Installation hangs during "Archive extraction" phase (9.1)

[Ewald Jenisch]

Hi,

Upon trying to install FreeBSD 9.1 on a HP Proliant DL585G5
installation freezes when it comes to the point "Archive Extraction"
while extracting "ports.

To be specific, the system freezes while extracting ports.txz at 23%
with "Overal Progress" being 29%.

First I thought about the installation medium, so I re-burned the
installation CD ("disc1"), tried the DVD-installation, even installing
over the network - the machine always freezes when it comes to archive
extraction.

For the hardware part:
HP Proliant DL585G5
128GB RAM
8 HDs a 146GB: two of them in Raid-1, the remainder Raid0
2x onboard LAN: (HP NC371i)
2 addon NIC-cards with 2 ports each (HP NC360T)

Harddisk has been set up with GPT, for the test "automatic
partitioning".

Has anybody out there seen this type of problem? If yes, any known
cure/hint/???

Thanks much in advance for any clue,
-ewald