Boot failure

alexey

alexey

Hello,

I'm writing here since I don't know what would be the better place (I suspect my problem is with bootloader). I also not found an appropriate place to report bug at FreeBSD bugzilla.

Background: I have a headless FreeBSD system which worked fine since Q1 2022 or something like that, and I had no problems until, probably, 15.0-RELEASE-p7 or so.

The system has two quirks:

- it has a rare Intel CPU without integrated graphics: 12100F
- hardware cannot boot without videocard

Given those two quirks and the fact that it is a headless system, it has "'Turks GL [FirePro V3900]" videocard installed, I think it is about 15 years old.

What happened recently is that I tried to reboot the system after update (p7?) and it went into reboot loop (I did not forget to update EFI loader). It starts to boot, goes into "daemon" menu, starts loading kernel and reboots the whole system almost immediately. There are about 15 lines outputted by the kernel, last being "EFI framebuffer information" and few lines with data. This cycle never stops.

But: if I power down the system and power it up again (not just reset), I have a reasonable chance to boot the system (I think close to 50%).

What I did: I booted the system using "lifehack" from above, and appended to /boot/loader.conf "hw.vga.textmode=1". The problem is gone, the system reboots fine everytiime.

What is happening?

If it matters, it seems that videocard is working, I can enter system setup program and see its graphical menus on the screen, no corruption or something.
 
Ok, so system is booted now? What else is in /boot/loader.conf, and are you loading any kernel modules through kld_list in rc.conf?
 
❯ cat /boot/loader.conf
autoboot_delay="9"

kern.geom.label.disk_ident.enable="0"
kern.geom.label.gptid.enable="0"
zfs_load="YES"

cpu_microcode_load="YES"
cpu_microcode_name="/boot/firmware/intel-ucode.bin"

net.fibs=2

# AHCI POWER MANAGEMENT FOR EVERY USED CHANNEL (ahcich 0-7)
hint.ahcich.0.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.1.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.2.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.3.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.4.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.5.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.6.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.7.pm_level=4

# POWER OFF DEVICES WITHOUT ATTACHED DRIVER
hw.pci.do_power_nodriver=3

# INTEL SPEED SHIFT
machdep.hwpstate_pkg_ctrl=0

hw.vga.textmode=1


❯ sysrc kld_list
kld_list: fusefs if_wg

Nothing changed before I got the reboot loop.
 
I'd remove these, at least temporarily, to see if the booting situation improves.

Code: 
cpu_microcode_load="YES"
cpu_microcode_name="/boot/firmware/intel-ucode.bin"

# AHCI POWER MANAGEMENT FOR EVERY USED CHANNEL (ahcich 0-7)
hint.ahcich.0.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.1.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.2.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.3.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.4.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.5.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.6.pm_level=4
hint.ahcich.7.pm_level=4

# POWER OFF DEVICES WITHOUT ATTACHED DRIVER
hw.pci.do_power_nodriver=3

# INTEL SPEED SHIFT
machdep.hwpstate_pkg_ctrl=0

Oh, there's nothing rare about an Intel Core i3-12100F. The "F" is an indication this chip has no integrated graphics. The Core i3-12100 does have it. All Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs with an F have no integrated graphics.
 
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