Unavoidable freeze after first reboot

mrxilver

Hello! I've recently acquired a mini-PC with the following specs:

Intel N100 up to 3,4GHz
16GB DDR4 3200Hz single-channel
Wifi 6 (802.11ax)
500GB SATA SSD

I've created a bootable usb using the memstick amd64 image, and I've successfully installed pfSense on the new machine, setting up the interface to connect through to my router as a WAN and have outside world communication. I will later set up the LAN connection protected by this machine acting as firewall

After rebooting for the first time, it gets stuck on the very beginning of boot, doesn't matter if you try to boot as Multi user or Single user:

stuck on boot.jpeg

I've tried all the solutions from a reddit thread made only 5 months ago by someone with a very similar problem. I've made sure the console is set to video, I've tried disabling Legacy USB support from BIOS also booting in LEGACY mode instead of UEFI, and finally not even in safe boot mode will I get past the boot at this particular point.

This is the driver info from the NIC as seen in the BIOS:

NIC driver.jpeg

I've heard that Realtek NICs are all-around shit, but I couldn't even get past first boot, that's not gotta be it.

I'm running out of ideas, I would appreciate if someone could explain what's going on or point out a possible path to solve this. Thanks in advance.