@jahonix: @kc8apf: I recently bought a Lanner FW-7520 for my house. Which version did you choose: 600MHz or 1GHz and how much did it cost? There are actually 3 versions: FW-7520A - 600Mhz Celeron M FW-7520B - 1Ghz Celeron M with no cache FW-7520C - 1Ghz Celeron M with cache I bought the FW-7520B directly from Lanner USA.  The cost as of March 29, 2009 was $430 + tax + S/H.  I had tried to get the FW-7520C originally, but it wasn't immediately available.  Being an OEM device, they wanted to sell to me in quantity and give me a price break.  I told them it was for a custom application and they happily sold me quantity 1.

I must agree that the provider is giving you such high bandwidth w/ such a setup is to prevent people from aggregating the bandwidth. You can use separate gateways for each wan.  Several years ago, I've seen it done on a clarckconnect setup, until they started charging a subscription for such features.  They just package a bunch of other people's "hard work/ingenuity" into a very nice gui and charge quite a bit for.  I believe it's based on Centos/Redhat/Linux.  It's quite reliable, I've been told.  You might wanna check it out.

It will only be used as a Firewall/Router… maybe with a WiFi card in it. No VPN or anything like that.

The Hardware Compatibility List can be found here, from the front page of the pfSense web site.  It looks like the NFE driver may support the RTL8211B chipset. Your other solution would be to get a mini-itx board with a 4x PCI-e slot and a dual port Intel Server grade NIC.  That should allow you to "make do" with a lower spec CPU, possibly an Atom based board.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820141419 Been up for several months now…

If It would help the switch I'm getting is this one. Cisco Small Business SGE2000P http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124213 Seeing how It does support 802.3ad It should then support Link aggregation (Or bonding ;))

I like the 5501 for the head office, but an Alix box might be a better fit for the branch offices. It's close to the specs of the 5501 and cheaper than the 4801. http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm There are some rough numbers in this post- http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,14581.0.html Not scientific, but they give you an idea how the crypto cards help. The Geode boards (5501 and Alix) have a built-in crypto chip. As detailed in the referenced post, the driver got incorporated into 1.2.3 builds, but actually didn't help at all and rendered a hifn card useless to boot. I noted this in a support ticket and suggested making glxsb a module instead of in the kernel. I never heard back, and haven't tested recent snapshots. The glxsb driver may be working in the 7.2 based builds. I would suggest you do some tests before deploying. If you need higher IPSec throughput, you may want to stick with 1.2.2 and a hifn.

In order I'd look at: PSU Cooling (CPU and case) Motherboard CPU

Race condition?

so you got your SGS 1660 from the same ebay seller i did.. hes a awesome guy… i was the original buyer of the first one that had PFSense loaded on it.. i have a total of 4 of the boxes... i asked him if he could try pfsense and send me the dmesg of it. note: there are extra headers on the motherboard for the ps/2 keyboard and mouse as well as the VGA header to connect to a monitor as well. the chipset  max's out at 2G.. i got 1G in my box 2x1G dimms works great in this box. i have the docs here on motherboard info. my box's have been ROCK solid.

Thanks for the update. Having (briefly) looked at the hardware profiles of the different Huawei HSDPA modems, it looks like most of them are reporting the same hardware ID and profiles. So, my guess is that if it works with the 220, since the 220 seems to be somewhat of a "reference" platform for Huawei, it will work with other modem models too. I've successfully gotten the E181 (T-Mobile webConnect) to work on both Linux and Mac.

Do not play. Just set up the port on the switch to auto-negotiate. This is the only correct setting unless you want to set up speed/duplex on pfSense.

Maybe you're right ;) I hadn't heard of a lot of problems with the Marvell NICs and I've used them myself without issue, so I assumed the problem was the Realteks Maybe OP does need to replace them all.

if used dc from an users that i always get full speed from and the poor speeds is only when i use pfsense. i also tried torrents the same results but just in cause thats it my network cards or the P4 computer i was away to get a replacement and athlon xp 3200+ 1.5gig ram that i will try tonight

Thank you all for your kind replies. A friend took me to that site too :D I have constructed a keyboard cable (which I think is pretty nifty as it can be removed easily) and inserted my trusty old voodoo 3 PCI VGA into the pci slot. PF installed like a DREAM! But… now my only problem is the bios won't hold itself. Ive replaced the battery and ensured the jumper is not on clear so im a bit stumped  ??? after this im all done  ;D Will post some pics later :) edit: you know what? maybe re-flashing the bios (with nice new update -cheers dot-) may solve the problem, what do you think? Mike

Oh…I thought you were referring to the wireless one...Thanks for crushing my hopes and dreams Cry Havok.... :'( ;D

It was only starting point.  I am using a quad-phemon with 6 GB of ram.  I have 5 or 6 ethernet cards in it and run it under virtualization.  I have a compaq dl 380 with 2 1.00 processors and 2 GB.  It runs pfsense great. RC

Questions about a particular package should probably be asked in the Packages forum, with the package name in the title (after you've reviewed existing threads, and read the package's documentation).

The igb driver appears to support 'Adaptive Interrupt Moderation', but in FreeBSD that's only the 82575 and 82576 chips.  If your hardware (82571/82572) supports AIM, as evidently it does since linux & windows do it, maybe it would be possible to modify the igb driver to handle the 82571/82572 chips as well. Being a FreeBSD newbie, I haven't a clue what that entails, but I imagine it's at least adding PCI ids to igb and removing them from em … regards, ... Charlie