Paul M wrote:
I was bitten by a similar issue on i386 hardware - freezes during
install, or shortly thereafter.
After too many hours bashing on it, I reinstalled the original windows
disk, and it worked perfectly. I stress tested it for several days
without a single (aparent) problem, but swapping out the disk and
attempting a reinstall of 4.3, it would freeze again every time.
Turned out to be bad RAM.
OK, I finally sat down today and fiddled with this some more.
First, I pulled all of the RAM, plugged in 1 x 256 MB SIMM, cleared the
PRAM for good measure, and then ran the installer again. It froze as before.
Next, I pulled the upgraded processor, dropped in a stock 350 MHz Apple
processor, cleared the PRAM again, and then ran the installer again.
This time, the installer ran all the way through, the machine booted
without any issues, and seemed to run fine through all the normal tasks
I gave it to do (network transfers, disk formatting, installing a
package, etc).
Then I shut the machine down and put the original 2GB memory back in,
cleared PRAM, and started up again. No issues.
Then I shut down and put the upgraded processor back in, cleared PRAM,
and booted again. Within a couple minutes, the machine froze again. I
was able to reproduce this several times. So it looks like the processor
is the culprit (bummer).
Interestingly, though, the line from the dmesg that Nick pointed out,
"mem at mainbus0 not configured", did not appear in the installed copy
of OpenBSD regardless of which processor or how much memory was in the
machine. That only showed up when I booted from the CD.
Also, as a side note-- this machine does not have a serial port. At
least, none that I am aware of. There's nothing remotely serial-like
(not counting USB, that is) on the back panel. Just USB, IEEE1394a,
RJ-45, RJ-11, and audio. Maybe there's some kind of header on the
motherboard, but I think I'm done messing around with this machine for
today.
Dan
