Bug 31320

Summary: FreeBsd 4.4 (or 4.2) will not install. Hangs up during device probe
Product: Base System Reporter: Almon C. Turner <n4okg>
Component: i386Assignee: freebsd-bugs (Nobody) <bugs>
Status: Closed FIXED    
Severity: Affects Only Me    
Priority: Normal    
Version: Unspecified   
Hardware: Any   
OS: Any   

Description Almon C. Turner 2001-10-17 02:10:01 UTC 
Attempts to install halted when the device probe point was reached.  I allowed quite a lot of time to no avail.  Up to that point everything goes as it should.  I tried to install my older 4.2 release with the same result. I've been running 4.2 on my older (PIII/500) machine for several months, so I hesitate to blame this on "operator malfunction"!

Fix: 

I suspect, but can't prove, that FreeBSD is having problems with the DDR SDRAM, or some feature of the motherboard. My previous machine also had an ASUS motherboard that is quite similar except for the processor, DDR SDRAM, and on-board UDMA100 feature.
How-To-Repeat: Simply attempt to install FreeBSD on this machine and the problem raises it's ugly head!
Comment 1 Almon C. Turner 2001-10-22 00:53:49 UTC 
I have tried numerous "tricks", such as disabling various features of the Motherboard, trying both bus speeds (100 and 133), with and without the turbo mode, all to no avail.  I still can't get FreeBSD to install.  It stalls during the device probe and goes no farther.  At that point the only thing working on the machine is the reset button.

Al Turner
Comment 2 chern freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2001-10-30 19:11:00 UTC 
Exactly where does the device probe hang?

You should also be sure to resolve any device conflicts you may have using
the kernel configuration option (the first question asked when
installing).

Faulty cabling or hardware could also be to blame, have you used any other
operating systems on this machine successfully?

- chern
Comment 3 chern freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2001-11-01 23:25:13 UTC 
State Changed
From-To: open->closed

Originator solved his own problem. 

CD-ROM w/ DMA on in BIOS largely to blame for this issue.