1.2RC3 and smp on Proliant DL380

fastcon68

Most Virtualization products that I have tested will only show up with one processor. I know with some you can specify more processors. If you have more than two processors.
RC

librarymark

I am using the free VMware server product, version 1.04, on SME version 7.2.

The vmx file for my pfsense vm looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/vmware
config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "4"
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
memsize = "128"
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "FreeBSD.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines/pfSense-1.2-RC3-LiveCD-Installer.iso"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"
floppy0.fileName = "/dev/fd0"
Ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
displayName = "pfSense"
guestOS = "freebsd"
priority.grabbed = "normal"
priority.ungrabbed = "normal"

numvcpus = "2"
ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
Ethernet1.present = "TRUE"
Ethernet1.connectionType = "custom"
Ethernet1.vnet = "/dev/vmnet7"

ide0:0.redo = ""
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
ethernet1.addressType = "generated"
uuid.location = "56 4d ca bc 2f aa 96 f7-35 00 0c cd 2e 48 0d 2f"
uuid.bios = "56 4d ca bc 2f aa 96 f7-35 00 0c cd 2e 48 0d 2f"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:48:0d:2f"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
ethernet1.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:48:0d:39"
ethernet1.generatedAddressOffset = "10"

floppy0.present = "FALSE"

Ethernet0.connectionType = "custom"
Ethernet0.vnet = "/dev/vmnet6"2

the ouput from dmesg on the VM is:


Copyright (c) 1992-2007 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
        The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE-p8 #0: Wed Nov  7 18:50:58 EST 2007
    sullrich@builder6.pfsense.com:/usr/obj.pfSense/usr/src/sys/pfSense_SMP.6
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           X5355  @ 2.66GHz (2666.81-MHz 686-class CPU)
  Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0x6f8  Stepping = 8
  Features=0xfebfbff <fpu,vme,de,pse,tsc,msr,pae,mce,cx8,apic,sep,mtrr,pge,mca,cmov,pat,pse36,clflush,dts,acpi,mmx,fxsr,sse,sse2,ss>Features2=0x48215<sse3,rsvd2,ds_cpl,<b9>,<b15>,<b18>>
real memory  = 134217728 (128 MB)
avail memory = 117288960 (111 MB)
wlan: mac acl policy registered
kbd1 at kbdmux0
ath_hal: 0.9.17.2 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)
acpi0: <ptltd  rsdt="">on motherboard
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
Timecounter "ACPI-fast" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 1000
acpi_timer0: <24-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0x1008-0x100b on acpi0
cpu0: <acpi cpu="">on acpi0
acpi_throttle0: <acpi cpu="" throttling="">on cpu0
pcib0: <acpi host-pci="" bridge="">port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
pci0: <acpi pci="" bus="">on pcib0
agp0: <intel 82443bx="" (440="" bx)="" host="" to="" pci="" bridge="">mem 0xec000000-0xefffffff at device 0.0 on pci0
pcib1: <acpi pci-pci="" bridge="">at device 1.0 on pci0
pci1: <acpi pci="" bus="">on pcib1
isab0: <pci-isa bridge="">at device 7.0 on pci0
isa0: <isa bus="">on isab0
atapci0: <intel piix4="" udma33="" controller="">port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0x1050-0x105f at device 7.1 on pci0
ata0: <ata 0="" channel="">on atapci0
ata1: <ata 1="" channel="">on atapci0
pci0: <bridge>at device 7.3 (no driver attached)
pci0: <display, vga="">at device 15.0 (no driver attached)
mpt0: <lsilogic 1030="" ultra4="" adapter="">port 0x1080-0x10ff mem 0xe8800000-0xe8800fff irq 9 at device 16.0 on pci0
mpt0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
mpt0: MPI Version=1.2.0.0
le0: <amd pcnet-pci="">port 0x1400-0x147f irq 11 at device 17.0 on pci0
le0: 16 receive buffers, 4 transmit buffers
le0: Ethernet address: 00:0c:29:48:0d:2f
le1: <amd pcnet-pci="">port 0x1480-0x14ff irq 10 at device 18.0 on pci0
le1: 16 receive buffers, 4 transmit buffers
le1: Ethernet address: 00:0c:29:48:0d:39
acpi_acad0: <ac adapter="">on acpi0
speaker0: <pc speaker="">port 0x61 on acpi0
atkbdc0: <keyboard controller="" (i8042)="">port 0x60,0x64 irq 1 on acpi0
atkbd0: <at keyboard="">irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
psm0: <ps 2="" mouse="">flags 0x1000 irq 12 on atkbdc0
psm0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
psm0: model IntelliMouse, device ID 3
ppc0: <standard parallel="" printer="" port="">port 0x378-0x37f irq 7 on acpi0
ppc0: Generic chipset (NIBBLE-only) in COMPATIBLE mode
ppbus0: <parallel port="" bus="">on ppc0
lpt0: <printer>on ppbus0
lpt0: Interrupt-driven port
ppi0: <parallel i="" o="">on ppbus0
sio0: <16550A-compatible COM port> port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on acpi0
sio0: type 16550A
sio1: <16550A-compatible COM port> port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3 on acpi0
sio1: type 16550A
fdc0: <floppy drive="" controller="">port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 on acpi0
fdc0: [FAST]
fd0: <1440-KB 3.5" drive> on fdc0 drive 0
pmtimer0 on isa0
orm0: <isa option="" roms="">at iomem 0xc0000-0xc7fff,0xc8000-0xc8fff,0xc9000-0xc9fff,0xdc000-0xdffff,0xe0000-0xe3fff on isa0
sc0: <system console="">at flags 0x100 on isa0
sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>
vga0: <generic isa="" vga="">at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 2666814864 Hz quality 800
Timecounters tick every 10.000 msec
Fast IPsec: Initialized Security Association Processing.
Waiting 5 seconds for SCSI devices to settle
ad0: 2048MB <vmware virtual="" ide="" hard="" drive="" 00000001="">at ata0-master UDMA33
acd0: CDROM <vmware virtual="" ide="" cdrom="" drive="" 00000001="">at ata1-master UDMA33
GEOM_LABEL: Label for provider acd0 is iso9660/pfSense.
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ad0s1a
le0: link state changed to UP
le1: link state changed to UP
pflog0: promiscuous mode enabled
pflog0: promiscuous mode disabled
pflog0: promiscuous mode enabled</vmware></vmware></generic></system></isa></floppy></parallel></printer></parallel></standard></ps></at></keyboard></pc></ac></amd></amd></lsilogic></display,></bridge></ata></ata></intel></isa></pci-isa></acpi></acpi></intel></acpi></acpi></acpi></acpi></ptltd ></b18></b15></sse3,rsvd2,ds_cpl,<b9></fpu,vme,de,pse,tsc,msr,pae,mce,cx8,apic,sep,mtrr,pge,mca,cmov,pat,pse36,clflush,dts,acpi,mmx,fxsr,sse,sse2,ss>

