Looking for new motherboard -also to share VPN over onboard wireless (or 2nd NIC)

[Steven P. Administrators]

Hi guiys,

 

I am currently rocking a ASUS H87-Plus, which doesn't have onboard Wifi or support my new 16GB of DDR5 HyperX Fury White (limited to DDR3), have a Haswell i5 Intel CPU so I will need a new CPU (around the same mid range i5 type).

 

I'm not looking to upgrade anything else, happy with the 120GB Kingston SSD for Windows, 3TB (7200rpm) data drive NVidia 1050Ti GTX (4GB) so it's just mainboard and CPU that need upgrading.

 

Right now I can share my VPN through Plex Channels but the streaming is quite poor over it, after reading up about local VPN sharing it seems you can do it easily enough when you share the VPN adapter to a second NIC (wired or wireless) and rather than buying components for this older build, may as well just do it from the upgrade.

 

The VPN share would be used on media devices like TV (downstairs and upstairs) and Xbox One S, so simply connecting to the WiFi that is VPN shared would be easier since I can just name it as such. All of my media devices are wired on the LAN but all also support WiFi to connect. 

 

I don't have an internet router that supports VPN and I read up that these are not cheap, so doing it through my own PC in combination with an upgrade is probably the way to go for me, plus I like the idea of a dedicated WiFi just for VPN.

 

I am based in The Netherlands if that helps. 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

Not sure what you budget is, or what you are looking for in a board, but...

 

I can recommend you an ASUS Z1701 PRO GAMING ITX. I own one myself, it has onboard Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth.

 

I think a Intel Core i5 6400 will do you well. If you aren't overclocking, don't get the K version. The price is right per performance.

 

My 2 cents.

[Steven P. Administrators]

Ohh I don't game on the PC, it's just for work so it doesn't have to be a beast

1 hour ago, Mindovermaster said:

Not sure what you budget is, or what you are looking for in a board, but...

 

I can recommend you an ASUS Z1701 PRO GAMING ITX. I own one myself, it has onboard Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth.

 

I think a Intel Core i5 6400 will do you well. If you aren't overclocking, don't get the K version. The price is right per performance.

 

My 2 cents.

 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

57 minutes ago, Steven P. said:

Ohh I don't game on the PC, it's just for work so it doesn't have to be a beast

 

Oh, OK. Why does it need to be i5? Photoshop?

[DevTech]

6 hours ago, Steven P. said:

Hi guiys,

 

I am currently rocking a ASUS H87-Plus, which doesn't have onboard Wifi or support my new 16GB of DDR5 HyperX Fury White (limited to DDR3), have a Haswell i5 Intel CPU so I will need a new CPU (around the same mid range i5 type).

 

I'm not looking to upgrade anything else, happy with the 120GB Kingston SSD for Windows, 3TB (7200rpm) data drive NVidia 1050Ti GTX (4GB) so it's just mainboard and CPU that need upgrading.

 

Right now I can share my VPN through Plex Channels but the streaming is quite poor over it, after reading up about local VPN sharing it seems you can do it easily enough when you share the VPN adapter to a second NIC (wired or wireless) and rather than buying components for this older build, may as well just do it from the upgrade.

 

The VPN share would be used on media devices like TV (downstairs and upstairs) and Xbox One S, so simply connecting to the WiFi that is VPN shared would be easier since I can just name it as such. All of my media devices are wired on the LAN but all also support WiFi to connect. 

 

I don't have an internet router that supports VPN and I read up that these are not cheap, so doing it through my own PC in combination with an upgrade is probably the way to go for me, plus I like the idea of a dedicated WiFi just for VPN.

 

I am based in The Netherlands if that helps. 

You really have two questions going on here.

 

You should duplicate your post into the Network forum which will permit networking experts like @BudMan to consider your VPN config.

 

"16GB of DDR5 HyperX Fury White (limited to DDR3)" makes no sense. If you have DDR3 RAM it is not going to magically transform into DDR4 for use with KabyLake/SkyLake

 

"Ohh I don't game on the PC, it's just for work so it doesn't have to be a beast " means that upgrading your mobo, CPU and RAM to a current anemic equivalent is very poor value and adding up those costs might very well get you a router solution that probably makes more sense for VPN.

