<![CDATA[Mainboard supported: GIGABYTE EP45-DS3L ?]]>Hi folks.

As we are currently in the process of finding appropriate hardware for our new firewalls I'm looking for a mainboard with 4 PCIe slots thats supported. Our hardware-guy offered us the board in the topic.

Can anyone provide information if this board is supported?
I don't care too much about the onboard lan or sound but for the bridge/sata connection.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers,
buk

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/topic/11163/mainboard-supported-gigabyte-ep45-ds3lRSS for NodeMon, 08 Jun 2026 20:48:41 GMTTue, 30 Sep 2008 11:20:30 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Mainboard supported: GIGABYTE EP45-DS3L ? on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:26:48 GMT]]>There are TONS of x1 PCI-E gigabit NICs on the market.

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/184258https://forum.netgate.com/post/184258Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:26:48 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Mainboard supported: GIGABYTE EP45-DS3L ? on Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:52:15 GMT]]>As wallabybob says, the support for at least some ICH10 peripherals was added to FreeBSD after 6.3-RELEASE / 7.0-RELEASE.

In any case, I'm not sure what you plan to do with the PCI-E slots, as they're PCI-E x1 slots apart from the slot designed for use with a graphics card. There aren't many peripherals that will work in a x1 slot - NICs and storage controllers are typically x4 or x8. I've seen a couple of PCI-E x1 serial cards, and I believe there's one fairly low end SATA card that's x1, but that's about it.

The only way to get a lot of PCI-E slots that are x4 or x8 is to use a server board. My Dell PowerEdge 2950 III has three x8 slots and an x4 slot (well, it's an x8 connector but only 4 lanes are populated), though one of the x8 slots is not usable for customer cards: it's taken by the Dell storage controller and isn't in conventional PCI-E presentation.

If your need is for lots of LAN ports, use a multi-port NIC if you have to have 'hardware' ports. If not, use VLANs - which is IMHO a neater solution. If you don't have VLAN capable switches, you can always use a cheap VLAN capable switch for breaking out tagged VLANs to untagged ports, such as an inexpensive HP Procurve 1800-8G. See this thread (click) for more details - especially from Reply #7 onwards where I mention VLANs.

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/183920https://forum.netgate.com/post/183920Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:52:15 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Mainboard supported: GIGABYTE EP45-DS3L ? on Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:38:53 GMT]]>I suspect the P45 chipset was released around the time of FreeBSD 6.3 or later. If thats the case then its probably not listed in any "official" supported hardware list.

The man page for the ata disk driver for FreeBSD 6.3 lists ICH8 but not ICH9 and not ICH10. (See http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ata&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+6.3-RELEASE)

The man page for the ata disk driver for FreeBSD 7.0 lists ICH9but not ICH10. (See http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ata&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+7.0-RELEASE). FreeBSD 7.0 is the OS in the pfSense 1.2.1 snapshot builds.

If you are looking for a motherboard that will give least trouble you will probably be better off going for something with ICH8 or earlier.

If the reason for wanting the ICH10 based motherboard is really to get the 4 PCI-E slots, then maybe you would be better off looking for ways of getting the I/O you need (and thats a lot of I/O, maybe you don't really need that much) without that many PCI-E slots.

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/182524https://forum.netgate.com/post/182524Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:38:53 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Mainboard supported: GIGABYTE EP45-DS3L ? on Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:26:55 GMT]]>Ok, maybe with more detail:

Can someone with more FBSD experience please tell me if the ICH10 chipset is supported in pfSense/FBSD6?  ???

Thanks. :)

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/182499https://forum.netgate.com/post/182499Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:26:55 GMT