Why the need to restart the computer?

[technossomy]

I have a computer with DesktopBSD v1.6 installed on it. It is reaching a level of configuration where I am content with it, it is just that I need to restart the computer twice all the time: whenever I switch the computer off and back on again, it will halt at the splash screen, the only remedy left is the reset button. In other words I always need to restart the computer twice. Why? More importantly: where do I start looking for causes and solutions?

Thanks in advance

[ryokimball]

I don't use BSD, but just an idea...
is there an option to view processes during boot("verbose mode," perhaps)? It would be useful to see what is going on during boot when it freezes.
Otherwise, I would not no where to even look except to see what you are doing/changing before you have to reboot twice.

[sdimhoff]

I am also unfamiliar with BSD, but I have another suggestion. A friend of mine was having similar issues (Always required to boot then reboot before anything would load) and after quite a bit of digging he found that this was a known problem with his motherboard/ram interaction. I would think that this type of thing is rare, but when errors occur for no apparent reason it sometimes pays off to check out those types of rare problems.

Good luck and if find any error logs then you can post them here for more help on the software side.

[technossomy]

Thanks for the response. If I try a reboot in verbose mode, mainly elf messages show and the computer hangs at the following line:
ehci0: [GIANT LOCKED]

Any ideas? How do I create error logs?

[technossomy]

The workaround that seems to work is to type in "shutdown now" in the console. This is far from ideal, but still useable since the console is open a lot.

[questio verum]

Just an educated guess, but I think it probably has something to do with your usb controller, or one of your usb devices. You might try disconnecting everything usb (unless of course your keyboard is usb), then try booting up. If it does, then you know to look to one of the devices. Is this an older mobo? One with an earlier implementation of usb perhaps? Just fishing for possibilities here.

qv

[technossomy]

questio verum: thank you for your reply and the mobo is relatively new, forgot which it was, but it has an AMD dual core on it and was purchased around sep 2006. There is no USB device connected, there are 2 front side USB ports (unused) and 4 rear side USB ports (also unused).

[gos9x]

The workaround that seems to work is to type in "shutdown now"

How did this keep you from having to boot up twice? Did it stop hanging after that?

I was trying a new OpenBSD version and was trying to find out how you are supposed to power down the computer. It boots up to a console, as you mentioned, and after a Windows manager session, it goes back to a console. From the login console, how do you shut it down?

[technossomy]

Just hit the main switch. On the computer where this issue surfaces, there is no soft shutdown.