newbie getting stuck in OS loading process

Its been a trial, but I finally got my USB drive working to the point it could boot. I had to run syslinux with "-ma" options, as well as buying a new flash drive, as well as fiddle with the USB settings on the MB...

but at any rate, booting appears to be somewhat successful, but it seems to be getting stuck during the loading/configuration of the OS.

Here are the last 10 lines of what appears on the screen:

[  48.225005 ] evgpeblk-0956 [04] ev_create_gpe_block    : GPE 00 to 3F [_GPE] 8 regs on int 0x9

[  48.226637 ] evgpeblk-1052 [03] ev_initialize_gpe_block : Found 10 Wake, Enalbed 3 Runtime GPEs in this block

[  48.227181 ] Completing Region/Field/Buffer/Package initialization: .............

[  48.230200 ] initialized 40/40 Regions 0/0 Fields 26/26 Buffers 7/28 Packages (648 nodes)

[  48.230370 ] initializing Device/Processor/ZThermal objects by executing _INI methods: .

[  48.230593 ] Executed 1 _INI methods requiring 0 _STA executions (examined 69 objects)

[  48.230769 ] ACPI : Interpreter enabled

[  48.230837 ] ACPI : (supports S0 S1 S2 S3 S4 S5)

[  48.231054 ] ACPI : Using PIC for interrupt routing

[  48.238297 ] ACPI : PIC Root Bridge [PCI0]  (0000:00)

Clearly some sort of configuration or driver isn't working, but I can't tell what the problem is. Any ideas?

My setup, newly built:

Intel DG33TL Media Series MB (socket 775, Intel 82566DC Gigabit controller, Intel G33 Express chipset)

1.6GHz Celeron 420

1G (512x2) DDR2         

I can get other flash drive based linux OS to load fine. Memtest was run all night without issues.

As I understood, USB and LAN chipset were the only compatibility issues and really only the Realtek LAN was a problem...

It appears to have stopped while setting up the PCI-related hardware, bridges and interrupts and plug-n-play etc.  Has this motherboard worked successfully before?  Is it possible there is a faulty PCI card installed?

I did a little searching online for your Intel DG33TL board, and found a number of compatibility problems with Linux and the G33 chipset, at least with earlier versions.  It looks like more success with the most recent Linux versions.  Have you tried the unRAID 4.3 beta?

By the way, I have to admit being quite impressed with your console listing.  Did you really hand type that?  If not, how did you capture it?  If you did type it in by hand, you can save yourself some effort by skipping the bracketed numbers in front, as they are very rarely useful.

You can try adding acpi=off, noapic, and/or nolapic to the end of the config line in syslinux.cfg.  It is needed with some motherboards to deal with APCI and ACPI issues.

acpi=off is a Linux command that switches off <Advanced Configuration and Power Interface>, whilst noapic is the Linux command that disables the <Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller>.

 

ACPI and APIC aren't disabled by default because on the majority of systems (especially non laptops) they do not cause a problem.

In syslinux.cfg on your flash drive, change the line from

append initrd=bzroot rootdelay=10

to

append initrd=bzroot rootdelay=10 acpi=off nolapic noapic

One thread on the web suggested appending:

acpi=noirq irqpoll

Another post on a ubuntu support forum described problems mounting a USB drive and suggested enabling the Parallel port in the BIOS, even though you were not going to use it, so it would reserve its interrupt when the hardware interrupt assignment was being performed.

Or... It might not need changes to the syslinux.cfg file at all.

As noted in this following post, your motherboard/flash drive combination might need a newer version of syslinux than the one available from the unRAID downloads folder in order to successfully boot.  Look here:: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1176.msg15666#msg15666 

Joe L.

Edit: to add acpi=off, possibly needed by some motherboards to boot.

By the way, I have to admit being quite impressed with your console listing.  Did you really hand type that?  If not, how did you capture it?  If you did type it in by hand, you can save yourself some effort by skipping the bracketed numbers in front, as they are very rarely useful.

 

impressive isn't it? Yes...I did type it in by hand. I made sure I was meticulous about it to maximize my chances of getting a solution for my problem.

Anyways, I did try unraid 4.3b3 to no avail, but I will right NOW try Joe L's suggestion and report back shortly...

UPDATE: SUCCESS! Thanks Joe, your suggestion worked perfectly. Now I get to play around a bit. Thanks Rob and Joe!