You've got 4 options:

install realtek's driver

buy a new NIC

buy a new machine

install a different OS

@AndrewZ:

What is the problem exactly?
As I mentioned multiple times all the 'newer' Huawei modems like 3272/3276/3372 should work.

None of the  'newer' Huawei modems does not work reliably.
Here the discussion: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=192345
There Patch: https://bz-attachments.freebsd.org/attachment.cgi?id=145319

Inst all the mSATA Change the boot order in the BIOS install from USB USB Stick to mSATA reject the USB Stick and reboot again

pfSense-netgate-memstick-serial-2.3.2-RELEASE-p1-amd64.img.gz
pfSense-netgate-memstick-serial-2.3.2-RELEASE-p1-amd64.img.gz.sha256

This is yours, the lastest stable with Serial console Support.

@BlueKobold:

Well, after doing some research, I discovered the Dell Opticplex I would need to meet the requirement of having PCLe 2.0 x1 would cost $450 - 500 or more.

The look more for a small Xeon D-15x8 platform such as the SYS-E200-D8 or SYS-E300-D8 or something similiar like this
perhaps a self made one. It is the best bet for low power and/or real 1 GBit/s. Also a small Xeon capable mini-ITX board will
do that Job right.

Well BlueKobold, I am changing my mind again…now thinking of a Dell PowerEdge R710 (used)...it's less than half of the price of a Mac Mini quad core i7 (used)...however, it's a serious overkill for my home/office...fun toy to play with though.

Well, I'm not sure I figured it out, but I'm up and running, nonetheless.

To get around the problem, I decided to perform a full install on a PNY SSD that Best Buy had on sale today.  I figured, if it was a problem with the USB interface, or pfSense's mounting/unmounting of the USB drive, then this would get around it.

I was wrong.

Here are all the different issues I saw in total, starting with trying to run NanoBSD.

When trying to run NanoBSD:
I couldn't get the BIOS to boot the USB when using:
  Windows, extract with winRAR, burn with disk imager
  Windows, extract with winRAR, burn with rufus
  Windows, extract with 7zip, burn with disk imager
  Windows, extract with 7zip, burn with rufus

I DID get the BIOS to boot the USB, using OSX, with the terminal command 'gzcat pfSense-blahblah-image-name.iso.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/rdisk3 bs=1m'.  However, this is where I ran into the issues detailed in the original post.

Fast forward to this evening, when trying to run a full install:
Again, I couldn't get the BIOS to boot the USB with any of the combinations above, this time INCLUDING OSX.  Frustration!!
I decided to go 'old school' and burn the ISO to a DVD.  STILL wouldn't boot!  At that point I determined it had to be something funky with the BIOS settings, because I noticed these devices weren't even showing up under the BOOT tab of the BIOS settings, like I'm used to seeing.

I started playing around with BIOS settings, I found, under the BOOT tab, a 'Compatibility Support Mode (CSM)' that was disabled.  I enabled it, and I set all newly displayed options to "Legacy Only".  Save settings and reboot into BIOS.  EUREKA, the boot tab shows both the DVD drive and the USB drive as bootable devices!  I proceeded with the USB drive, installed pfSense to my SSD, and now I'm up and running.  Fingers crossed, I haven't seen any issues.

The reason I stated that I'm "not sure if I figured it out", is because after finding that BIOS setting, I never tried to run a NanoBSD setup to see if my original issues were gone.  The only conclusion I can come to is:
1.  BIOS settings were incorrect, causing it to not recognize boot devices, when that boot device was created with Windows/image writer or Windows/rufus.
2.  Somehow OSX wrote the NanoBSD image to the USB drive in such a way that the BIOS recognized it, and booted, but pfSense didn't like it for some reason, causing the issues in the original post.
3.  Once I changed the BIOS settings to recognize the boot devices, I can only assume that running NanoBSD using a USB drive written using rufus, etc. would have worked just fine, and I wouldn't have needed to buy the SSD in the first place.

As it is, I'm completely happy running a full install, and I hope that all the "pfSense killing SSD" gloom and doom posts are blown out of proportion considering today's hardware being vastly superior to legacy SSDs.

Sorry for the long-winded post, but if anyone else runs into these issues, I wanted to document my experience, and how I got going, before the information falls out of my brain (ie, tomorrow).

spend a bit more and try to get something i3/i5 or above with more pcie slots for intel lan cards from ebay

zoltac ci323/5 would be a bit more, but not break the bank

SYSTEM UP AND RUNNING THANKS ALL

@messerchmidt:

looks like a pi1 type device with dual nics

@pfBasic:

@VAMike:

@pfBasic:

If you can't afford the i350,
http://www.databug.com/45W1959-p/45w1959.htm

but do remember that those old parts ran a lot hotter/drew more power than the newer generation nics

Very true, the PRO/1000 quad port draw almost 2.5x the power of the i350-t4v2, it's also just generally not as good. About all it has going for it is it's cheaper (to buy).

Well, it's also a simpler part that might end up with less freebsd driver flakiness (see 2.4 dev threads). Seeing how much people completely lose their minds over freebsd re(4) driver flakiness I guess that's worth something in itself.

@FranciscoFranco:

Well I have a SolidRun Hummingboard i4Pro which has "gigabit ethernet" that only manages 320megabit. so I wouldn't get too excited about these.

