nevermind, I just got my answer: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,21981.msg123595.html#msg123595

Look at this thread and see if there is anything useful in there: http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17112&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

No replay… UP

This is my config.  Does it look right to you? type static mac 11:22:…. mtu blank bridge with none ip addr 192.168.10.1 /24  (my lan is 192.168.1.1 /24) gateway blank ftp helper unchecked standard 802.11g mode access point 802.11g ofdm protection mode off ssid myssid 802.11g only unchecked allow intra-BSS unchecked enable wme checked enable hide ssid unchecked transmit power 99 channel 3  (on this version of pfsense I had to pick a channel to get it to work) distance setting blank wep unchecked wpa checked wpa mode wpa2 wpa key management pre shared key authentication open system authentication wpa pairwise both key rotation 60 master key regeneration 3600 strict key regeneration unchecked enable IEEE802.1x unchecked

@bmwkeith: I just got a Jetway J74K1G5S-LF with dual Realtek Lan ports running 1.2.3 and had trouble with the firewall becoming non responsive at random intervals, the symptoms being no internet access and could not log on to the firewall via the web GUI. I resolved the issue by disabling Hardware Checksum Unloading on the Advanced functions web GUI page near the bottom of the page. This has resolved the issue and now everything works fine Thanks for the tip "Hardware Checksum Unloading" sounds a lot like the padlock feature! I'm planning to upgrade my J7F4K1G2ES machine from 1.2.1 to 1.2.3 next week and I'll definitely try to disable that feature if the machine starts locking up.

The only reason why I wanted to post about the up/downGrade was because it runs so cool. My Server is a 1U system, so the CPU cooler was really loud to keep that hot proc cooled. I am now throttling the CPU cooler at 4000 RPM and the Proc won't go a single degree over 48C! I'm loving it and if someone is building a system then the 430 is for you. 1.8 Ghz single core is enough trust me.

Thank you very much Eddie I think I will keep with a more normal setup for now, and study this possibility later. I am still reading the docs… I will look to see if it is possible to install ataidle later too. Thanks for the insight!

I'm not sure exactly, but it may just be the driver. I don't think any of the Intel cards can do hostap on FreeBSD though so it may really be the card, too.

Are there any wireless cards with a Mini-PCIe interface that uses the USB part of this interface?

@ScottNJ: I'm not so sure about that. I built a Pentium 4 PC back in '04, the MSI motherboard came with an onboard Realtek Gigabit NIC. I had lots of problems getting it to work at 1000mb. I tried various driver versions and tried 3 different branded gigabit switches. I gave up and stuck an INTEL card in the box. Cleared up everything. There's a difference between a 6 year old chip (and 6 year old drivers, too) than what is coming out new today. Given a choice, Intel is generally better, but they have their fair share of issues too for some. A search on the freebsd-stable list turns up plenty of problems (checksum issues, tso issues, vlan hardware tagging issues, altq broken in 8.0-release, etc, etc)

Thanks for that, didnt think a simple pkg_add would resolve the issue.  ;D

Ok, It took me quite a long time but thanks to the Internet and the post by indexofire I was able to find a reliable solution: I think this will be of interest to all persons wishing to deploy an Alix box with an IDE drive. 1. The IDE drive was identified as da0 on the install machine and considered as ad0 for Alix…  ==> Edit and modify the /etc/fstab to change da0 to ad0 (this one was easy)! 2. The "READ_DMA UDMA" problem… this one is much more tricky: ==> Install pfSense with the live CD on an IDE drive. ==> Boot or mount your newly formated HD  with the computer you have used for the install ==> Mount your partition: mount -o rw /dev/da0s1a /root/tmp ==> Create a file in /etc: /etc/rc.early and insert #!/bin/sh /sbin/atacontrol mode ad0 UDMA2" ==> Edit boot file: /boot/loader.conf and add this line: hw.ata.ata_dma = 0 ==> Reboot ! And now everything is up and running!! Thanks to indexofire on this thread, http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=4486 …You will soon be able to buy Alix box with IDE drive on my site www.osnet.eu

I just came across such an interesting problem; :)

Has there been any progress on this? I have a VIA box and noticed an unexpected reboot today, after upgrading earlier this week.

It might not really matter which you use on that card.  They are probably labeled 0, 1, and 2 and I would probably end up connecting it to 0 and 1 if I had one of those.  My 5416 only has two connectors, though, which are 0 and 2.  It has a space labeled 1, but there is no connector soldered there.

Valnar: I agree the Gigabit adapters won't be be pushed to anything like line speed if all the traffic is between LAN and WAN. BUT there is nothing in the description that says there won't be traffic routed between those 15-20 VLANs on the LAN interface nor does the description say there won't be traffic routed between LAN and those servers on one of the other NICs. There might not be any advantage in those Intel gigabit adapters if the system behaves wierdly because the Gigabit NICs saturate the PCI bus for extended periods.

Another user reports seeing 260Mbps between two system using Intel GigE NICs. See http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,22855.15.html. The 260Mbps report is towards the end of the thread but the rest of the thread has observations that may be relevant to your report. There are many factors that can affect throughput. I didn't see a clear configuration description in your report. What end systems are you using? What intermediate systems are involved? Bittorrents typically run a number of TCP connections concurrently, hence it shouldn't be surprising if a bittorrent gets more bandwidth that a single TCP connection. (I don't know how speedtest works, in particular I don't know how many TCP connections it uses.)

Be weary of the 82574L NICs.  I've not tested them with pfSense but they typically don't work unless you install the newest batch of drivers from Intel, making them dead out of the box on Windows, OpenSolaris, and most Linux distros that haven't been respun within the last couple months.