@stephenw10: I only really mention the x750e because that's what I have experience with. It would never be able to handle everything you have mentioned. It maxed out at about 50Mbps OpenVPN traffic with the upgraded CPU. €300 sounds like a good price for such a powerful machine, although I'm no expert. I just wanted to point out that the annual running costs are likely to be significant if it's an 'always on' machine. Steve Thanks Steve, you are absolutely right about the annual costs. I'll try and figure out what the machine will cost me yearly and if that's worth it for the things I would use it for. Perhaps the sellers can give me an efficiency or load/usage overview.

I'd stick with what you've got if it's working for you. The WAG200G you are using can be configured in "bridge mode only" allowing your pfSense box to have an external IP address and to control the connection. To do this you have to use PPPoE and I believe your ISP has to support PPPoE  login. http://homecommunity.cisco.com/t5/Cable-and-DSL/How-to-configure-WAG200G-to-work-in-bridge-mode/m-p/383049#M17425 Steve

Ron Not sure if you still need this on the x500. Regarding your first post, this is what I do on the x700 which should work on x500. I used the full CD install to hard-drive loading the drive on a Lenovo r51. Then I tweaked the bootup to point to the correct hard drive. ufs:ad2s1a Then goto web interface - Diagnostics - Edit File & load /ect/fstab Change the old drive information to the correct one: ad2s1a & ad2s1b Regards; H.

The easiest way is to connect to your pfsense box via SSH and then simply copy and paste the text from your terminal client. First go to System -> Advanced -> Admin Access and make the the 'enable secure shell' box is checked. Then you can connect your ssh client. In windows I alwasy use putty. Steve

It doesn't seem to work with the built-in package. Lots of hacking required.

yep

Hello i'm back. I've change my network card and the pb is not solved. Can you think that it could be an IRQ pb ? i've 4 network cards, 1PCIe, 2 PCI and an integrated. Thanks for your reply.

Changing the colour will have virtually no effect on the thermal properties of the case. However if you paint it black it will radiate heat better so, in theory, it might run slightly cooler. I'd be very surprised if you could measure a difference though. It will also absorb radiated heat better so don't put it in direct sunlight!  ;) You're worried about the HD producing heat or being damaged by heat? You may want to consider swapping the CPU for something less power hungry if you are going to swap out the fans. In my own testing I found the original fans move so much air that the cpu heatsink was barely getting warm. You may also consider running the existing fans slower rather than replacing them. Steve

Oh darn. Let me know if you change your mind

The benchmarks and graphs on Small Net Builder are well worth reading. They'll tell you which devices have Gbit interfaces and are barely capable of pushing 20 Mb/s, and which really can push Gb/s.

The smaller the image you use the faster updates can be completed.  The smaller the image you use the more room the card's controller has for wear-leveling.  I'd actually recommend against the 4GB image if unless you need it or have a really fast card.

That card isn't supported until FreeBSD 9, won't work in any release versions.

To make a builder system: http://devwiki.pfsense.org/DevelopersBootStrapAndDevIso As for why PCMCIA faded away, no idea. Probably because the hardware has somewhat faded away. Laptop hardware has a pretty short life no matter what OS it's running. Keeping that hardware around to make sure it works with the latest networking code can't be easy/cheap/fun for the FreeBSD developers. That's a question better asked on a FreeBSD mailing list/forum though.

@BennTech: Couple of issues with this board, not all related to pfSense. No BIOS "power on" after power loss, no "wake on ring, et al.", not even a "wake at hh:mm".  Lack of power-on features negates this board as a firewall option because there is no way in hell I'm using a board that makes me drive to a remote site after every power outage just to press a power button.  I don't know what Jetway was thinking–I haven't seen a motherboard all lacking these basic power features since the 1990's. … That's where I'm at now.  Missing power features is a deal breaker for me.  Shame, because I was really looking forward to 5 NICs + wireless in a single, low-power box. It actually does have power control, you need to turn off the "EUP" function to expose it.  Here's what Jetway told me when I asked about it: Dear sir : The NC9C mainboard can support power lose funciton (or Power failure function) . Please go to BIOS setup –> Power management setup , disable the "EUP function" first . then go to BIOS setup --> Integrated peripherals , set the "PWR status after PWR Failure" function to "Alway On" . This "EUP" function and "PWR Status after PWR Failure" funciton is synchronic , When you disable the EUP function , you just can see the "PWR Status after PWR Failure" funciton appear . Best regards From JETWAY FAE support team Hope that helps… -Eric

Steve, thank you very much. I've been struggling with this for days. I was about to give up on pfSense. The solution worked like a charm. :) All the best, -andre

Here is a lot 3 NICs for less that the price 2 NICs fm Newegg.  You will have a spare just in case. http://cgi.ebay.com/LOT-3-Intel-Pro-1000-GT-Desktop-Adapter-PWLA8391GT-/380342300447?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item588e2aef1f Have you updated the BIOS on the PC?  Increasing the RAM on the system?  Check the HP support for the cpu your system will support based on the system's BIOS revision, and that could assist you in buying a more powerful cpu, if possible.  This could help in the systems throughput. I have a HP DC5750 that came with AMD64 2.0Ghz, I updated the BIOS to most current, checked HP support, and with the current BIOS the system can support 3.0Hgz, I upgraded the RAM and CPU, added 2nd NIC intel pro/1000 XT PCI-X (the pci slot supports it) and never looked back. as for the losing the internet connectivity, I believe the BIOS revision might fix that.  I never experienced that before with pfsense in the last 3yrs of using it, both 32bit and 64bit in any version.  I just made sure my hardware was compatible, BIOS was most current, and turned off the items in the BIOS that was not needed. Pfsense Docs is a great place to start - http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Main_Page Buy the book - great book. Lastly search the forums, always my ticket to any issue I ever had. Hope this help.

The NIC on that board - 82578DC, is not supported currently by Freebsd 8.1 (used by pfSense 2.0).  Aside from that, the setup should work with pfSense 2.0.  Just don't expect the NIC to be supported.

@ResIpsa: Thanks guys, I have the Intel version on order.  I can't believe that the Realtek version of the board is the more popular of the two and in many instances the only daughter board sold by some retailers. It is cheaper and most users don't know the difference in reliability or driver support.  Hence, they only see it as being cheaper and therefore, it is vastly more popular.