@FranciscoFranco…FYI, the Ethernet issue is a known problem on the processor that the SolidRun's Hummingboard is based on, NXP's i.MX6. Check out ERR004512 in the errata document: http://cache.nxp.com/assets/documents/data/en/errata/IMX6DQCE.pdf

It states that there is an internal issue that limits the GigE port to 470Mbps. In the real world limit is closer to 400Mbps and that is heavily optimized, so I would expect less than that in most implementations. I believe this is fixed in subsequent generations of the processor and other families (i.e. i.MX7, i.MX8, QorIQ, LayerScape).

My windows 10 desktop is a ESXi guest with gpu and hba passthru.

Yeah, thats what I did. But I sold the APU now since it was fine and bought a C3750G 24T for the money.
Still using one of those Netgears as access and distribution switch for the building - works fine trunked over LACP with the Cisco.
Ran into some other issues with the HP server now - bce driver going ham. Will open a new thread for that though or just replace the NICs with Intels..

It has a Xeon processor and quite cheap in total.

https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=10201.0

Do you have any longer term advice regarding this GPON SFP setup? I figured you would know if it will work by now? :)

Do you have a link or source for the SFP itself?

I was thinking of using the SFP module directly into my Foundry/Brocade 1GB SFP port to make the termination, and the just pull the address on the WAN port of the PFSense (1U SuperMicro C2758) from within a single VLAN. I only have 1 PCIe slot and its got a nice 10GB SFP+ card init I'd like to keep if I can help it.

Did you have issue otherwise? I think our 1GB service use PPPoE, but I can configure that easily in PFSense if the SPF does the rest.

Bryan

I wanted to come back and close the loop on this after talking to Supermicro a couple days ago.

First of all, the rep was telling me that if a motherboard and a chassis were meant to be compatible it would say so on the right hand side of the web page, and neither this board nor chassis mention compatibility with the other one.  I understood this general rule of course, but I pressed him about the I/O shield accessory for this chassis that specifically calls out the model family for my Atom board.  In the end he agreed that the board must work in this chassis as long as I buy that shield, even if it doesn't say so on the website.  Really no better answer than the assumption I'd already made, but I took it and moved on.

On the power supply question, we went round and round and he put me on hold twice to go ask someone else about it.  I could tell I'd finally gotten through to him after I explained why I felt there might be a "missing piece" to convert from the 12V DC barrel jack to the 4-pin ATX plug on my motherboard.  Rightly or wrongly, I explained to him that I assumed his chassis takes the 12V barrel plug and converts it to an 8-pin ATX connector for his Xeon-D motherboard.  That may not be correct, and he wasn't sure either, but the point was, I'd need an adapter from 8-pin to 4-pin in that scenario to plug into my Atom board.  Since that adapter surely didn't come with the I/O shield, how would I get it?  This was when he put me on hold the second time, and when he came back he was confident he had the answer.  What he said is that when you buy the power supply accessory kit (84W?), it comes with the adapters you need to convert from the barrel jack input to the different ATX connectors.  I didn't really want to buy their power supply, but at least this seems to answer the question.

For the final question I ended up not asking Supermicro, both because I'd been on the phone with them for over 45 minutes by this point, and because I believe I found the answer in another person's SuperServer build thread.  What it looks like is that the chassis and super server come with the physical bracket to mount an expansion card, but not the riser card you need to make the electrical connection.

So with all of that information, it does seem like you could buy the E300 chassis and use it with an Atom motherboard, as long as you buy the optional I/O shield and buy the optional PSU kit (or else rig up your own with adapters from Amazon).  If you want to use the expansion slot, you'll either need to buy the right Supermicro riser card, or you might be able to get by with a generic flexible one from Amazon, and just use the included bracket to hold the card.

I ended up deciding that the odds of me upgrading with a 10GbE NIC down the road are pretty slim, and bought a trusty m350 chassis with a few fans, extra HD bracket and power kit.  I still like the idea of the Supermicro chassis, but at this time it's just a little pricey and harder to get all the special pieces together to make it work with Atom.

Hi - thx for the reply.

There are a few reasons

I feel it is missing a fan, one was not shipped with it

I want to understand my options

if the need ever exists to upgrade/expand the appliance I will be prepared instead of trying to figure it out later

I like to tinker

@jahonix:

@dwfa:

There are no instructions with it for the hardware

Why do you want to tinker with the device? It should work flawlessly as delivered.
I'm trying to understand your motivation for it.

@P3R:

@Taiidan:

You could have spent only $60 for your mobo/cpu and had way better features including pci-e slots and ECC RAM had you went with an AM1 platform.

PCIe is a useless feature for cenal (and many others) as there is no room to use it in the case he choose, and already that small sized case was hard for his girlfriend to accept he said.

Cenal didn't ask for buying advice or criticism in this thread. He was kind enough to share his build and experience with the forum and for that all he gets are negative smarta*ses criticising the choices he already made.  >:(

Create your own thread with a detailed recipe for your superior platform and share how that perform instead. That would at least be constructive and add value to the community instead of this s*it.

Several tests/benchmarks all over the net state that although some am1 boards accept ECC ram, they dont use it as such.