# Corrupted screen installing FreeBSD 9.0



## MatsDufberg (Mar 7, 2012)

I am trying to install FreeBSD 9.0 32bit on a Mini-ITX computer an Intel D2500CC motherboard, 4GB RAM, SATA HD, USB keyboard and (on and off) an USB mouse.

When I try to install the screen is corrupted:

* When I try to navigate the text based menus, such as selecting keyboard or partioning the harddisk the screen does not get correctly updated. Characters "stick". Some chararcters that I write are replaced bey solid squares. If the mouse is installed it displays correctly, and if it is moved, the screen is updated and things are displayed correctly.

* When I have a normal command line screen and write something on the command line some characters are replaced by solid sqaures, and erasing by pressing backspace does not work completely. If the mouse is installed and I move it, there will be multiple arrows, and the screen is corrupted where the arrows move.

Another thing is that FreeBSD does not find the PS/2 mouse (I have not yet tested PS/2 keyboard).

When I log in using ssh there are no problems so far.

With linux (ubuntu and memtest) there are no problems in neither text nor in graphical mode (X). I tested to run PC-BSD 9.0 and it had (of course) the same problem in text mode, but in graphical mode (X) it had no problem.

The installation is completed, but I'd like to be able to use the console without corruption. Any suggestions?


Mats


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## Sebulon (Mar 8, 2012)

@MatsDufberg

Which characters? If itÂ´s Ã¥Ã¤Ã¶, then you probably have the wrong character set or locale.

/Sebulon


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## MatsDufberg (Mar 8, 2012)

No, no. If I write "reboot" on the command line it will maybe be "re##ot" where "#" is a solid square.

In the menu, when I scroll down, characters from previous lines stick. When I move the move, the screen is updated and correct.

I am not using anything else but ASCII in this case.


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## Sebulon (Mar 8, 2012)

@MatsDufberg

Saw this reading another thread, just before this one:
Need tips for minimizing downtime of hardware migration


			
				Aprogas said:
			
		

> My homeserver (enki) is suffering an unknown hardware-failure that causes it to freeze (even numlock does not respond) and have trouble booting (freezes during loading of kernel, sometimes *garbles text on screen*).



Might be barking up the wrong tree but still, scary coincidence

/Sebulon


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## mirnshi (Mar 9, 2012)

I have this motherboard too. And I think I have same problem. It seems that the VGA driver does not work well on this motherboard. The kernel can't scroll up the text, all the text displayed at the bottom of the screen.


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## wblock@ (Mar 9, 2012)

Others are having trouble too: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=46489.0

Make sure you have the latest BIOS.


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## MatsDufberg (Mar 9, 2012)

OK, I have fewer problems because booting etcetera works as it should and text is scrolling as it should, but I have installed the 32 bit version. When I tried the 64 bit version the text stayed on the last line and then it rebooted.


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## wblock@ (Mar 10, 2012)

It would not surprise me if Linux in text mode had trouble on it also, indicating some odd console video.  But Linux usually uses a graphic console which could hide the problem.


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## MatsDufberg (Mar 11, 2012)

No problem with Ubuntu in text mode. I installed Ubuntu 11.11, 32 bit, and then I switched to full screen text mode with Ctrl-Alt-F1, and there was no sign of any problem. But I want to have FreeBSD on it.


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## wblock@ (Mar 11, 2012)

Many (most?) Linuxes actually use a graphic framebuffer for their console.  Yes, it's showing text, but it's still in a graphics mode.  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ConsoleFramebuffer

FreeBSD can do that also, see vidcontrol(1).


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## mirnshi (Mar 12, 2012)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> Many (most?) Linuxes actually use a graphic framebuffer for their console.  Yes, it's showing text, but it's still in a graphics mode.  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ConsoleFramebuffer
> 
> FreeBSD can do that also, see vidcontrol(1).



But how to fix on FreeBSD?


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## wblock@ (Mar 12, 2012)

If the video BIOS is the problem, temporarily installing a video card might be enough.  But the problem could be deeper, like ACPI.


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## novemberico (Mar 14, 2012)

I have what I believe to be the same problem (every 4th character on ttyv0 is blank, or solid (0xff)) on a Jetway NC9KDL-2700 ( http://www.jetway.com.tw/jw/ipcboard_view.asp?productid=931&proname=NC9KDL-2700 ). At first I thought it was fine because I didn't intend for this box to have a head for long, but it still bothered me. I haven't solved the problem yet, but I did mitigate the blank/solid characters by switching to a different vidcontrol mode. To view vidcontrol modes you can use use 
	
	



```
vidcontrol -i mode
```
To set the mode (I set mine to 640x480x4 8x16) you can use 
	
	



```
vidcontrol MODE_<mode # (first column of vidcontrol -i mode output)>
i.e. vidcontrol MODE_26
```


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## MatsDufberg (Apr 5, 2012)

Thank you! "vidcontrol MODE_27" solves the problem when FreeBSD is installed. Could that be executed at boot time from the installation media?


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## fadolf (May 10, 2012)

There also seems to be an issue with the serial console for this board and D2700 based ones.


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## fadolf (Jul 19, 2012)

There's a recent commit which should fix the problem.


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## Erratus (Apr 30, 2013)

After upgrading from RELENG_9_0 to RELENG_9_1 this problem is fixed. Bars could be seen during the bootloader phase. These are gone with 9.1.


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