Of course, also netgear products are very nice….

the way of use 3g Through a router instead of put stick directly to pfsense box is now the best way.... (manual router as I made... or branded router...)

Enjoy and thanks for sharing

As someone mentioned already, an IBM e-server X-series 305/306/335/336 might be what you're looking for. Among others, available on eBay for cheap.
You might also want to investigate beefier VIA EPIA or Intel ATOM 330 boards. Safes some energy at least. (EDIT: these for your home, assuming 45 IPSEC sessions elsewhere)

Go ahead and use the lowest powered processor for your firewall.  PFSense typically doesn't use much CPU time.  Not sure how this changes with a squid proxy, but with a healthy rule table and 20-30mbit of consistent web traffic (40 webservers + 5-8mbit consistent email traffic), we run about 25% CPU usage on a P3 850 w/ 512MB of RAM.

We've considered going to higher performance machines, but the old dell's that we have don't have a power switch that can get accidentally turned off, and they just chug along with not a care in the world.  We typically go over a year or more between reboots, and the last two reboots have been because our upstream provider was having issues.  We power cycled the system just to make sure that it wasn't on our end.

@dotdash:

Netgate will probably carry this when it is available. http://www.netgate.com
I have always had a good experience when ordering from them, and they offer assembled kits pre-loaded with pfSense.

You can also find Alix 2D13 or 2D14 here
http://store.calexium.com

Anybody using Nexcom boxes? Please share how they are compare to others? Pricey?

Time for some update :)
I got the CF and replaced the microdrive with it.
Now amount of OUT errors on wireless interface has gone down dramatically (from thousands to 3 after 30 hour uptime).
However stuck beacon issue persists.
The only hardware parts I can still replace are the motherboard (replace it with 2d2 and the power supply).
I dunno but maybe it is software bug after all?

yes, it only runs without it.  I am not sure exactly what is happening but i do know that it will not boot with both acpi and the new pci wifi card.
The old card worked without issue either way but now disabling it works fine so i'm happy.

Thanks for all your reply. Actually there is no problem even the memory load that much. But i just worried if it is not normal. So if u think it's just fine, It's OK.

The time frame is for 2 days, and everything run normal…

@i4ko:

Simply said I could do 3mpbs on EDR+ bluetooth dongles. In several places I use class 1 dongles to share internet. Would pfsense be able to add a bluetooth dongle in NAP mode and bridge it with the LAN interface?

If so what make/model, any preping tools required?

Essentially if the hardware will run in FreeBSD it could be used if pfsense, check the supported hardware on FreeBSD's site for hints on what dongle and go from there. Maybe post a feature request in the proper area.

Yiiir…I know. Otherwise the Xseries 345 2U server is also an option. It runs a lot cooler and you can use CF to IDE adapter upright and it has 3 64 bit expansion slots available.

And you can get that for around 200$ on Ebay.

@ktims:

@Supermule:

I use cheap IBM Xseries 335 found on Ebay. They are rocksolid and a very good performer. And IBM still have day to day spareparts available.

Great servers, just don't forget to buy the necessary KVM breakout cables to go with them. A bit of a pain that they don't have standard ports on 'em. And reeeely annoying if you order one and forget the KVM cable.

Yes, as above. Get a Atheros based wireless PCI card, G-based as wireless N are not yet supported. I would suggest not getting the Ralink based (Linksys) due to compatibility or unstability issue.

How far along does the boot get before it stalls?

What are the last few lines to appear on the console?

How long do you wait before declaring it "hung"?

What type of drive are you using? (its not clear whether SATA or IDE)

What controller is it connected to? (Intel or VIA?)

What mode does the BIOS initialise the Intel disk controller? (There might be different names like AHCI or RAID or Legacy or Native or …)

It's a hardware problem.  Try running memtest86+, that may help you identify whether it's a memory problem, or something else (motherboard, cpu, etc).

Hello!

Patch received and applied. It works! Thank you for your good and quick service!

Gigabit cards are now recognized by:

pfSense-1.2.3-RC1-Embedded.img.gz from pfsense mirrors.
pfSense-1.2.3-RC1-1gb-ad2.img.gz from Hacom.

Regards,

Josep Pujadas

TYVM for all the feedbacks. Now just waiting on the NICs - should be arriving tomorrow morning..

just things I wondering..
pfsense works better on dual/quad cores cpus or its the same?

thank you

I just remembered that I bought my GF a samsung slim dvdrw usb powered along with her eeepc.  I'll give that a try and if it works I'll buy another one.