each day of running your 486 machine full time.
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486DX Router/Firewall
- Thread starter borgward
- Start date
I don't follow your math (I am probably doing something wrong).
10 cents ---- 1000 Wh
x cents ----- 40 Wh
x = 400 / 1000 = 4/10 = 0.4 cents for each hour of 40W consumption; that would be 9.6 cents for each day of running your 486 machine full time.
Ole Juul
Veteran Member
I'm not surprised you didn't follow it. It's crazy! I see now that I mixed up dollars and cents - just classic.
OK, so it's $2.88 per month. A little closer, but not exactly staggering. Especially considering that we are talking abut a difference, and the dedicated router might easily take 10 watts. I'll have to measure mine - but can't while I'm posting this. Thanks for pointing this out. (blush)
Old Thrashbarg
Veteran Member
I think 40W is a bit optimistic, but we'll go with that. 40W, or 0.04KW, over 24 hours comes out to 0.96KWh. At $0.10 per KWh, that's right about $0.10 per day, which makes $3.00 per month if it's run 24/7.
Then consider something like the Apple Airport. I don't know the exact power consumption of those, but I'd expect it's pretty similar to my Linksys wireless router, which pulls about 10W. That's 0.24KWh over 24 hours, or 2.4 cents per day... we'll say 3 cents since the power company probably likes to round up. So that's 90 cents a month.
The Airport can be had for about $10, so we'll add that to the base cost of 90 cents a month, which, assuming you don't have to buy any parts for the 486, puts the break-even point of the Airport at 4.76 months [$0.9(months) + $10 = $3(months)], compared to the 486 system. So basically, it would take less than 5 months for the dedicated router to pay for itself just in power savings.
Now, we're not talking about a huge cost either way... I'd consider it pretty insignificant, actually. But it is a valid consideration.
I do happen to think that for a non-interactive task, the less power wasted, the better, so the Linksys/Airport box would be better.
But, on the other hand, if a real person is going to be "humanly interfacing" with the machine in a regular basis, then whatever it takes or whatever power it wastes it is justified.
In other words, in my opinion if that 486 machine is going to be a router/firewall only, there's not much point nowadays. On the other hand, if that 486 machine is going to have another uses at the hand of a human, then it's perfectly justified to have it up 24/7.
One of my projects is to build a 486 Xenix system, and to put it to use as a open-access internet-connected multiuser network host, and to give telnet shell accounts (and/or UUCP shell accounts) to anyone who asks for one. That machine should have to stay up 24/7 (or until Xenix crashes itself, or until a user manages to crash it, whatever happens the sooner). Yes, it will cost me a little money in the electricity bill. No, I don't mind it, because I expect to have fun with that project.
Ole Juul
Veteran Member
Actually, I'm going by my P1 on which I do actual measurements at the AC input. It used to be 40W max and 38W ave. It seems to be a bit higher since I put in the modern video card and CF drive. Motor driven HDDs make absolutely no difference in the power consumption on this PSU. Anyway, it is now at 0.39 Amp peak on operation (x117=45.6W.) and the average seems stable around 0.36-0.38 Amp (43W.)
I guessing these old machines have grossly overpowered PSUs, this one is rated at 300W, and subsequently most of the power is used up in PS inefficiencies since they have to operate in what is basically outside their design range. But that's a subject for another day.
Jorg
Veteran Member
I guess the nice thing about a 486 is that its still jumper configured, and easy to underclock.
I've been using a DX/100 at 25 Mhz, no heatsink required.
But indeed the inefficiency of old AT PSUs (and even back then most where cheap chinese stuff), combined with the fact that the boards have mostly no sleep/standby/power modes makes that if low power is something you look for, thats not the best solution.
Even the AMD Sempron board I use as a server takes 26 W idle- and can go standby and WOL if needed.
But then, the coolness factor beats all
For putting your IDE harddisk to sleep in a 486, there is a sleep.exe util around, fwiw.
I've been using a DX/100 at 25 Mhz, no heatsink required.
But indeed the inefficiency of old AT PSUs (and even back then most where cheap chinese stuff), combined with the fact that the boards have mostly no sleep/standby/power modes makes that if low power is something you look for, thats not the best solution.
Even the AMD Sempron board I use as a server takes 26 W idle- and can go standby and WOL if needed.
But then, the coolness factor beats all
For putting your IDE harddisk to sleep in a 486, there is a sleep.exe util around, fwiw.
Check out Smoothwall. I ran it on a Celeron 300 w/ 256mb RAM. It worked flawlessly for about 2 years. I stopped using it because I realized there was no point since my WRT54G w/ DD-WRT on it was a much better solution for my needs and used a lot less power and desk space.
I don't know if a 486 would be powerfull enough to handle the routing of a high speed connection. I tried several configuration before I ended up with the Celeron, I found that the lower powered machines (I tried a P-66, P-100 and some others) caused my internet speed to actually slow down. I'd be curious about your results with the 486.
I don't know if a 486 would be powerfull enough to handle the routing of a high speed connection. I tried several configuration before I ended up with the Celeron, I found that the lower powered machines (I tried a P-66, P-100 and some others) caused my internet speed to actually slow down. I'd be curious about your results with the 486.
I'd also go for a dedicated router, personally I like the now ancient NetGear 834's. But they are starting to suffer with bad caps now and they can be a pig to change (I recently tried to sort one and the solder just wouldn't flow no matter how much flux and heat I put on it). Other options might include a Shiva Plug or a VM if you have a server and can route a seperate VLAN or dedicated cable to it (from the upstream connection).
Ole Juul
Veteran Member
I had assumed he would be using a 56k modem on a single line, and not putting multiple modems on multiple lines. I can't see how speed would be a problem. I like the WRT54G as well, but I don't understand how you would connect it to a serial line, though I think I saw a mod somewhere.
