dear list!
  thank you very much for your numerous replies. the problem was IRQ
misconfigurations on the network cards. thanks to the hint of micheal
richardson and his homepage where i downloaded a novell2000 setup utility
i managed to set them according to the kernels settings and hence turning
my bsd into a fully qualified router. now the real fun starts as i take
the next step of setting up a firewall...

regards,
  shadi