Problem with Tyan Tomcat S2850

[jaimie@camerarepair.com]

Many people seem to be having similar problems, but I've tried everything people have posted, and nothing seems to work.  I cannot post the dmesg unless I use my digital camera.  I am not aware of a way to dump the dmesg from the installation image boot.  If needed, I will post it on a webserver and link it.

I am using:

OpenBSD 3.4 
(I also tested 3.3 --same problems)

Tyan Tomcat S2850 with Opteron 140
Newest BIOS -- 1.03

Basically, OpenBSD will not install at all on this board.  Fishing through the newsgroups this also seems to be a problem in the S2466 and S2469.  I heard lots of different solutions, none of which seem to work for me.

I freezes right when/after it probes the npx0 device.  Oddly enough when you hit the CTRL key specifically it unlocks and continues.  I do not expect this to make sense.  CTRL should send the same interrupt AFAIK as any other key.  I reproduced this many times because I didn't believe it myself.

It then says ...  "stray interrupt 7"

... then freezes again later.

I proceeded to boot into UKC (User Kernel Config) and disable npx0, and then it doesn't freeze, but freezes later.

Ok, so it has something to do with the numeric coprocessor and interrupt 7.  It would seem like a blown board, but upon googling for it, I see many people who have almost the same exact problem.  Notably, they're often AMD-based Tyan boards -- and they're not even the same one I have.

http://www.netsys.com/openbsd-misc/2003/04/msg00437.html

He posted a solution as well up top, but it doens't seem to work for me.  Someone also said to try disabling the LPT port in the bios.  I did that too.

First, I'm baffled as to why "stray interrupts" should occur, and I'm baffled as to what it has to do with the npx0 module.  And I'm further confused as to why it still crashes even after the npx0 issue is "resolved" by removal -- and disabling the FPU is not something that is reasonable anyway ....

Lastly, OpenBSD does not recognize the Opteron as a 686 class CPU.  It sees it as a 386.  This is probably a bad idea, but I don't think it's causing this mess.  If so, can I go in with a boot -c and change my CPU to a 686 class somehow?  I couldn't find a way.  I am posting this seperately to the list since it is definately an issue.

Jaimie



I seriously doubt it's a defective board, because I find remarkably similar behaviour even with