freebsd stable - Sep 2008 - RELENG_7 hangs on boot w/Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H MB

Hi All,

I'm trying to get the latest RELENG_7 to run on my new Gigabyte
MA78GM-S2H motherboard and am experiencing a hang on boot right after it
prints the message:

Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ad4s1a

At this point it is hung and doesn't respond to any keyboard input. I
originally attempted to install the 7.1 beta system with similar results
(prevented me from installing). I then installed 7.0-release and though
the install succeeded it never did "see" the Realtek ethernet
controller
so I had no network capability.

Has anyone else seen this behavior. Any ideas/suggestions on what I can
do to further track it down.

In addition to the motherboard, the system has a Phenom 8650 processor
and 4GB of memory. The disk is a 320GB SATA WD Caviar.

Thanks,
Bob

-- 
Bob Willcox              All the evidence concerning the universe
bob@immure.com           has not yet been collected, so there's still hope.
Austin, TX

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 11:24:18PM -0500, Bob Willcox
wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I'm trying to get the latest RELENG_7 to run on my new Gigabyte
> MA78GM-S2H motherboard and am experiencing a hang on boot right after it
> prints the message:
> 
> Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ad4s1a
>
> At this point it is hung and doesn't respond to any keyboard input.
>
> I originally attempted to install the 7.1 beta system with similar
> results (prevented me from installing). I then installed 7.0-release
> and though the install succeeded it never did "see" the Realtek
> ethernet controller so I had no network capability.
You're describing multiple problems in a single Email.  This is liable
to get complex.

1) It would be helpful to know if you installed i386 or amd64 FreeBSD,

2) With regards to the lock-up after "mount root", if you press
NumLock
or CapsLock, do the keyboard LEDs turn on/off?

3) Many others have seen the hanging/lock-up after "mount root".  I
believe one found a workaround by setting ATA_STATIC_ID in their kernel
configuration.  I realise this is a problem when you can't get the
system up to a point of building a kernel; chicken-and-egg problem,

4) The Realtek NIC on that motherboard is probably too new to be
supported under RELENG_7.  Realtek has a history of releasing different
sub-revisions of the same NIC/PHY, and the internal changes are severe
enough to cause the NIC to not work correctly (under any OS) without
full driver support for that specific sub-revision.

All above said:

Can you please try one of the RELENG_7 ISO snapshots at the below site,
instead of the official 7.0-RELEASE ISO, and report back if that solves
either of your problems?  The below site contains ISOs built daily,
rather than monthly:

http://pub.allbsd.org/FreeBSD-snapshots/

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |