XigmaNAS

My trusty 7 year old NAS box took a dump (caps finally blew)

So I thought i'd throw some old hardware together so i could access my drives (both UFS)

AM using the latest ISO 64 bit image (9.2.0.1.972)

I am using old Biostar nforce4 Ultra chipset board (Tforce 4 U)with Athlon 64 3500 (socket 939). I have 2 gig of DDR mem installed, all drives disconnected except DVD.

I get to the boot menu, it starts loading (even beeps like I am used too after 2-3 minutes) but then doesn't go any further. I have disabled all unused peripherals (ide, serial, parallel, etc.).

Doesn't matter which boot option (1,2,3) I use, I always stop right after the PCIb5 line is evaluated. Specifically on verbose mode it says it is "attempting to grow memory window"

Then nothing. Interestingly if I shut down later with CNTRL-ALT-DEL I get a beep and shutdown just like I would expect.

I have tried disabling ACPI in bios, but if i do that both boot options 1 and 2 end up just rebooting instead of hanging.

Any ideas, or doesn't FreeBSD like the old Nforce 4 ultra boards.

try a different cd/dvd drive
Ive had lots of bad ones that just are worn out

I am not sure that is the problem, it is a brand new SATA drive. But you gave me an idea. I think I am going to burn an USB stick image and see if that works.

I guess my troubleshooting skills are a little rusty (or it could be the lack of sleep, late hour, getting old, etc. )

A little closer look at the boot messages helped me determine it was the PCIE video card hanging things up. Normally wouldn't try a PCIE but was in a rush (and of course ended up wasting 2 hours )

Dropped in an old PCI vid card and the install rolled right on.