the dmesg output from my Prioliant DL380 is:


Copyright (c) 1992-2007 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
        The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE-p8 #0: Wed Nov  7 18:50:58 EST 2007
    sullrich@builder6.pfsense.com:/usr/obj.pfSense/usr/src/sys/pfSense_SMP.6
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
CPU: Intel Pentium III (664.57-MHz 686-class CPU)
  Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0x683  Stepping = 3
  Features=0x383f9ff <fpu,vme,de,pse,tsc,msr,pae,mce,cx8,sep,mtrr,pge,mca,cmov,pat,pse36,mmx,fxsr,sse>real memory  = 1073725440 (1023 MB)
avail memory = 1037316096 (989 MB)
wlan: mac acl policy registered
kbd1 at kbdmux0
ath_hal: 0.9.17.2 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)
acpi0: <compaq racebait="">on motherboard
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
Timecounter "ACPI-safe" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 1000
acpi_timer0: <24-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0x240-0x243 on acpi0
cpu0: <acpi cpu="">on acpi0
pcib0: <acpi host-pci="" bridge="">on acpi0
pci_link0: apparently invalid index 0
pci0: <acpi pci="" bus="">on pcib0
ida0: <compaq integrated="" array="" controller="">port 0x2000-0x20ff mem 0xc5000000-0xc5ffffff,0xc4000000-0xc4ffffff irq 5 at device 1.0 on pci0
ida0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
ida0: drives=1 firm_rev=1.40
idad0: <compaq logical="" drive="">on ida0
idad0: 17343MB (35520480 sectors), blocksize=512
fxp0: <intel 100="" 82559="" pro="" ethernet="">port 0x2400-0x243f mem 0xc3fff000-0xc3ffffff,0xc3e00000-0xc3efffff irq 10 at device 2.0 on pci0
miibus0: <mii bus="">on fxp0
inphy0: <i82555 10="" 100="" media="" interface="">on miibus0
inphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
fxp0: Ethernet address: 00:50:8b:d9:24:1f
pci0: <display, vga="">at device 3.0 (no driver attached)
pci0: <base peripheral=""> at device 4.0 (no driver attached)
fxp1: <intel 100="" 82557="" pro="" ethernet="">port 0x2c00-0x2c1f mem 0xc1fff000-0xc1ffffff,0xc3c00000-0xc3cfffff irq 11 at device 5.0 on pci0
miibus1: <mii bus="">on fxp1
inphy1: <i82555 10="" 100="" media="" interface="">on miibus1
inphy1:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
fxp1: Ethernet address: 00:a0:c9:8b:3f:2a
isab0: <pci-isa bridge="">at device 15.0 on pci0
isa0: <isa bus="">on isab0
atapci0: <serverworks rosb4="" udma33="" controller="">port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0x2c20-0x2c2f at device 15.1 on pci0
ata0: <ata 0="" channel="">on atapci0
ata1: <ata 1="" channel="">on atapci0
pcib1: <acpi host-pci="" bridge="">on acpi0
pci3: <acpi pci="" bus="">on pcib1
pcib2: <pci-pci bridge="">at device 4.0 on pci3
pci4: <pci bus="">on pcib2
xl0: <3Com 3c980C Fast Etherlink XL> port 0x3000-0x307f mem 0xc6dfff80-0xc6dfffff irq 15 at device 4.0 on pci4
miibus2: <mii bus="">on xl0
xlphy0: <3c905C 10/100 internal PHY> on miibus2
xlphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
xl0: Ethernet address: 00:01:03:df:ad:16
xl1: <3Com 3c980C Fast Etherlink XL> port 0x3080-0x30ff mem 0xc6dfff00-0xc6dfff7f irq 15 at device 5.0 on pci4
miibus3: <mii bus="">on xl1
xlphy1: <3c905C 10/100 internal PHY> on miibus3
xlphy1:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
xl1: Ethernet address: 00:01:03:df:ad:17
pcib3: <pci-pci bridge="">at device 5.0 on pci3
pci5: <pci bus="">on pcib3
xl2: <3Com 3c980C Fast Etherlink XL> port 0x4000-0x407f mem 0xc6efff80-0xc6efffff irq 11 at device 4.0 on pci5
miibus4: <mii bus="">on xl2