 

Although your work requirements are probably basic, "it's just for work" can easily require hardware even more performant than a gaming rig for workloads such as video editing, 3D design etc.

 

 

[Steven P. Administrators]

Don't know, just going for the middle incase I decide to use something intensive

1 minute ago, DevTech said:

You really have two questions going on here.

 

You should duplicate your post into the Network forum which will permit networking experts like @BudMan to consider your VPN config.

 

"16GB of DDR5 HyperX Fury White (limited to DDR3)" makes no sense. If you have DDR3 RAM it is not going to magically transform into DDR4 for use with KabyLake/SkyLake

 

"Ohh I don't game on the PC, it's just for work so it doesn't have to be a beast " means that upgrading your mobo, CPU and RAM to a current anemic equivalent is very poor value and adding up those costs might very well get you a router solution that probably makes more sense for VPN.

 

Although your work requirements are probably basic, "it's just for work" can easily require hardware even more performant than a gaming rig for workloads such as video editing, 3D design etc.

 

 

The RAM is already DDR5 but my current mainboard doesn't support it. I basically want an upgrade with wifi built in but not spend too much. Hope this clears it up

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Where did you get the "new 16GB of DDR5 HyperX Fury White" ... and why?  Just curious ... I wouldn't upgrade from the current system especially with your relative low requirements...in other words I wouldn't build a system around the new RAM (though I'm curious how you obtained it...haha).  Can you return the RAM ... and trade it for a wireless card.  Are you running an i5-4xxx ...  series ... assuming HD4600 graphics?  That should be plenty powerful for streaming (just need to work the network issue).  I think the HD4600 will even do 4K.

[The Evil Overlord]

Um, have you tried rebuilding your media database first?

I didn't go full blown VPN to Plex or anything like that, but a lot of my streaming issues to my PlayStation were fixed simply by deleting and rebuilding my media database...

 

I had to use the task manager to close wmpnetwork.exe <spellcheck>

 

(On win 7 it was start>username>app data>Microsoft> then delete the folder called media player, restart the service through network and sharing centre, and reload the program to rebuild the cache. I don't know the exact steps for win 10, as I no longer stream, instead I just copy to a flash drive and plug flash drive to my PS.)

[DevTech]

9 minutes ago, Steven P. said:

Don't know, just going for the middle incase I decide to use something intensive

The RAM is already DDR5 but my current mainboard doesn't support it. I basically want an upgrade with wifi built in but not spend too much. Hope this clears it up

It only clears things up if you own a TARDIS.

 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/03/next-generation-ddr5-ram-will-double-the-speed-of-ddr4-in-2018/

 

DDR5 won't exist until 2018.

 

[The Evil Overlord]

1 minute ago, DevTech said:

It only clears things up if you own a TARDIS.

 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/03/next-generation-ddr5-ram-will-double-the-speed-of-ddr4-in-2018/

 

DDR5 won't exist until 2018.

 

Wow, you guys are mean to the boss

[adrynalyne]

 

3 minutes ago, DevTech said:

It only clears things up if you own a TARDIS.

 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/03/next-generation-ddr5-ram-will-double-the-speed-of-ddr4-in-2018/

 

DDR5 won't exist until 2018.

 

Yeah I was gonna say...I want some DDR5!!!

[DevTech]

3 minutes ago, The Evil Overlord said:

Wow, you guys are mean to the boss

Ah, perhaps something like this:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2017/jun/12/donald-trump-news-cabinet-praise-guardian-minute

 

 

[The Evil Overlord]

1 minute ago, DevTech said:

Ah, perhaps something like this:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2017/jun/12/donald-trump-news-cabinet-praise-guardian-minute

 

 

Exactly, we should be like those tiny guys from men in black 2, all hail Neobond, All hail Neobond, oh Neobond can you see, by the dawn's early light......

 

Wait what were we talking about???

[DevTech]

5 minutes ago, The Evil Overlord said:

Exactly, we should be like those tiny guys from men in black 2, all hail Neobond, All hail Neobond, oh Neobond can you see, by the dawn's early light......

 

Wait what were we talking about???

I would like to take a profoundly inspiring moment to thank you for the opportunity and the blessing that you’ve given us to serve Neowin's agenda. It is a great honor and privilege of my life.

