Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:54:11 -0700 From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg@tristatelogic.com> To: Gavin Atkinson <gavin@FreeBSD.org> Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org, bug.followup@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-i386@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: i386/125516: 7.0-RELEASE install dies (probably same problem as PR 113160) Message-ID: <61029.1216796051@tristatelogic.com>
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Whew! I've just spent the last two hours, screweing around with this ASUS A7N266-VM/AA based system, trying to see if anything at all would make a difference, and now I have a lot more data points to add about this bug report. (Not that any of this additional info will necessarily help.) First, the good news... It now appears to me that this bug is most probably _not_ the same at problem as was reported in PR 113160, i.e. failure to set up the "md" (memory disk) duing boot up from an install CD. Now the bad news... The problem is even worse than I first reported. Originally I only reported that an install from 7.0-RELEASE CDs was dying. It now appears however that if one has a hard drive with 7.0-RELEASE already fully installed on it, and if one then transplants that hard drive onto a ASUS A7N266-VM/AA based system, then you won't even be able to fully boot 7.0 from that drive. (If you try this, the machine will mysteriously reboot itself, just at about the time when the spinning thingy should first be visible. (I dunno. Is that in the second stage boot loader? Or is that the third?) Basically, even though I could not do an install on this specific system from 7.0-RELEASE CDs, I still did want to try to run 7.0-RELEASE on it, so I went to another Athlon XP 2000 system I have here, put a blank drive on that, repartitioned it, added BSD labels on the partition I wanted to use for 7.0-RELEASE and then did a totally fresh install. That all worked great. No problem. And I could boot from the drive right after that, no problem. Then I took that exact same drive over and installed it on my A7N266-VM/AA based system and tried to boot, whereupon I got the effect described above... it starts to boot (and makes it at least past the first stage) whereupon I hit the F2 key (to boot from the specific partition where I put 7.0-RELEASE) and then things kinda get started, but then a few seconds later the machine just reboots itself for no apparently good reason. (This was repeatedly seen by me, many many times. It is _not_ in any sense a transient problem.) I am repeatedly emphasizing that this is all happening on a ASUS A7N266-VM/AA based system, because I tried everything to pin down the problem, and the only logical conclusion I could come to in the end was that 7.0 just really really REALLY does not like this specific motherboard. I pulled out all of the peripherial card (only two were in there, both just ethernet cards) and the problem remained. I disconnected all drives except the one hard drive containing the copy of 7.0-RELEASE that I was trying to boot from and the problem remained. I took the #1 and #2 memory modules out and put back (just) what had been #2 into the slot that #1 has been in and the problem remained. I even took out the 300W power supply and put in a 400W supply and the problem still remained, exactly as before. The only elements that remaned constant across all of the tests I performed were the hard drive, the CPU and the motherboard. I _know_ that the CPU is OK, because it has been running (and will again now be running) 6.1-RELEASE for the past year and a half with no problems. Also, I have several other Athlon XP 2000 systems here and I know that at least one other was able to boot and run 7.0-RELEASE without problems. The exact same hard drive (Seagate 200GB PATA) booted 7.0-RELEASE just fine on a different one of my Athlon XP 2000 systems here, so that is not the problem. The only think left which is suspect is the motherboard. Conclusion: 7.0-RELEASE just doesn't get along with the ASUS A7N266-VM/AA motherboard. Like not at all. I'm still kinda hoping that somebody will tell me why. Regards, rfg P.S. If it is the only way to get this solved, then I'm willing to ship the motherboard+cpu+heatsink/fan to anybody who might be willing to look into the problem further.
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