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    PfSense with Axiomtek NA341 Board

    Hardware
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    • O
      ovi_diu
      last edited by

      Hi,
      I bought this board and I followed the tutorial for embedded computers. I wrote the .img with physdiskwrite but after boot nothing else appear using the console. Using vga I see only colored chars. Any advice will be great, thanks

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      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        Exactly which image did you write?

        Is the VGA connector internal? Did it come with a header cable?

        Do you see the see the bios output on either the serial console or vga?

        Steve

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        • O
          ovi_diu
          last edited by

          I have a 4 GB CF Card

          I tried both pfSense-memstick-2.1-RELEASE-i386.img  and    pfSense-memstick-serial-2.1-RELEASE-i386.img

          I connected the monitor using vga cable ( the board comes with integrated VGA connector )

          I also set same settings ( bts / seconnd ) in bios, serial port adapter and client. I see how appliance boots, I can navigate on bios and that's all

          Thank you

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          • D
            doktornotor Banned
            last edited by

            For CF, you should use nanobsd (or nanobsd_vga), not memstick.

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            • O
              ovi_diu
              last edited by

              sorry, I was in a hurry
              pfSense-2.1.1-RELEASE-4g-i386-nanobsd.img
              pfSense-2.1.1-RELEASE-4g-i386-nanobsd_vga.img

              I followed this tutorial too : https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/HOWTO_Install_pfSense
              I replaced config file ( .xml ) but nothing, same results

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              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                Hmm, I'm missing something. You were able to replace the config.xml file? How did you do that? The box had booted pfSense or you mounted the card in a BSD machine?
                If you are getting to the end of the POST messages from the BIOS and then you see nothing from either image on either the VGA or console port then the most likely cause is that the images are not writing to the card correctly. Do you see any errors when writing the image? You could try using the 2GB images instead to ensure they are fitting on the card.

                Steve

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                • O
                  ovi_diu
                  last edited by

                  Shows me the boot menu F1, F2, and then the message:  "/".

                  Should be fine if I follow the documentation -
                  https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Installing_pfSense
                  "If everything is configured correctly you should see the kernel beginning to load. At systems with VGA the output will stop displaying a "/" at the screen. From that point on all output is at COM1. Please check the bootup process there by using a null modemcable and a terminal program."

                  This is the last message I have seen on both monitor and serial ( HyperTerminal, Putty )

                  On writeing the img to CF i had no error messages

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Ok. Have you ever seen anything on the serial console? Have you proved the connection on some other hardware? Like it says in the doc the standard Nano image switches it's console output to the serial port at that point so your serial terminal setup not working correctly matches those symptoms. That doesn't explain the nano+vga images though.

                    You are seeing the FreeBSD bootloader though so it looks at though the images are writing to the card correctly and the bios is correctly booting it though so that's good.  ;)

                    Steve

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                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      Since it's hanging at the 'spinner' you could try these HD mode suggestions:
                      https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Boot_Troubleshooting#BIOS.2FDisk_Errors

                      Steve

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                      • O
                        ovi_diu
                        last edited by

                        Not helped :(
                        I tried with the 2Gb img and same results
                        Is any way to start instalation from a bootable usb ? I tried with usb stick and usb dvd but won't boot, hiren's cd also boots
                        Please give me other suggests, thank you

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          If it will boot from USB then you can write the Nano images straight to the USB stick and boot from that.
                          To boot anything via USB you probably have to interrupt the boot loader and set a delay. See:
                          https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Boot_Troubleshooting#Booting_from_USB

                          Surprised it wouldn't boot from CF though.  :-\ As a test you could try booting an alternative image from the CF. For example you could use this FreeDOS image:
                          https://sites.google.com/site/pfsensefirebox/home/FreeDOSBios2.img.gz
                          That boots to a console at 9600bps on com1.

                          Steve

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                          • O
                            ovi_diu
                            last edited by

                            I tried with FreeDOS, is booting even if it stops asking me for mouse, at COM1, but this is another work :)
                            what I do with pfSense ?
                            I tried to boot over the SATA port with a DVD RW, loader stop on console at:
                            CD Loader 1.2

                            Building the boot loader arguments
                            Looking up /BOOT/LOADER… Found
                            Relocating the loader and the BTX
                            Starting the BTX loader
                            _

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                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              Was that via VGA or serial?
                              That's odd. It boots the FreeDOS image fine but hangs booting pfSense.  :-\ Hmm, must be something it doesn't like about the disk controller or some other piece of hardware. Nothing on that board looks too exotic though and you tried the various HD modes in the BIOS?.

                              Steve

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                              • O
                                ovi_diu
                                last edited by

                                I tried FreeBSD 9.1  amd64, i386, memstick  and  FreeBSD 10 too

                                On Monitor ( via vga )

                                On Terminal ( via serial console )

                                With pfSense Embeded 4GB ( or 2GB ) CF VGA or Serial img:

                                Monitor: same as FreeBSD

                                Terminal:

                                No any good results with IDE or AHCI setting in BIOS

                                Also I tried installing Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit, everything worked OK

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                                • stephenw10S
                                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                  last edited by

                                  Hmm, that's….. interesting.
                                  Some time ago there was an issue with the graphics drivers for the newer (at that time) Atoms such as the D2500. The driver was eventually fixed upstream and is now included in pfSense. I never saw the problem first hand but descriptions of it sound a lot like what you're seeing. There were work-arounds at the time I seem to recall.

                                  You could try, just as a test, booting a 1.2.3 image. They didn't suffer from that problem. If that works you can probably upgrade in place to 2.1.1.

                                  Steve

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