xlphy2: <3c905C 10/100 internal PHY> on miibus4
xlphy2:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
xl2: Ethernet address: 00:04:75:94:f8:a3
xl3: <3Com 3c980C Fast Etherlink XL> port 0x4080-0x40ff mem 0xc6efff00-0xc6efff7f irq 10 at device 5.0 on pci5
miibus5: <mii bus="">on xl3
xlphy3: <3c905C 10/100 internal PHY> on miibus5
xlphy3:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
xl3: Ethernet address: 00:04:75:94:f8:a4
pcib4: <pci-pci bridge="">at device 6.0 on pci3
pci6: <pci bus="">on pcib4
xl4: <3Com 3c980C Fast Etherlink XL> port 0x5000-0x507f mem 0xc6ffff80-0xc6ffffff irq 15 at device 4.0 on pci6
miibus6: <mii bus="">on xl4
xlphy4: <3c905C 10/100 internal PHY> on miibus6
xlphy4:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
xl4: Ethernet address: 00:01:03:ce:6f:68
xl5: <3Com 3c980C Fast Etherlink XL> port 0x5080-0x50ff mem 0xc6ffff00-0xc6ffff7f irq 15 at device 5.0 on pci6
miibus7: <mii bus="">on xl5
xlphy5: <3c905C 10/100 internal PHY> on miibus7
xlphy5:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
xl5: Ethernet address: 00:01:03:ce:6f:69
acpi_tz0: <thermal zone="">on acpi0
speaker0: <pc speaker="">port 0x61 on acpi0
atkbdc0: <keyboard controller="" (i8042)="">port 0x60,0x64 irq 1 on acpi0
atkbd0: <at keyboard="">irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
ppc0: <standard parallel="" printer="" port="">port 0x378-0x37f,0x778-0x77d irq 7 drq 0 on acpi0
ppc0: Generic chipset (NIBBLE-only) in COMPATIBLE mode
ppbus0: <parallel port="" bus="">on ppc0
lpt0: <printer>on ppbus0
lpt0: Interrupt-driven port
ppi0: <parallel i="" o="">on ppbus0
fdc0: <floppy drive="" controller="">port 0x3f2-0x3f5 irq 6 drq 2 on acpi0
fdc0: does not respond
device_attach: fdc0 attach returned 6
sio0: <standard pc="" com="" port="">port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on acpi0
sio0: type 16550A
sio1: <standard pc="" com="" port="">port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3 on acpi0
sio1: type 16550A
fdc0: <floppy drive="" controller="">port 0x3f2-0x3f5 irq 6 drq 2 on acpi0
fdc0: does not respond
device_attach: fdc0 attach returned 6
pmtimer0 on isa0
orm0: <isa option="" roms="">at iomem 0xc0000-0xc7fff,0xc8000-0xcbfff,0xe8000-0xedfff,0xee000-0xeffff on isa0
sc0: <system console="">at flags 0x100 on isa0
sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>
vga0: <generic isa="" vga="">at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 664567121 Hz quality 800
Timecounters tick every 1.000 msec
Fast IPsec: Initialized Security Association Processing.
acd0: CDROM <lite-on cd-rom="" ltn-5291s="" nrs2="">at ata0-master UDMA33
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/idad0s1a
fxp0: link state changed to UP
fxp1: link state changed to DOWN
xl0: link state changed to DOWN
xl1: link state changed to DOWN
xl2: link state changed to DOWN
xl3: link state changed to DOWN
xl4: link state changed to DOWN
xl5: link state changed to DOWN
pflog0: promiscuous mode enabled
pflog0: promiscuous mode disabled
pflog0: promiscuous mode enabled
fxp0: link state changed to DOWN
fxp0: link state changed to UP</lite-on></generic></system></isa></floppy></standard></standard></floppy></parallel></printer></parallel></standard></at></keyboard></pc></thermal></mii></mii></pci></pci-pci></mii></mii></pci></pci-pci></mii></mii></pci></pci-pci></acpi></acpi></ata></ata></serverworks></isa></pci-isa></i82555></mii></intel></display,></i82555></mii></intel></compaq></compaq></acpi></acpi></acpi></compaq></fpu,vme,de,pse,tsc,msr,pae,mce,cx8,sep,mtrr,pge,mca,cmov,pat,pse36,mmx,fxsr,sse>

