Found this one too. Seller has better feedback too.
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Got mine today and just finished with migrating opnsense setup and tweaking. I had to stab samplicate a few times in order to reduce cpu usage. I will have to investigate later, netflow reporting is disabled now but I may not use it anyway and just use other methods of reporting info. Wasn’t thrilled with having cpu usage pegged on one core and driving up power usage & temp just for netflow which I wasn’t using but once I fixed that, cpu usage is very low and everything is working good.
Unit came with 2x2gb sticks of ram and 64gb sandisk ssd that had been powercycled 93 times but showed 0 hours of usage. Hmm. I switched out for a new Crucial 250gb ssd for cheap, way too much space for it but maybe at some point it could be useful for something.
In case anyone is looking to upgrade the CPU, I can verify the i7-4770t (45w) works great in this. The CPU runs about 5 degrees F higher (3 degrees C), but the case is still barely warm. That upgrades this to a quad core with 8 threads. The power usage is sitting at ~15.5W in pfsense at idle. That is about 2W higher than the stock i5 processor, which isn’t bad.
I know its overkill for my pfsense firewall, but I felt like I downgraded from my previous box which was an i7-5500u. Now I have something more powerful and I also have a 2nd B533 as a backup unit or for some other function.
You can check out this page to see the potential upgrade options. You may be able to get away with one of the 65w processors.
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I don’t see this one, did you mean i7-4770t maybe?
I’ve debated upgrading the CPU but I don’t really need it for the router. And I’ve already got enough systems under the desk that the gf makes jokes about it and eyes any new computer bits that come in lol
And I have a Ryzen 3600x sitting idle now after one system got a 5800x recently so… 
You are correct that it is the i7-4770t and I fixed my earlier post. I wanted the i7-4790t, but its priced way too high for my tastes.
The Canadian seller has some more units in stock and they are around $150 USD with shipping (linked below). I have been using mine for 4-5 months now and it is really impressive for the price. With the stock i5 CPU, the system was idling at 12-13w measured with a kill-a-watt. After upgrading to the i7 mentioned earlier it idles around 15-16w. It has been flawless so far with pfsense and hasn’t given me any issues. I have pfsense setup with OpenVPN and 4 VLANs managed by pfsense and this thing doesn’t break a sweat. I know I would be better letting the VLAN routing be handled by a managed L3 switch, but I haven’t had the need yet. Maybe I’ll try one of the Aruba S2500 switches JDM reviewed or one of the Brocade based ones at some point.
The main downside I see with this unit is the lack of a pcie slot. This limits you to the 2x Intel GB ethernet ports on the unit. For most people this isn’t an issue and it hasn’t been for me yet. However, I am getting 2GB fiber later this year and I’ll only be capped at 1GB. I could get a minipcie to ethernet adapter for each of the two minipcie ports internally, but I would have to find a way to route the ports outside of the case. My options would be a Realtek based 2.5gbe card or an Intel one that I can’t find much info on. In adition, I would have to route the ports outside of the case (drill holes probably) and it would be a hacky solution. I am actively looking at 10gbe solutions that aren’t too crazy on power, but 10gbe opens another can of worms.
ENTERPRISE FANLESS pfsense firewall router computer i5 intel 64GB SSD | eBay
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Some more are available here:
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Bought one of the Nexcom boxes from eBay. Sloooooow shipping from CA and terrible packing, but it made it without damage as the case is bomb-proof. No racing stripes either. Wiped the drive that came with pfSense and installed OPNsense and migrated the setup over that was on my 290. All good once I sorted out the interfaces and gateways and Wireguard setup.
The HP290 setup was great - its been running flawlessly with a 16gb Optane card and Intel quad NIC, but we moved to a new house and the cable runs into the master bedroom, and the fan on the 290 was just a wee bit noisy, not so much as to prevent sleep but it was there. The fanless box is dead quiet of course, and its also smaller. Its been too hot to crawl around in the attic and pull coax and ethernet lines, so figured this fanless box was a good fix in the meantime. Will probably keep it once even after I re-wire the house, and sell the HP290.
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You’ll have to post some pictures once you get it installed.
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It is really nice. Resisting the urge to buy another one.
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Can anyone speak to the throughput with something like wireguard or OpenVPN installed? Does it have enough horsepower to maintain a 1Gb connection?
You’re not going to get full speed over any VPN service. Why would you need to?
First time poster here, but let me try and help with that question. I have used the SATA DOM header, with a SATA power splitter (from the original drive bay) and made a few of these running two 2.5 SSD. They work great. Will try and take pictures and list parts to help out
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More available with favorable Canadian exchange rate:
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Another link with more avialable:
My Nexcom has been running flawlessly since the era of JDM’s original post. Great machine.
Just found more on eBay for less than $80, open box units, from a US-seller. No connection, just thought I pass it along.
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Good find!
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When I posted thisearlier today the seller had sold 3 or 4 of them. Now its up to 45! Looks like he’s accepting a lot of offers, too.
The seller is accepting $60 offers!
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OK I received the Nexcom. All boxes were sealed, seemingly new. Components were in original packaging, hard drive was new and uninstalled, mounting screws were in original packaging. The power supply appears to be much better quality than the one I got with the unit bought last year from an eBay CAN seller.
Processor is G3320TE, dual-core 2.30GHz. Unit came with one 4GB RAM (installed) which makes it easy/cheap to double to 8GB if needed. Apacer-branded RAM is labeled PC3-12800, in BIOS though it shows 1333MHz, so it may be limited by this processor, as it should be 1600MHz speed.
According to the Nexcom user manual and spec sheet there are two models of the 533, one that supports 35W processor, and one (533F) that supports 45W processor. This unit (533-CX) doesn’t appear in the spec sheets. It looks identical internally to my other model, so I assume that it will easily support the i5-4570TE processor (35W).
Very happy with this deal for sure.
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