[The Evil Overlord]

4 minutes ago, DevTech said:

I would like to take a profoundly inspiring moment to thank you for the opportunity and the blessing that you’ve given us to serve Neowin's agenda. It is a great honor and privilege of my life.

ROFL

[DevTech]

17 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

 

Yeah I was gonna say...I want some DDR5!!!

Oh yeah, me too!

 

https://www.jedec.org/news/pressreleases/jedec-ddr5-nvdimm-p-standards-under-development

 

It has been a few decades since RAM speed has been anywhere near CPU speed.

[Steven P. Administrators]

oshit I misread it, it is actually called "Kingston HyperX Fury 16 GB DIMM DDR3-1600 wit 2 x 8 GB" LOL

 

I guess I should look into getting a wifi card then? lol my bad.

[+BudMan MVC]

10 hours ago, Steven P. said:

I don't have an internet router that supports VPN and I read up that these are not cheap

Not sure what vpn router you looking at.  But your talking about routing traffic from your network to a vpn service you have or vpn you run on some vps or aws or azures, etc...  This could be done on the cheapest of routers that support dd-wrt or openwrt, etc.  So could be as low as a 20$ wifi router

 

Any PC you having laying around could be put to use to allow for policy routing and your vpn connection at your edge vs doing it on your PC.  There are multiple routing/firewall distro's that could do this - my vote would be for pfsense.  If you wanted official hardware the sg-1000 could do this, goes for $149 which includes 1 year of gold from pfsense which gives you access to the pfsense book.  This alone is a $99 value.

 

The unifi gateway that lists for $119 could do it.  You could prob do it with the edgerouter X that lists for $49..

https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/204952274-EdgeRouter-Policy-based-routing-source-address-based-

 

Once you put something in to do your routing and vpn connection, then you take your existing wifi router and use it as just an AP..   Once you set this up then your devices that you want to route out your vpn can do so without your PC running the vpn connection.

 

A problem you face with your PC running the vpn connection is other devices on your network not using your pc IP as gateway so you run into an asymmetrical routing issue.  IoT devices that play stuff like netflix or amazon or hulu, etc. smart tvs for example rarely having the ability to do host routes, etc.

 

I for sure would take any money you were thinking of getting to add wifi card to your pc and put it towards doing this the right way   Via a router that allows for policy routing and being a vpn client.

 

I could write up a howto on this really quickly based upon pfsense as your router in a few minutes.

[Steven P. Administrators]

Hey @BudMan it sounds like a wifi router is the way to go then? My setup is like this atm (it is a bit of a ducttape job)

 

Main ISP router is directly connected to the PC (and outside coax for the ISP connection) <-- this really should be in my fuse cabinet by the front door, but cable needs to be pulled under the floor for the LAN

The ISP router has both 2.4 and 5GHz WiFi enabled (coverage is good throughout the house upstairs and downstairs)

I have a TA-wpa4200 homeplug AP plugged in an electrical socket behind my PC and connected to the ISP router

In my TV cabinet downstairs and across the room from my ISP router I have a cable mediabox from the TV cable company that has a network hub built in

- connected a homeplug client to the mediabox - joined the network, which gave me an additional three ethernet points for xbox, tv and blu-ray player (now all "wired")

- Upstairs I have another homeplug which is wired to another blu-ray (for Netflix and Plex for the bedroom TV)

 

Before I used the homeplug system, Plex and Netflix would stutter, but I haven't had this since using the wired solution, allbeit through the electrical grid.

 

I use PIA so if I get a WiFi access point it will most likely be used to setup a UK IP for iPlayer or US one for Netflix etc, so it would be handy if I could save multiple profiles I guess.

[+BudMan MVC]

ISP router most likely not going to allow for 3rd party firmware.  Is it just a router or is it gateway (modem/router combo)?

 

Doubt some isp router allows for client vpn connections.  Suggestion if not a gateway and or you can just replace with router that supports 3rd party.  Or bridge it and double nat and setup new router that does support 3rd party firmware.

 

You have a budget for this - or just wanting to accomplish with what you have or very cheap?  What is the specific make and model of your isp device?  Do you have any older PC laying around you could leverage for router?