sullrich

Looking at the DMESG from the compaq (I guess the CD is running from there directly) I am not seeing it launch the second CPU on it as well. =

librarymark

pfSense is running on the hard drive of the VM and the DL380. I choose the SMP kernel option when I installed it in both cases. Any clue yet what is going on?

Thanks for your time!

Library Mark

fastcon68

Just a thought, Install a earlier verision if possible then up the upgrade option to RC-4 if possible and try that route. It worked for me on the SMP route.

RC

Rich

Sorry to hijack this a little, but a little caution on a DL380:

Even though I love the DL380 G5's and have a rack of them, I ran into a really weird problem on one of them this week. It was just set up as a 2003 Server with Smartermail Enterprise over the holidays and has run flawlessly since the OS was installed. It has dual quad cores, 4 gigs of ram, and 8 146 gb sas hd's and only handles email for about 300 users. The processor load was always less than 10% and typically under 5%. Disk queues were always less than 1. Bandwidth usage was usually about 1-2 mb/s and 500 pps each direction with short sustained periods of up to 6-8 mb/s, and up to 3k pps with 1.5k each direction.

The problem was, while near the peaks of it's usage, which wasn't anywhere near it's maximum, it would start dropping more and more packets, and then it would go completely unresponsive. I would go into the NOC and pull it up to see no problems other than it simply wasn't sending out any packets at all. Just receiving packets. No errors, nothing in any logs. I would have to reboot it to get it to work again. Sometimes twice. This would happen anywhere from 2-6 times a day. I switched to the other nic, switched the cables, changed it to a different switch, reduced the numbers of connections…..After beating my head against a wall since this started on Tuesday, I figured it out today. Every 25 minutes our metro e connection jumps from about 2 ms to 60 ms of latency for a couple minutes according to the rrd. When going through a latency spike, and email traffic spike at the same time, the tcp offloading would lock up the nic. I had to turn the tcp offloading off to fix the issue. The nics don't like high latency with the offloading turned on. Now I'm just waiting to find out what is causing the latency spike every 25 minutes. They're going to run some tests over the weekend and the Intel nic will be here Monday. The office I used to work at has the same spike every 25 minutes with the same provider but different ring. Just never caused a problem on the Supermicro with Intel nics I had there.

librarymark

The DL380 I am trying pfsense on is a first-generation machine, if that makes any difference.

cog_engr

[Edited, after this father of a 4-week old baby got some sleep]

Hi. I am a former server hardware design engineer at Compaq, and I think I can shed a little light on this. I preface this by saying that I'm a hardware and BIOS expert, not a pfSense or BSD expert.

