Solved Booting and Installing FreeBSD 13.2 on Compaq 6710b (ntel Core 2 Duo T7300/ i965GM)

[d1nuc0m]

Hello, I'm a newbie and I'm trying to install FreeBSD on a old laptop, but somehow it doesn't even complete the boot

Issue
Tried to install FreeBSD 13.2-RELEASE on an old laptop, boot gets stuck on a black screen

System
HP Compaq 6710b, 4 GB RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 with Intel i965GM graphics.

Procedure

• Downloaded the amd64 memstick image, checked sha512, burned it on a USB
  • Burned the image on Linux with dd, on Windows with win32diskimager, on different USB sticks. Tested the sticks on different laptops, they all work (except this one). Probably the issue does not reside in the stick creation part.
• Booted from USB, tried with default options/in safe mode/multi user/single user, always with the same result
  • The laptop is able to boot other OSes from USB (actually there only is Artix, no Windows)
• Got black screen with full-throttle fans (left it alone for ~15 minutes, nothing changed)

Console output
Loading kernel...
/boot/kernel/kernel text=0x18aa98 text=0xdfd150 data=0x140 (...)
Black screen

 

[Alain De Vos]

Maybe the old processor is not supported or integrated graphics.

 

[Phishfry]

I would try the i386 image. It may be an EFI problem.

Baring that like Alain De Vos mentions integrated graphics would be my #2 effort.

Try booting with sc(4) instead of vt(4)
From the loader prompt:
set kern.vty=sc
boot

 

[bsduck]

You can try disabling all integrated peripherals and connectors in the BIOS settings (except the USB ports of course) and then see if it boots.

 

[d1nuc0m]

Try booting with sc(4) instead of vt(4)
From the loader prompt:
set kern.vty=sc

This solved the issue, after I was able to install the OS/installed the drivers/configured to load them at boot (see also here) and it works.