Garbage Dump at boot?

[danic]

Honestly I don't know how to describe this so I gonna post a small flash video of it. This happened after I rebooted the pfSense machine when mysteriously DHCP stopped working and moments later NAT/Internet was gone.
http://www.danicstudios.net/flashvid.html

I currently have the live CD going on the same machine with no problem. But a HDD installation would be nice.

Thanks
Jason

[jmcentire]

I have the exact same problem, runs fine from the live cd though.  What hardware are you using, maybe we can find the problem.

My machine:
Asus P5GC-VM (Intel 945P)
Corsair 2GB DDR2 667
WD 80GB SATA
Intel Pentium E2140
2x Compaq DE504 NICs

I have tried the single processor and the smp kernel with the same results.  I have 4 of these exact same machines, so far only installed on two of them, but both do the exact same thing.  I am going to try removing and disabling hardware and see if I get anywhere.  If anyone else has info on this problem it is greatly appreciated!

Thanks

[jmcentire]

Looks like I got it working, selected the GRUB loader during the install and now it boots up just fine.  Is there something incompatible with the default loader that would cause this?

Thanks

[jmcentire]

Well that worked for one machine, the second machine I tried hangs during boot at "GRUB loading, please wait…".  I've tried a few things but don't know what to try now.  Anyone have ideas?

Thanks,

Jake

[jmcentire]

So, I have given up on the second machine for now, and am working on the third machine(keep in mind all of these are exact same hardware and configuration).  With the third machine with the default boot loader, it makes it to the FreeBSD screen then starts showing that same junk.  With GRUB, it also makes it to the FreeBSD screen then shows the same junk.

The first machine that I got to work with GRUB still works, I have rebooted it several times to make sure it wasn't just a fluke.  Also if I take the HDD out of the first machine and put it in the third, pfSense boots up just fine.

I have all extra hardware disabled on all the machines, I have now tried 5 or 6 different boot loaders including GAG and Smart BootManager, all of them do the same thing.  I have also tried different CDs which made no difference.  I get no errors anytime(live cd, install, boot, etc.).

Current status of 4 machines:
Machine 1:
Default Loader - Same as video on post #1
GRUB - Works!

Machine 2:
Default Loader - Same as video on post #1
GRUB - Hangs at "GRUB loading, please wait…"

Machine 3:
Default Loader - Gets to Free BSD screen then spews out same stuff from video above.
GRUB - Sames results as Default Loader

Machine 4:
Not yet tested.

If anyone out there has any ideas I would really appreciate them!

Thanks

[jmcentire]

No ideas still?  Well, I'm still messing around with these things, I finally found an old ide hard drive and installed it onto that, and it boots up just fine.  Are there problems with SATA drives or controllers and pfSense?  It is an Intel based board 945P/ICH7, anyone else out there have a similar setup?

[sullrich]

Yes, FreeBSD has known issues entering real mode or something of the sort on bootup.  It's being addressed (albeit slowly).

[mammoth]

@jmcentire:

No ideas still?  Well, I'm still messing around with these things, I finally found an old ide hard drive and installed it onto that, and it boots up just fine.  Are there problems with SATA drives or controllers and pfSense?  It is an Intel based board 945P/ICH7, anyone else out there have a similar setup?

Most of the Intel desktop boards have bios settings where you can run IDE emulation on the SATA ports.  By default that setting is disabled.  I would definitely try enabling that as a start if you must use SATA.

[jmcentire]

Since I have narrowed this down to problem with SATA drive/controller I will start a new thread under hardware.
Thanks!

[danic]

Wow I though I would have an e-mail if someone replied. So I totally forgot to check back!. But I fixed it a while ago! How? Not sure.
First off, I have a ASUS A8V-VM. Its a cheap socket 939 VIA chipset motherboard.

I first tested the 80GB SATA harddrive with pfsense in another machine. Booted with no problem.
Put back into my router box, no go.
reset cmos on the motherboard just 'cause, no go.
I reset all my cmos settings, like date,time,turn off serial port etc. Until i got the SATA controller settings. I didn't remember if I had it in SATA or RAID mode, or RAID with BOOTROM. So I left it in SATA mode, No go.
Okay frustrated, I tried RAID mode with bootrom off, no go.
Bootrom on, booted. Bootrom shows with a large yellow warning about unix file system detected. So I continue.
It worked!. Still today I don't understand the yellow warning.
To my memory I never had RAID enabled in bios ever. I was running this box for 8-10 months before this happened one day.
It been running great ever since.
Why this fixed it? I don't know. I'm more of a Power user than an advance user.
But if anyone has this problem. They should 'fiddle' with their drive controller setting?
Or try an IDE drive over SATA for testing?