Boot hangs on VIA hardware

D

Hi.

I've got a machine with a Jetway NF76 motherboard, using the VIA Nano processor and VX800 chipset. I'm using the latest BIOS I could find on the manufacturer's support pages. When I try to install FreeBSD on it, the boot process hangs before getting to the installation screen. The problem seems to have started with 8.4-RELEASE. 7.4- and 8.1-3-RELEASE boot without problems, while 8.4, 9.0-2 and 10.0b3 all hang. I've primarily tried with the i386 version, but it looks like the amd64 version has the same problem.

The machine doesn't have an internal CD-ROM drive, so all installation attempts have been done from a USB device. I've mainly used the Zalman ZM-VE200 external USB hard drive, since it is capable of masquerading as a CDROM drive, thus making it easy to test out a new ISO image, but I've also tried with a real USB CDROM drive and a USB memory stick.

The last output on the screen before it hangs is this:

Code:

ugen3.1: <VIA> at usbus3
uhub3: <VIA EHCI root HUB, class 9/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 1> on usbus3
uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
uhub1: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
uhub2: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 997522552 Hz quality 1000
Root mount waiting for: usbus3
uhub3: 6 ports with 6 removable, self powered
Root mount waiting for: usbus3

Enabling verbose messages at the boot selection produces some extra lines mentioning ATA drives, but the last 3-4 lines are identical.

Disabling ACPI gives a couple of pages of this:

Code:

Root mount waiting for: usbus3
Root mount waiting for: usbus3
Root mount waiting for: usbus3
usbd_setup_device_desc: getting device descriptor at addr 2 failed, USB_ERR_TIMEOUT
Root mount waiting for: usbus3
Root mount waiting for: usbus3
usbd_req_re_enumerate: addr=2, set address failed! (USB_ERR_TIMEOUT, ignored)
Root mount waiting for: usbus3
Root mount waiting for: usbus3

before asking me to manually specify the boot drive. Typing "?" shows no available drives.

Disabling USB 2.0 in the BIOS gives slightly more information before it hangs:

Code:

Timecounter "TSC" frequency 997522552 Hz quality 1000
Root mount waiting for: usbus2
ugen2.2: <www.zalman.com> at usbus2
umass0: <iODD2511> on usbus2
umass0: SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x0000
umass0:2:0:-1: Attached to scbus2
Trying to mount root from cd9660:/dev/iso9660/FREEBSD_INSTALL [ro]...
mountroot: waiting for device /dev/iso9660/FREEBSD_INSTALL
cd0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus2 target 0 lun 0
cd0: <ZMVE Virtual CDRom 1.00> Removable CD-ROM SCSI-0 device
cd0: 1.000MB/s transfers
cd0: cd present [204533 x 2048 byte records]
cd0: quirks=0x10<10_BYTE_ONLY>

If anybody have any ideas, I would greatly appreciate it.

sossego

Retired from the forums

Dec 8, 2013

#2

Do you have another machine which uses the same type of hard drive and can have FreeBSD installed to it?

dazza

Dec 8, 2013

#3

I've run in to similar problems with the VIA USB chipset on EPIA M-xxxxxxx motherboards. Unfortunately I never found a work around with FreeBSD.

OP

D

duckman

Dec 10, 2013

Thread Starter
#4

sossego said:
Do you have another machine which uses the same type of hard drive and can have FreeBSD installed to it?

If you're thinking of the external USB drive that I use for booting the FreeBSD image, then it works fine on a different machine. It gets past the point where it hangs, and I get to the next screen in the installation process (something like "install", "shell", "live cd" options). I stopped at that point, as I didn't want to overwrite the OS on that machine.

If you're thinking of the internal harddisk that the OS is supposed to be installed on, then no. But I have tried to disconnect it completely to see if that made a difference. It didn't, the boot process still hangs at the same spot.

OP

D

duckman

Dec 10, 2013

Thread Starter
#5

dazza said:
I've run in to similar problems with the VIA USB chipset on EPIA M-xxxxxxx motherboards. Unfortunately I never found a work around with FreeBSD.

I find that surprising, if it really is a general problem with VIA hardware. I am aware that VIA is not the most widely used platform, but surely there are some people out there using it with FreeBSD. In fact, the release notes for 8.4 (where the problem first appears) mentions support for the hardware random number generator in the VIA Nano CPU.

Do you remember if your EPIA motherboards used the VX800 chipset as well?

dazza

Dec 10, 2013

#6

duckman said:
I find that surprising, if it really is a general problem with VIA hardware. I am aware that VIA is not the most widely used platform, but surely there are some people out there using it with FreeBSD. In fact, the release notes for 8.4 (where the problem first appears) mentions support for the hardware random number generator in the VIA Nano CPU.

Do you remember if your EPIA motherboards used the VX800 chipset as well?

Well I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a general problem with the VIA chipset and FreeBSD but with both my VIA EPIA M 150 and EPIA M5000 which use the VT8235 and VT8231 south bridge chipsets I had pretty consistent USB errors. In my position it was easier to replace the system and move on rather then debug it extensively so there could be a work around. You might want to email the FreeBSD USB mailing list and ask them (http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-usb).