Tim, Might suggest checking out ebay.com and finding some 10/100 Intel Pro 100 NIC cards. (should be in the $5-10/each price range; I got a 5pack of them for $25 a while back).
As much as we all like "inexpensive gear" from bestbuy, you can't beat a real Intel NIC (note: most of my CPU's are generally AMD, so I'm not an Intel Fanboy at all :-) ), and everyone has code in the kernel for Intel NIC cards. With your current setup, you'll always have a one off driver issue with new releases. Unfortunate, but definitely not worth the effort. Sorry that's not a direct answer to your question, but I pass 4k p2p connections on an 8meg (booked solid at capacity both up and downstream) link with three Intel NICS on a 550Mhz athlon and my wife can still talk on vonage all day long. Even with the shortcomings of the 'old' via chipset, it doesn't miss a packet. Since ALTQ/QoS really doesn't work on OPT interfaces, I can overrun it via my wireless betwork attached to OPT1, but that rarely happens even so. Other than that, you might take a look at disabling USB and/or other onboard items that might share an IRQ with the built in NIC. And move the other cards into different PCI slots. Sharing IRQ's is all fine and dandy, until it doesn't work :-) Via chipsets also have issues with PCI latency, which some motherboard manufacturers make adjustable in the BIOS. Might look there as well. Cheers, andy Tim Allender wrote: > Been running pfSense for a few months. Good stuff. > But, the box I have it on where it counts (80ish users, old PIII 550 MHz > box) the on board NIC's not supporting ALTQ. > At home, the old box I have it running on, it's on board NIC starts > dropping packets when I turn on traffic shaping. > So, I figured I needed some new NICs. > Bought a case of D-Link DGE-530T cards. (Seem good. And cheap) > >>> # pciconf -lv >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:9:0: class=0x020000 card=0x4b011186 chip=0x4b011186 >>> rev=0x11 hdr=0x00 >>> vendor = 'D-Link System Inc' >>> class = network >>> subclass = ethernet > >> This is the so-called revision-B1 chip, it is newer than the A1 that >> is included to the 6.1-RELEASE. > > Following: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=99903 > And the guidance from freebsd-net mailing list. > > They're schooling me on how to patch my driver source. > I've got the basic idea. I've done simple patches before. > Not exactly sure if I'll need to just rebuild the module or if I'll need > to redo > the whole kernel. > > I guess I need to do that on a separate box and then, I dunno, install > either > the driver module or a whole new kernel on the router? > That'll be a first for me. > > I downloaded the pfsense-development version last night as well. > Looking it over in between solving whatever pops up at work. > Got some questions: > Where's the src files? > How does the pfsense kernel differ from the generic fbsd kernel (or the > modules)? > How have you modified pf to make it work here? > Why's there no sysinstall ? > Basically, what should I know about pfsense to start (trying) developing > in it? > > I've done a little coding in a variety of languages. Hacks mostly. Tools > to make whatever I'm doing easier (or possible). > Bout 1/4 way through McKusick's "Design and Implementation" > Bit by bit, it's starting to make a little more sense each day. > I want to get more involved. Not just hacks. > I want to learn to contribute to serious collaborative open-source > projects. > > Thought I'd drop a line in here fishing for direction.
