I think the random curls are because there ' s a larger amount of pressure where your fingers are vs at the edge , so the pad is more worn in some places then others , thus the funky curl . I ' m not sure though , so please don ' t quote me <| sep |> There are a few options for converting a Barracuda 310 to a pfSense box . First is the decision whether to remove the hddfan or keep themRemove HDD and cooling fan The cooling fan is only for the HDD , so if you opt to remove the HDD you don ' t need the rather loud fan either . If you opt to go this route you can run pfSense Embedded NanoBSD from a 4 GB USB thumb drive minimum , I used an 8 GB no problem . Screws to remove the HDD are on the bottom of the case . Keep HDD and cooling fan This would let you perform a more standard pfSense install , but would leave you with a louder and slightly more power hungry system . Next is the decision to mod control of the front panel NIC ' s via software or hardwareSoftware mod This is a little more complicated , but easier to remove and doesn ' t have any side effects so long as you make only the necessary changes . Does not persist if you blow out pfSense and reinstall fresh . Hardware mod Snip two wires yellow and green coming from parallel port , jump them together card side , not parallel port and call it a day . However I have heard of there being some odd issues cropping up when doing it via this method , so I do not recommend it . On to the instructions ! Most of the following is based on reading the fine work done on the pfSense forum 85012 . 0 . 1 . Whether you choose to install to the HDD or use the embedded NanoBSD option , you still need to change the boot option in BIOS . However Barracuda nicely chose to password lock the BIOS ! Thankfully the passwords are well known and easily found on google . Mine was BCNDK 1 . 2 . Once pfSense is installed you will somehow have to transfer two files onto the machine that you will get from . You ' ll need ' readiowriteio ' for 32 bit pfSense or ' readio 64 writeio 64 ' for 64 bit pfSense . 64 bit pfSense is the future standard and is supported on the Barracuda 310 , so you should use the 64 bit versions of readiowriteio . I opted to transfer the files across using a separate thumb drive . You do have the one rear NIC to work with and you could get pfSense set up enough to use that as a LAN link for using WinSCP to transfer the files across . Whichever method you use , put both readwrite files in ' bin ' and from the shell execute ' chmod 0755 ' on them ex ' chmod 0755 readio 64 '. 3 . Now the fun begins . You first want to verify that the commands work . From the shell execute ' readio 64 0 x 378 ', which should output a response of ' Reading 378 37 '. With that verified now execute ' writeio 64 0 x 378 0 x 3 f ', which should output a response of ' Setting 378 to 3 f ' and you should also hear an audible click as the relays activate the front NICs . After they are enabled you may continue with the pfsense setup . 4 . However we ' re not done yet . Assuming you don ' t want to manually execute the command to enable the NIC ' s every time you reboot the machine , you should instead either utilize the Shellcmd package or manually enter the command in your pfSense config ex earlyshellcmdwriteio 64 0 x 378 0 x 3 fearlyshellcmd . If you opt to manually add it to the config remember to back it up before you make the change and that the line needs to be added before system . If you don ' t do earlyshellcmd you might have a system fail to boot or hang on boot while waiting for the NIC ' s . Edit if in step 3 you get a response ' ELF interpreter libexecldelf . so . 1 not found ' you ' re running the 32 bit version of readiowriteio instead of the 64 bit .