# Console mangled on Intel Atom E3845



## Jake Roberts (Oct 23, 2016)

Good morning.  I have purchased a Roqos router, which has an Intel Atom E3845.  It came preinstalled with Debian plus the vendor's secret sauce.    When I boot any OS to the console it is so mangled that it's unreadable.  This applies to FreeBSD 11, and 12, TrueOS, Debian, and Ubuntu.  I've dug around in the UEFI and it seems that the console output is set to pciANSI.  Is there a way to fix this at the command line?


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## Phishfry (Oct 24, 2016)

Is this a serial console or vga?

I wonder if they use some non standard output to discourage reuse. They use a monthly subscription to offset the device cost it appears.

http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/09...-processor-for-19-plus-monthly-subscriptions/


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## Jake Roberts (Oct 24, 2016)

VGA.  The monthly subscription is for cloud stuff they are doing on some mangled version of Debian I don't care about.  It radiates almost no heat, and draws around 10 watts. Freebsd installs OK, but the console issue makes it difficult to muck around with.


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## Phishfry (Oct 24, 2016)

I found better pictures and see it has HDMI output. Have you tried to SSH in to see what that looks like?
Are you booting off an mSATA module? How did you get it setup with it looking so poor? Did the FreeBSD installer video output look different?


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## Jake Roberts (Oct 24, 2016)

SSH looks fine.  m.2 sata module.  Did the setup with trial and error plus muscle memory.  The boot loader menu looks fine.  As soon as the system begins booting the screen switches to what you see in the picture.  Debian, once installed looks fine.  X running on TrueOS looks fine.


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## Phishfry (Oct 24, 2016)

Have you tried switching to syscons ? I assume your using FreeBSD 11 with vt(4) ?
https://wiki.freebsd.org/Newcons


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## Jake Roberts (Oct 24, 2016)

Think so.  Been at this for a couple of weeks now.  Tried 11 and 12.


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## Jake Roberts (Oct 24, 2016)

Was knocking the idea of recompiling coreboot with Seabios.  It uses Tianocore now.  Does anyone know if this would make a difference?


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## Phishfry (Oct 24, 2016)

If Beastie comes up OK and it goes wonky after that then you need to investigate syscons. The newer vt(4) does act weirdly on some platforms.


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## Jake Roberts (Oct 24, 2016)

The Nics(2) are Intel I211.  igb driver.  Will look at syscons.


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## Jake Roberts (Oct 24, 2016)

Thank you I will look into it if it comes to that.


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## Jake Roberts (Oct 24, 2016)

I have no idea what's on the board.  I'll look tomorrow.  syscons causes the system to hang.


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## Phishfry (Oct 27, 2016)

Is your unit different than the pictures from above? I see 4 Gigabit ethernet and one marked Internet. Also I do not see an M.2 slot.
The unit from the CNX site looks pretty awesome to me for an $225 rig. Quad core and low power.
I see an 2x4pin header and wonder if its SPI.


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## Jake Roberts (Oct 30, 2016)

Sorry it's taken to long to respond.  It is an mSata drive.  I never knew the difference before now.  My solution was to buy a TTL to USB cable and just use the serial console.  This gets it done for me, probably better than VGA anyway since I don't have a monitor to spare.  Thanks everybody for the help.


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## Phishfry (Oct 30, 2016)

What is the situation with ethernet interfaces? All Intel? 4 Gigabit and one 10/100 for Internet?

So you would attribute your trouble to the HDMI output? Were you using a 1080p LCD as 720p sometimes act up I have found.

Did you find good docs for the rx/tx/gnd pins for uart console?


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## Jake Roberts (Oct 30, 2016)

Two Intel I211 NICs.  igb0 for wan, igb1 for all 4 lan ports.  Screen is my ancient Samsung SyncMaster, 1680 x 1024.  The TTL adapter I bought came with a single plug.  I used my volt meter to sort out the pins on the board.


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