PWS500a (Mitia) first install - some progress, three strange observations, one serious problem

[Ulrich]

Hi Everybody 

I still try to get FreeBSD running on my PWS500a. The keyboard problem 
disappeared after I replaced the keyboard and I can now operate sysinstall. 
This was the "progress" part. 

It's a little bit surprising that the kernel configuration phase is skipped, 
but this shouldn't be a problem because the network adapter, the harddisk 
controller and other components are correctly recognised and seem to work 
properly - with one exception which I will talk later about.
When it comes to the 10 Seconds count down before loading the kernel I only 
see the message and the three numbers 10, 9 and 8 for less than a Second and 
loading of the kernel starts automatically.
I install via local FTP and get the message that the requested version isn't 
available at the FTP host although the file /cdrom.inf contains "CD_VERSION 
= 4.9-RELEASE" which seems to be the correct value, isn't it. So I replace 
"4.9-RELEASE" with "any" and the installation starts.
This was the "three strange observations" part. 

Alas, while installing the first distribution package I get the message 
"panic: timeout table full" and this is really the end of the story so far. 
Partitioning this SCSI disk and newfs worked fine which makes me believe 
that there might be a way to get around that problem. 

Does anybody know what I should try? Maybe 4.10 or 4.11, since 5.4 doesn't 
work at all? Or is there any option that I can pass to the kernel? Are the 
"three strange observations" normal or is there a problem with my 
configuration? 

There is one AIC78XX SCSI controller in the box and one harddisk connected 
to this controller. There are no other harddisks. I know that I cannot boot 
using that controller but the FreeBSD Alpha documentation says that this 
controller can be used with FreeBSD. Since I don't have in mind switching 
off this machine often I would be happy to boot from FDs. So far I don't see 
any reason why this shouldn't work. 

Thanks for any hints. 

Ulrich