From owner-freebsd-hardware  Thu Mar 16  9:33:58 2000
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Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 09:36:38 -0800
Subject: FreeBSD Problems with HP Pavillion Model 9695C
From: "Mark Bowles" <mark.bowles@bondmart.com>
To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org
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Greetings, all.

I just purchased, and am reluctantly about to return, an HP Pavillion, model
9695C.  The system is a serious PC, with an AMD Athlon chip at 800Mhz, 128MB
RAM, 40GB, and a variety of PCI cards including an ISDN modem.  It was just
what I wanted for my company's first file server.

Unfortunately, it doesn't run FreeBSD reliably.  I experienced a number of
exasperating  problems:

    o Keyboard dead during boot sequence
    o Can't map ports on PCI-based 10/100 ethernet card
    o Disk losses -- random file system errors

Interestingly, the machine's little brother (my future web server),  an HP
Pavillion model 8660C, with "true Intel" inside, works fine, as near as I
can make out.

I tried a couple standard remedies on the 9695 before giving up:

    o Reinstalling from scratch
    o Removing all the unessential PCI cards

CAVEAT EMPTOR w.r.t. this report:  I have fiddled with this machine for only
a day or so, and am giving up rather than waste my time.  I could have
easily done something stupid -- but I doubt it :-).  I bought the machines
to begin with because I think Bill and Dave's company makes nice products,
and I continue to think so.  Could be cockpit error.

I am not a subscriber of this list; e-mail me if you want any more
information.

Ciao,

-- Mark


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