Pfsense hardware failure(?)

Networking & Firewalls
1

Hello to all. I stumbled upon pfsense - and this site - a couple of years ago. Led me to install pfsense on an HP t-620 Plus with an added 4 port NIC. Has been operating flawlessly for those couple of years. However, now have lost connection to the 620. First thought was that the 620 itself failed. It’s headless in a data closet. I tried a shutdown from the front panel, then restarted it. It seemed to fire up successfully (watching the “hard disk” LED flicker as it seemed to boot, etc). Each ethernet port on the NIC and on the switch all show as linked, though cannot connect to it, nor anything through it. Next step would be to connect it to a keyboard and monitor? Or is there something I should try first? Does it sound like a hardware issue? Software? Loss of configuration?

TIA - Lee

2

Most probably hardware issue. Check your storage and ram memory. Since this system has active cooling, check the fan and the heat sink fins. Its possible you have a dust carpet in there. If thats the case, clean it, and dont forget to apply fresh thermal paste. Make sure you inspect the power supply as well. They fail gradually and they usually get overlooked.

3

just connect a laptop to the LAN port. If laptop gets ip, you can get into gui. If not, a monitor and keyboard is helpful if it gave any errors or reset to the default configuration. I also have a spare pfsense just in case and can swap them. I use Lenovo m720q.