Problem with Highpoint 2320 Raid card

[Cameron Tune]

Last month I purchased a Highpoint 2320 raid card, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115026 , for my FreeBSD server.  I'm new to the FreeBSD world - so please bear with me as I try to solve the following issue.

With the card installed - the server hangs during the boot process.  I don't even get to the standard FreeBSD boot menus (loader prompt, single-user mode, etc.), rather the freeze occurs after a "console" message and then a listing of physical disks.  A picture of where the hang occurs is at http://www.camerontune.com/images/photo.jpg . 

As far as I can tell this card is supported on FreeBSD (running 8.1 STABLE i386).  I've updated the motherboard bios, and have also monkeyed around with just about every possible setting in the card's bios.  Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P.

I've combed through every possible log I can find in /var/logs - but I'm not finding anything that starts this early in the boot process.  I've also ensured that all drivers are present and loaded in loader.conf - however I don't think I'm even getting to the point of drivers being loaded.

Any thoughts are appreciated - and please let me know if there's any additional information I can provide that may help diagnose the problem.