I tried to install FreeBSD 5.0 RC2 on a Compaq Evo D510 Convertible MiniTower and that succeeded without any problems. However when the machine is booted after the installation I got a "BTX halted" message.
In order to solve this I tried to find a solution in the FreeBSD manual/FAQ and the email archives. Based on the information that I found I tried the following things with, unfortunately, the same result: - A reinstall of FreeBSD 5.0 RC2 on a "Dangerously Dedicated" disk. - A bios upgrade from version 2.14 to 3.12 - An install of FreeBSD 4.7 Release to verify whether it was a problem specific to FreeBSD 5.0 RC2 Eventually I came across a solution posted by Paul Saab to freebsd-smp on June 27th 2002, in which he recommended turning off DMA in the BIOS, for a similar problem Craigrm of Coreix Systems was experiencing on a Compaq Evo D500: http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=25904+0+archive/2002/freebsd-smp/20020630.freebsd-smp To see if this would also work for my Compaq Evo D510 I changed the following setting in my BIOS: - Storage | Device Configuration | Hard Disk | IDE Primary 0 - Changed Transfer Mode from "Max DMA" to "Max PIO" This time FreeBSD 5.0 RC2 booted up successfully! To see if the other DMA settings exhibited the same problem as "Max DMA" I also tried: - Enhanced DMA - Ultra DMA 0 Unfortunately they resulted in the same "BTX Halted" message upon booting. Only "Max PIO" seems to work! I am not sure if this is a problem on all Compaq Evo Dxxx PCs, but at least it seems to work for the D500 and the D510. Should this be a trouble shooting/FAQ entry? BTW. Some one (see link below) reported that a BIOS downgrade on his Evo 500 (D500?) from version 3.01 to version 2.06 also solved the "BTX halted" problem. Apparently Compaq has done something strange in the newwer versions of their BIOS' for their Compaq Evo line of PC's. Only available from Google cache: http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:lZq2sNTvoqsC:opax.swin.edu.au/~garmitage/things/freebsdEVO500-062902.html+BTX+Compaq+Evo+Armitage&hl=en&lr=lang_nl|lang_en&ie=UTF-8 Anyway hope this helps other people that are trying to install FreeBSD on a Compaq Evo Dxxx PC. -- Guido
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