I started my homelab journey! Looking for a suitable low power consumption computer to use as a router/firewall, I came across the Fujitsu Futro S920, a thin client that is especially popular for projects with pfSense because of its expandability (The x4 PCIe port), low power consumption and the low price.
I read numerous documents and articles on specifications and upgrades, and I found two particularly interesting posts about the speed limitations of PCIe X4 slot:
- https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/fujitsu-futro-s920-thin-client-as-opnsense-firewall.31087/page-9#post-369944
- https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/Futro/s920/
Trying to go deeper in this performance issue, I found this article https://pietro.in/en/posts/futro-s920-proxmox/ that explain well the problem and provide a guide to solve the problem.
Result of using the lspci -vvv
command before and after the BIOS update:
LnkSta: Speed 2.5GT/s (downgraded), Width x1
LnkSta: Speed 5GT/s, Width x1
Files and guidelines to apply the BIOS parameter update are available in the links posted before, but I want to add some notes and additional files:
- Technical specifications of the motherboard series mini-itx-d3313 - pdf. This document contains BIOS update procedure (You must perform this task before updating the BIOS parameters.).
- The freeDOS lite version is probably enough
- BIOS version V4.6.5.4 - R1.18.0 (10/07/2018) - zip update files to apply with FreeDOS. Files are specific for the (using) motherboard D3313-A1x (check te version in the BIOS informations page).
If you are looking for a PCIe raiser for your Futro S920, searching online I found the WLGQ RC-P-002 on Amazon Italy https://amzn.eu/d/2stOeBK. Even though it is an 8X version, it is compatible with the S920 motherboard port.