This is why I recommend IPCop. It sets up PPP and automatic dialing upon access. That's pretty luxurious. I don't think there's a lot of software, nor routers, that do that. Some of the other suggestions here, might be a better choice though. A 486 will often have very little memory and not have room for much upgrade either. My feeling is that a 486 is not a good choice unless one particularly likes vintage projects (and we don't know the OP's interests in that regard) or has absolutely no access to a discarded non "vintage" machine.I guess they make them, but what models do you recommend for dailup?
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Jorg
Veteran Member
I think Smoothwall, as many more recent linux based packages, needs a 586 class minimum.
justjunk
Experienced Member
I haven't used it in a long while, but smoothwall was what I used. Worked well and ran (at the time) on a 486 with 16mb ram (iirc). I didn't use dial up but it was supported. You would probably have to use an older version. Currently v3 but I think v2 was what I used and the older versions are available to download. There was a complete manual and it was very easy to set up. I had no linux experience at that time.
Ahh, well a 486 would probably be ok with a dial-up net connection and a small number of clients, but I still thinking it'll tax the system quite a bit.
Any 80486 can route 10Mb/sec Ethernet quite nicely - I wouldn't worry about it running out of CPU power. Routing doesn't take a lot of CPU power.
I think people really underestimate what these machines can do. Even my 4.77Mhz machines can hit data rates of 0.5 to 0.8Mb/sec. A 486 is usually at least 6 times faster on the clock frequency, has a far better CPU implementation, has 32 bit registers, and has an on-chip cache. Memory bandwidth is 4x faster too.
Mike
I think people really underestimate what these machines can do. Even my 4.77Mhz machines can hit data rates of 0.5 to 0.8Mb/sec. A 486 is usually at least 6 times faster on the clock frequency, has a far better CPU implementation, has 32 bit registers, and has an on-chip cache. Memory bandwidth is 4x faster too.
Mike
Ahh, ok that makes sense. Perfect for dial up or ISDN. But when you net connection is Comcast cable or the like then you are sacrificing a fair amount of bandwidth since their connections can be 12mbit and up (I believe mine is 20mbit right now).
Plus if you use the router for anything else, like intrusion prevention or content filtering you really start needing the extra cpu power for it, which I think is the real reason why the lower end systems I tried curtailed my internet speed.
My older dedicated router would hang if I used emule or another app like that (for more then a few days) just from the tons of people hitting you with packets even after you turn the app off. There is quite a bit of power needed for blocking, filtering, and sending packets to the correct machines (FTP, Ident, other stuff) all while other machines are streaming video or gaming.
Elvi
Experienced Member
At first i ran with a p1 133 system but it broke down and got a lot of kernel panics, think i was on ipcop 1.4 by then so i had to scroung up another stronger pc a amd k6-2 333mhz ran fine for a few years even with 3 nics but when ipcop 2 came i noticed that the bandwidth droppd with this machine
tried with and without the firewall pc to see the differance and there was a drop at about hm... 2-5mbit, i have a 50/10mbit fiber optic line btw so sigh... i had to scroung up another pc... went with my current pentium 3 450mhz and it's running the line just fine :D tho i honestly wouldn't mind getting down a litle on the power usage but a router? meh no thanks i'm not interested in those at all, suspect some mini pc system would be the way to go if i ever get to that, don't even know how much that system draws.Current setup is like this
"modem"->ipcop->switch->local pc's, ipcop->server
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Wow, that was a fast growing thread. How technical are you borgward? What operating system do you have on it right now? I agree with most of the posts, you can do it in Windows 9x with ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) easily but that wouldn't run very well on a 486 nor would it provide you with much protection without the use of an additional firewall application running.
What operating systems are you most familiar with and are you more of a command line or gui fan?
What operating systems are you most familiar with and are you more of a command line or gui fan?
Caluser2000
Banned
As I mention earlier the AnalogXs proxy could be useful. I've used XP and Windows 98 machines to share a ppp connection with Linux, OS/2v3/4, Dos/win 3.1, NT3/4 and Win9x machines. It's pretty light and a breeze to setup.
http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/Network/proxy/Freeware.htm
Run the proxy(RTFM first), connect the modem, enter the ip address/port of the ppp machine in connection setup of any browser on the machine you want to surf on and away you go................Of course there are limitations but it does work.
http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/Network/proxy/Freeware.htm
Run the proxy(RTFM first), connect the modem, enter the ip address/port of the ppp machine in connection setup of any browser on the machine you want to surf on and away you go................Of course there are limitations but it does work.
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Chuck(G)
25k Member
To firewall and DNS masquerading I add mail service and netradio service (I can use any FM radio in the house to listen to any webcast).
I use Debian running off a microdrive (though a CF might work just as well or better) on an old thin client. Works fine, sips power, cheap, quiet and runs for months without any attention at all. I started doing this on a 75MHz P1 running RH 5.0 way back when.
The current thin client is a Neoware CA19. They're cheap enough that I have a second CA19 with all the same software installed, so all I have to do if the active one fails is disconnect it and stick in the other one and I'm back up and running.
It hasn't happened yet, but if it does, I'm ready.
I use Debian running off a microdrive (though a CF might work just as well or better) on an old thin client. Works fine, sips power, cheap, quiet and runs for months without any attention at all. I started doing this on a 75MHz P1 running RH 5.0 way back when.
The current thin client is a Neoware CA19. They're cheap enough that I have a second CA19 with all the same software installed, so all I have to do if the active one fails is disconnect it and stick in the other one and I'm back up and running.
It hasn't happened yet, but if it does, I'm ready.