[Soekris] Cold boot failures on Net5501?

[Wim Vandeputte - Mailinglists only]

hey Kevin,

On Fri, Jun 06, 2008 at 10:29:27PM -0500, K K wrote:
> Is anybody else seeing cold boot failures on Soekris Net5501-70
> with comBIOS v1.33b and OpenBSD 4.3?  I asked earlier on the
> soekris-tech list, received no replies.

I've seen it but had no screen capture so far

> The console shows the following, and then hangs for about five seconds:
> 
> 1 Seconds to automatic boot.   Press Ctrl-P for entering Monitor.
> Using drive 0, partition 3.
> Loading...
> probing: pc0 com0 com1 pci mem[639K 511M a20=on]
> disk: hd0+
> 
> 
> The cursor sits at the '+' for several seconds, then a '*' is printed,
> then error messages:
> 
> disk: hd0+*
> >> OpenBSD/i386 BOOT 3.01
> open(hd0a:/etc/boot.conf): Unknown error: code 102
> boot>
> booting hd0a:/bsd: open hd0a:/bsd: Unknown error: code 102
>  failed(102). will try /bsd
> boot>
> booting hd0a:/bsd: open hd0a:/bsd: Invalid argument
>  failed(22). will try /bsd
> Turning timeout off.
> boot>

I've seen this twice, each time with BIOS 1.33b and a silicon systems CF (each
time only one IDE device in the soekris, all my CF + SATA setups work
under BIOS 1.33)

When the system boots, normally it detects the CF really quickly and 
it boots just fine, but if during the booting there is a 20 something 
delay between 

POST: 012345689bcefghips1234ajklnopqr,,,tvwxy

comBIOS ver. 1.33b 20080501  Copyright (C) 2000-2008 Soekris Engineering.

net5501

0512 Mbyte Memory                        CPU Geode LX 500 Mhz 


[20 second delay here]


and the rest:

Pri Mas  SILICONSYSTEMS INC 1GB          LBA Xlt 1015-32-63  1023 Mbyte

Slot   Vend Dev  ClassRev Cmd  Stat CL LT HT  Base1    Base2   Int 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
0:01:2 1022 2082 10100000 0006 0220 08 00 00 A0000000 00000000 10
0:06:0 1106 3053 02000096 0117 0210 08 40 00 0000E101 A0004000 11
0:07:0 1106 3053 02000096 0117 0210 08 40 00 0000E201 A0004100 05
0:08:0 1106 3053 02000096 0117 0210 08 40 00 0000E301 A0004200 09
0:09:0 1106 3053 02000096 0117 0210 08 40 00 0000E401 A0004300 12
0:20:0 1022 2090 06010003 0009 02A0 08 40 80 00006001 00006101 
0:20:2 1022 209A 01018001 0005 02A0 08 00 00 00000000 00000000 
0:21:0 1022 2094 0C031002 0006 0230 08 00 80 A0005000 00000000 15
0:21:1 1022 2095 0C032002 0006 0230 08 00 00 A0006000 00000000 15

then it's garanteed you'll see a delay between each disk activity action,

like printing out the disk: hd0+* 

as you described


 1 Seconds to automatic boot.   Press Ctrl-P for entering Monitor.
Using drive 0, partition 3.
Loading...
probing: pc0 com0 com1 pci mem[639K 511M a20=on] 
disk: hd0+*
>> OpenBSD/i386 BOOT 3.01
open(hd0a:/etc/boot.conf): Unknown error: code 102
boot> 
booting hd0a:/bsd: open hd0a:/bsd: Unknown error: code 102
 failed(102). will try /bsd
boot> 
booting hd0a:/bsd: -

I would blame it on the 1.33b soekris BIOS, not OpenBSD, due to the initial
timeout I see when detecting the Pri Mas