My thought is that the information the OS needs to understand that there is more than one CPU in the system, the MPTable, is not being generated because of the OS selection you have in the BIOS. Here's a little deeper information – you can skip below for the solution.

I think this is the case because of the files you attached to your post. Your bootup messages indicate that all devices are mapped to ISA interrupts, there is no reference to an APIC, and there is no info on the second CPU. (Note, I don't mean ACPI -- the APIC, Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller, is something very different. This device that allows us to spread and prioritize interrupts among CPUs and have more than the legacy 15 interrupts, among other things). Without an MPTable and the APIC being programmed, the OS has no way of knowing that there is more than one CPU, and how to use both CPUs. (Also note, you should be able to run SMP mode with only one processor and get better interrupt granularity on any machine with an APIC -- if the hardware and BIOS designers did their jobs well.)

Here's the reason why Compaq does things differently. Way back before APICs and mainstream support of more than one CPU, Compaq developed proprietary ways of "gluing" CPUs together in a system. Many OS's had special drivers written to take advantage of Compaq's SMP hardware, in the days before there were standards. To support some of these legacy bits of code, Compaq's BIOS has to be prepared to tell various OS's how to handle the SMP hardware in a particular system. At power-on, the BIOS decides what information to pass to the OS, and how it's structured, based on the OS selection in the BIOS setup.

Here's the fix. My suggestion is to make sure you have the latest BIOS (Compaq did make changes to how the APIC is set up over the life of the P17 BIOS) and then adjust the OS entry in the BIOS to Linux (or whatever OS you might think is appropriate -- linux should work, because that should set up a fully-compatible MPTable), which should cause the APIC to be programmed up correctly and should let your OS, assuming it's the right SMP kernel, to see both CPUs.

Your system ROM family should be P17 -- that's the Compaq System ROM identifier you should see when you turn on your system. (It stands for the 17th different PCI-based server ROM that Compaq has made. As a quirk, not all machines make it to market, and you'll sometimes see holes in the numbering sequence. Old Compaq ROMs have E identifiers, i.e. E12 or E7, for EISA ROM.) Just make sure that you've got a P17 machine (when you boot) and load up the latest P17 ROM. It looks like the latest is dated 12/18/2002. You can get it at http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=254889&prodNameId=342841&swEnvOID=1025&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-UNITY-I17424

Let us know if this works, so folks in the future will know!

librarymark

cog_engr - wow - thanks!

I did try to upgrade the bios with what I thought was the latest from HP. It is very hard to navigate their website and know that you have what you need.

I guess need to run the config program again and make sure that I set up the bios right.

Thanks again for your insight!

LibraryMark

librarymark

BTW- I had no idea that the BIOS cared what OS was on the system, and could not figure out why it asked. Now I do! Very interesting!

librarymark

Today I booted up the Compaq System Configuration Utility and discovered I had the OS set to "other". I then set it to UNIX->Linux and rebooted. Still no second processor.

Then - I rebooted with a copy of 1.2 RC4 in the CD-ROM drive, choosing no ACPI - and the second processor answers up! Rock and Roll! I also disabled the floppy interface while I was at it - somewhere I read on this forum that this is a good thing to do on old Proliants.

I have disabled ACPI per http://devwiki.pfsense.org/BootOptions and other than loosing power control, all is well!

While I am thinking about it, instead of putting hint.acpi.0.disabled=1 in /boot/loader.conf, how do I make the second boot option the default (no acpi) instead of the first so I can choose ACPI if I want?

Thanks to all, and especially cog_engr for all the insight.

Later -

Library Mark

Matts

Hi Mark,

If you look to one of my topics of last year you will see that I had the same problem also.

The way you solved it is right, you have to turn of the floppy drive (because of booting) set the OS on Windows2000 (or other) and boot the thing up.

It's an odd problem that took me some time too.

Matts

Weird is that I can't get this fixed using:

hint.acpi.0.disabled=1

or

exec="unset acpi_load"

I have to check the bios settings again on a testmachine to be sure.

Still strange, I have the idea that I have to set another OS in the BIOS, this seems to help sometimes.