[SOLVED] From 7.2 to 9.1-same hardware-hangs booting USB

[ohm665]

I've been using the legacy version of FreeNAS 7.2 (Shere) for some time now with no problems and decided to finally jump up to the current release of 9.1.0.1.636. The PC is an old Dell Dimension 3000 with a P4 2.8, 256MB of RAM, Promise SATA TX4 controller (with 3 Seagate 500GB SATA disks in RAID 5), Intel PRO/1000T gigabit network card, and a PS/2 Dell keyboard (SK-8110) - that's it; no CD-ROM, no mouse, no monitor, nada. I was booting and running 7.2 x86 embedded from a 1GB USB stick with absolutely no problems - the PC boots from the stick no problem, gets to the boot loader, boots in "Normal Mode" (option 1) and brings up the system with an IP address as expected and everything works fine. So I took a different 1GB stick, downloaded the x86 embedded current version of Nas4Free, extracted, and wrote it to the USB stick with physdiskwrite and booted the PC - it hangs every time with each boot option. I've tried different boot options and it hangs at (I've included a few lines before it hangs):

1. Normal Mode: ACPI APIC Table: <DELL 3000 >
ioapic0: Changing APIC ID to 1
ioapic0 <Version 2.0> irqs 0-23 on motherboard
kbd1 at kbdmux0

2. with ACPI enabled: same as "Normal Mode"

3. in Safe Mode: module_register_init: MOD_LOAD (kbdmux, 0x807bfd00, 0) error 6

4. with Verbose Logging: random: <entropy source, Software, Yarrow>
hptrr: RocketRAID 17xx/2xxx SATA controller driver v1.2

I've searched the "upgrade" posts, checked the HCL (seems OK), read upgrade instructions, and Googled the error codes and hang conditions until my eyes bled and can't seem to find a reason why this new version refuses to bring up the system. I can't seem to understand which component is causing the hang. I've searched for the keyboard error, and tried using a different, USB Dell keyboard with the same results. I've even pulled the hard drives, mouse, network card and SATA controller card out leaving just the motherboard and memory as the only things that are installed - same results. I know I'm considered a "noob" since I haven't posted before - however I am quite versed with the legacy FreeNAS - and I am looking for a little guidance on how to get my system up and running with the current version. Need more information about my system or the error messages I'm receiving? Thanks for taking the time to help me out with this!

P.S. ~ I've searched the forums and read countless posts regarding upgrade issues, so please no snarky comments about "search the forums before posting..."

[raulfg3]

not totally sure , but I think that perhaps is a memory problem, 256MB is not enought to boot latest Nas4Free, if you have oportunity, try to upgrade RAM to at least 512MB.

[al562]

Hi Ohm665,

Raul is quite right.
I've run 9.1.0.1-636 on that PC, but with 512 RAM, not 256.

Regards,
Al

[ohm665]

Raul, Al ~

Thanks for offering advice so quickly! I scrounged and found an extra 512 stick to throw in there (for a total of 768) and it booted just fine and is now up and running. So you were both right in that it didn't meet the memory requirement. Thanks for the help guys!