# Strange text console behavior



## slinky (Jul 25, 2012)

Hi everyone,

I have some very odd behavior on the text console. It's very hard to describe specifically. Basically, many characters are turned into either white boxes or blank space. Most of the time, when the screen actually refreshes, e.g., after typing and pressing ENTER, the proper text format appears.

Since I can't even figure out a proper way to phrase the problem, I'm at a loss to even start searching for solutions. And since the best way to illustrate the problem is with screen photos, I took two, which I'll link to below.

First, this is what I see when I boot the FreeBSD 9.0 DVD. This is typical of all the installation screens:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-...A/o3TvH71YkCA/s954/2012-07-25_07-16-10_62.jpg

From here, I tried to go into the Live CD. The MOTD appears to display fine, but when typing at the shell prompt exhibits the same behavior:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-.../AjiT10I0Dwo/s954/2012-07-25_07-17-14_290.jpg

This symptom only seems to appear in FreeBSD. I've installed Windows 7, Ubuntu (forget exactly what version, desktop 14.something), and a few other operating systems, all of which which appears to work, but I'd really rather run FreeBSD.

The hardware in question is something called the Nav 13X, specifically from NetBook Navigator, but in reality, this seems to be a generic Chinese product called the D16 netbook. Could not find much info on possible BIOS upgrades or the like.


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## wblock@ (Jul 25, 2012)

Likely this problem and solution: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=30337.


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## slinky (Jul 26, 2012)

Thank you very much. That indeed is the issue.


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