Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 00:55:49 -0700 From: Andrew Reitz <ajr9@po.cwru.edu> To: Garrett Cooper <youshi10@u.washington.edu> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Trying to revive a server... AIC-7896 freezes pre-POST completion Message-ID: <ED6D02FA-38EF-4CB6-972D-9CD4E6074357@po.cwru.edu> In-Reply-To: <448F9A87.3070809@u.washington.edu> References: <448F9A87.3070809@u.washington.edu>
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On Jun 13, 2006, at 10:11 PM, Garrett Cooper wrote: > Hello again all, > I know this isn't a FreeBSD question really, but I just started up > a motherboard with onboard SCSI (Adaptec AIC-7896), and for some > odd reason it freezes pre-POST before it attempts to boot and there > isn't any way where I can get into the BIOS to change the settings > it seems. Does anyone know how I can maybe disable the onboard SCSI > controller since it appears to hang while detecting disks? Hi Garrett, I've been having a lot of "PC fails to POST" problems recently, so I feel your pain. Basically, my guess is that after your BIOS does its self check, it tries to load all of the option BIOSes into memory. This will include a BIOS from your SCSI adapter, as well as network-bootable NICs, etc. Basically, the BIOS has to do this so that you can boot off whatever option card that you have in the system. Since your SCSI adapter is built-in to the motherboard, it should be pretty compatible with the BIOS -- unless you changed that recently. In order to troubleshoot this, however, I would start by unplugging everything possible from your server. Just keep the ram, MB, CPU, and graphics card. See if you can get the machine to POST in this state (it really should, barring some sort of bad hardware or bad CMOS state). If it posts, start adding things back (disks, PCI cards, etc.), until you find the source of the problem. Usually, onboard devices can only be disabled from the BIOS, which you can't get to. But, I would check for a jumper on the motherboard, to see if there is a way to disable things that way. If you get really desperate, you could try resetting your BIOS configuration (CMOS). Good luck, and I hope this helps... -Andy.
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