> i think it would be more valuable to explain exactly what's > not working and point to some of the workarounds, if they exist.
What's not working is the ACPI component of the BIOS. The P9 boot fails very early on (right after E820 I think). FreeBSD runs, but something in the ACPI code wakes up every couple of seconds and leaps into the ACPI BIOS code. While it's in there it locks out all hardware interrupts for 2-5 seconds, which makes the box pretty much unusable for anything close to interactive work. As to workarounds, I worked around to the computer store and bought a non-Intel motherboard that actually implements Intel's ACPI spec somewhat correctly. I'm not going to spend time I could be billing out to try to fix a completely braindead motherboard that I can replace for what I earn in an hour or two. Shitty hardware like this deserves to die, not get fixed. --lyndon
