Syslinux - Aug 2005 - PXE-Boot fails after reboot with kernel 2.6.x

Hello list,
I've been using PXE Boot for quite some time now and it has been working 
without any problems.
I'm using a Biostar M7VIZ mainboard with a VIA KM400 chipset, and 
VIA-Rhine VT6102 NIC.

Yesterday I upgrade the Kernel on my net-boot machine from 2.4.24 to 2.6.12.
When I power on the machine it boots up normally.
However, when I reboot the machine, the mainboards PXE-ROM only displays 
"PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM". It does not even try to retrieve 
anything via DHCP it just prints the above message, nothing more. If I 
power off the machine and back on then it is booting again. The above 
phenomenon is reproduceable.

The really weird thing however... If I switch back to my 2.4.25 kernel 
then everything is working a fine after a reboot.

The whole thing looks like a kernel problem but I wouldn't know where to 
start searching. I reconfigured the 2.6.12 kernel a few times and even 
tried the 2.6.13-rc6 kernel but without any luck.

I was searching through the archives to see if some one else has had a 
similar problem, but without any luck.
(it was quite tedious to do without a search option on the page, maybe 
there is one and I just did not find it...?!?)
Has any one else had such a problem before?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.
  Andr?

Andr? Weidemann wrote:
> Hello list,
> I've been using PXE Boot for quite some time now and it has been
working
> without any problems.
> I'm using a Biostar M7VIZ mainboard with a VIA KM400 chipset, and 
> VIA-Rhine VT6102 NIC.
> 
> Yesterday I upgrade the Kernel on my net-boot machine from 2.4.24 to 
> 2.6.12.
> When I power on the machine it boots up normally.
> However, when I reboot the machine, the mainboards PXE-ROM only displays 
> "PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM". It does not even try to
retrieve
> anything via DHCP it just prints the above message, nothing more. If I 
> power off the machine and back on then it is booting again. The above 
> phenomenon is reproduceable.
> 
> The really weird thing however... If I switch back to my 2.4.25 kernel 
> then everything is working a fine after a reboot.
> 
> The whole thing looks like a kernel problem but I wouldn't know where
to
> start searching. I reconfigured the 2.6.12 kernel a few times and even 
> tried the 2.6.13-rc6 kernel but without any luck.
> 
This doesn't have anything to do with syslinux, but...

I can see three possibilities:

a. Different reboot method (e.g. ACPI versus cold restart.)
b. Simple boot flag support in 2.6.
c. Some other kind of ACPI weirdness.

You might want to start by disabling ACPI in 2.6.

	-hpa

>Andr? Weidemann wrote:
>  
>
>>Hello list,
>>I've been using PXE Boot for quite some time now and it has been
working
>>without any problems.
>>I'm using a Biostar M7VIZ mainboard with a VIA KM400 chipset, and 
>>VIA-Rhine VT6102 NIC.
>>
>>Yesterday I upgrade the Kernel on my net-boot machine from 2.4.24 to 
>>2.6.12.
>>When I power on the machine it boots up normally.
>>However, when I reboot the machine, the mainboards PXE-ROM only displays
>>"PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM". It does not even try to
retrieve
>>anything via DHCP it just prints the above message, nothing more. If I 
>>power off the machine and back on then it is booting again. The above 
>>phenomenon is reproduceable.
>>
>>The really weird thing however... If I switch back to my 2.4.25 kernel 
>>then everything is working a fine after a reboot.
>>
>>The whole thing looks like a kernel problem but I wouldn't know
where to
>>start searching. I reconfigured the 2.6.12 kernel a few times and even 
>>tried the 2.6.13-rc6 kernel but without any luck.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>This doesn't have anything to do with syslinux, but...
>
>I can see three possibilities:
>
>a. Different reboot method (e.g. ACPI versus cold restart.)
>b. Simple boot flag support in 2.6.
>c. Some other kind of ACPI weirdness.
>
>You might want to start by disabling ACPI in 2.6.
>
>	-hpa
>  
>
I encountered the exact same problem with an MSI MS-6738 mainboard (Via 
KM266 and Via Rhine VT6102).

It appears that this is a problem with power state and Wake-On-Lan 
behaviour that affects certain Via Rhine chipsets when running kernels 
later than 2.6.8.  Google "Via Rhine WOL vs PXE" for the relevant
kernel
forum thread.  There is a somewhat contentious one-line patch that will 
fix the problem for you (but will possibly break WOL for others):

--cut
--- linux-2.6.12.5/drivers/net/via-rhine.c.orig 2005-06-18 
05:48:29.000000000 +1000
+++ linux-2.6.12.5/drivers/net/via-rhine.c      2005-08-23 
10:46:14.000000000 +1000
@@ -1935,7 +1935,7 @@
        }
 
        /* Hit power state D3 (sleep) */
-       iowrite8(ioread8(ioaddr + StickyHW) | 0x03, ioaddr + StickyHW);
+/*     iowrite8(ioread8(ioaddr + StickyHW) | 0x03, ioaddr + StickyHW); */
 
        /* TODO: Check use of pci_enable_wake() */

--cut
 
It worked for me!