From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Sep 21 9:54:45 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mass.osd.bsdi.com (adsl-63-202-177-115.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.202.177.115]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5D69C37B43F for ; Thu, 21 Sep 2000 09:54:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mass.osd.bsdi.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mass.osd.bsdi.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA01260; Wed, 20 Sep 2000 22:29:45 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from msmith@mass.osd.bsdi.com) Message-Id: <200009210529.WAA01260@mass.osd.bsdi.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.1.1 10/15/1999 To: Dennis Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Serial port locks up 4.1 In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 20 Sep 2000 12:08:45 EDT." <200009201610.MAA21433@etinc.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 22:29:45 -0700 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > At 04:41 PM 09/19/2000 -0700, you wrote: > >> > >> FYI: It seems that if you try to access the serial port on a MB with the > >> port disabled, freebsd 4.1 will freeze up solid. Enabling the serial > >> console will cause a lock up on boot, and any access to the port will do it > >> as well. > > > >This is probably a feature of the board/super-IO chipset in question. > > > >In particular, the port should never have probed successfully if the port > >was really "disabled", so you should never have been able to access it in > >the first place. > > Its displays an error, but installs it anyway, so it seems that the driver > is at least partially at fault. It happens on several very different MBs > (both SBCs and ATX MBs), so its not an isolated issue. I think you've mentioned this before, but could you tell us again which error it is that the driver is emitting? > >The correct solution, of course, is "don't do that". > > Easy to say , but it might be very hard to find if you have a serial > console enabled and the machine just wont boot. If you had a serial console enabled and the port off and the driver *didn't* attach, you'd still be very unpleasantly surprised. For sure, we should fail attach of the port if it's truly disabled, but I suspect that the BIOS isn't doing a good enough job. -- ... every activity meets with opposition, everyone who acts has his rivals and unfortunately opponents also. But not because people want to be opponents, rather because the tasks and relationships force people to take different points of view. [Dr. Fritz Todt] To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message