Re: Urgent problem - 7.x doesn't work on HP servers

Robert Watson wrote:
>
> On Mon, 18 Feb 2008, Ivan Voras wrote:
>
>> I've again encountered the problem of FreeBSD 7 not wanting to boot 
>> on a HP server. The last time was early in 7.x development on a HP 
>> blade (2xdual-core Opteron), without any solution (reported on this 
>> list about a year ago). This time it's on a ML 350 G5 machine, with a 
>> quad-core Xeon.
>>
>> The problem is very hard to diagnose - the entire machine locks up 
>> during pci bus/device detection - the kernel debugger doesn't work, 
>> the keyboard lights (PS/2 keyboard) don't work, it's completely frozen.
>>
>> This is on both i386 and AMD64 kernels.
>>
>> The machine freezes after detecting pcib6. The working 6.x kernel 
>> detects upto pcib16, and the first device detected after pcib6 is the 
>> CISS controller, so maybe it's the controller driver, but the first 
>> machine (the blade) didn't have CISS controllers.
>
> FYI, I'm not seeing anything like this on the two DL 145 boxes I'm 
> using for 10gbps testing with 7.x / 8.x.  I did have problems with at 
> least a couple of the BIOS revs in the past, so I'd repeat the advice 
> offered elsewhere in the thread and make sure that it's up-to-date.  
> There was one BIOS rev where I couldn't use a boot loader cross-built 
> from i386 to amd64, but both the i386 boot loader and the natively 
> built amd64 boot loader worked fine.  The BIOS upgrade made the 
> problem entirely go away, go figure...
>
> Otherwise, you're probably down to the printf model for debugging, 
> unless you have an NMI button that can get into DDB?  Mine have NMI 
> buttons on the botherboard, I believe, but it requires opening the 
> case to get to.
>

Hi!

It is possible to invoke an NMI through the Intregrated LightsOut 
management system that is built into the server.

Look under Diagnostics when you get into the iLO system.

Kind regards

Morten Strårup