Just googled your motherboard model and FreeBSD and look at some of the stuff I'm finding...
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2012-June/242240.html
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2195935 - Check out this quote.. "The thing doesn't do anything right..."
And as I go through google searching I'm finding more people complaining about that board.
You logged off of IRC before I finished typing, but AMD has very few developers supporting FreeBSD and Linux. And that was before this summer when 1/2 of them were laid off. So can you honestly tell me with a straight face that AMD's support is excellent when Intel has something like 20x as many developers as AMD?
Check out how Intel and AMD fare up with each other:
When you buy AMD:
You are buying an AMD motherboard made by some manufacturer that gets to buy whatever components they want and put them together. Then, support it on their own with their own unique hardware configuration. Then hope that your motherboard that may actually have a dozen or more manufacturers involved works with the OS you want and that AMD is keeping their stuff up to date with the open source community(read that stuff about 1/2 of them being laid off last summer). So literally every motherboard is almost its own unique design and supported by a motherboard manufacturer trying to stay profitable in a razor thin market.
When you buy Intel:
You are buying an Intel motherboard made by some manufacturer that buys an Intel chipset that already includes certain guaranteed harware. In particular, quite often Intel NIC and Intel SATA are the big ones. The design is mostly laid out with Intel simply providing PCIe lanes for the motherboard manufacturer to add their own stuff(think adding another SATA controller, another USB controller, another NIC, etc.) The configuration of the motherboard itself is
almost identical to many other motherboards aside from the quality of electrical components and the choice of hardware added by the motherboard manufacturer. Then, you have to deal with Intel keeping their stuff up to date with the open source community(which Intel is pretty much a market leader in, hence their amazing support with Intel SATA, Intel chipsets, and Intel NICs).
So on one hand you have a product that is extremely varied and supported by companies with razor thin margins(AMD) and on the other hand you have companies that buy an almost pre-made motherboard where they simply get to choose the quality of components and put their name on it. Guess which is better for end-user support? Add to that the chances that you are trying to save a buck if you are going AMD and you are probably bargaining yourself lower than you think. There's the old addage "The minute you choose to get less than you deserve you get even less than you expect" absolutely rings true for FreeBSD. Most AMD motherboard manufacturers are either busy undercutting their competition or trying to sell an amazing overclocking board.
Neither of those markets matter at all for FreeNAS.
And before I get into an argument about AMD versus Intel, do note that I am not talking about performance or cost at all here. I'm looking at it solely from the perspective of support of their products. Intel gives themselve a significant lead because of how they do business. AMD saves many users money when comparing performance. But we are less concerned about performance with a FreeNAS server. It doesn't take a supercomputer to run FreeNAS. It takes quality components, proper support, and reliability. One of which AMD really does not provide at all, and another that Realtek doesn't provide.
So take my advice or leave it. I bought Intel up front because I knew better. You can choose to "stick it to the man" and continue with what you have, or you can accept that what you have chosen is less than optimal(regardless of the $ aspect). You can even try to figure out what is wrong yourself and post your onw fix. That's the advantage to open source. It's your data, it's your server, and its your choices.
I bought Intel and I've not yet been upset with that choice. I don't buy AMD, but I can see that AMDs typically have weird unexplained quirks that are often solved only with new hardware.
