I had to run 10G Ethernet on FreeBSD 7.2 (32-bit i386 PAE). Intel 10G card with 2 SFP+ ports was installed. After system upgrade appeared ixgbe driver v1.7.4. It was successfully compiled, loaded as module with non-PAE version if kernel and detected ix0 and ix1 interfaces. Seems to be ok. When I tried to configure VLANs on ix0 appeared that ix0 actually doesn't work, no packets are transmitted and received. infconfig up/down doesn't work too. Driver cannot initialize card with PAE kernel:

Mar 27 15:09:18 lion kernel: ix0:  p
ort 0xbf00-0xbf1f mem 0xfbc80000-0xfbcfffff,0xfbdfc000-0xfbdfffff irq 16 at device 0.0 on pci1
Mar 27 15:09:18 lion kernel: ix0: Using MSIX interrupts with 9 vectors
Mar 27 15:09:18 lion kernel: ix0: ixgbe_dma_malloc: bus_dma_tag_create failed; error 22
Mar 27 15:09:18 lion kernel: ix0: Unable to allocate TX Descriptor memory
Mar 27 15:09:18 lion kernel: device_attach: ix0 attach returned 12

I had to back port ixgbe 2.4.5 from FreeBSD 8.0 and make possible to integrate it into kernel. Since new driver has IFCAP_VLAN_HWTSO capability, I've added its support to if_vlan.c. Now PAE kernel with ixgbe succesfully works operates with this card:

Mar 27 17:06:02 lion kernel: ix0:  p
ort 0xbf00-0xbf1f mem 0xfbc80000-0xfbcfffff,0xfbdfc000-0xfbdfffff irq 16 at device 0.0 on pci1
Mar 27 17:06:02 lion kernel: ix0: Using MSIX interrupts with 9 vectors
Mar 27 17:06:02 lion kernel: ix0: [ITHREAD]
Mar 27 17:06:02 lion last message repeated 8 times
Mar 27 17:06:02 lion kernel: ix0: Ethernet address: 90:e2:ba:33:1f:40
Mar 27 17:06:02 lion kernel: ix0: PCI Express Bus: Speed 5.0Gb/s Width x8

Also, you should adjust settings in /boot/loader.conf or /etc/sysctl.conf:

kern.ipc.nmbclusters=262144
kern.ipc.nmbjumbop=262144
kern.ipc.nmbjumbo16=32000
kern.ipc.nmbjumbo9=64000

Please, find patch below.

Patch and full sources download

See also:

• FreeBSD 7.2 & INTEL x520-da2

FB