FreeBSD 6.1 & 6.2 hanging and/or spontaneous rebooting

[Joe Vender]

I need Help with a FBSD spontaneous rebooting and freezing issue.

Here's a quick description of my computer system:

I have a Compaq Presario 5184 desktop about 7 or 8 years old
AMD K6-2 processor @ 380MHz
320Mb RAM, 8Mb dedicated to video via BIOS
Quantum Bigfoot TS-6.4A Hard Drive (~6Gb capacity)
SiS 530 integrated graphics
Zoom 56k DUALMODE external modem connected to the serial port
CTX VL700 monitor (30-70/50-120 refresh rates)

I'm new to FreeBSD, but I've some experience with Linux, so FreeBSD isn't 
totally unfamiliar to me.

I zero-filled my HDD on which I'd been running Slackware 11.0 without issue 
and started from scratch with a clean install of FreeBSD 6.1-release. FreeBSD 
6.1 was then the only OS on the system, no multi-boot environment. Everything 
worked fine under FBSD until I dial up the internet and start browsing, 
emailing or whatever. Then, when the computer is busy transferring packets, 
it suddenly reboots without warning. Sometimes, Konqueror will freeze, the 
mouse pointer will freeze for a few seconds before the reboot. It doesn't 
take very long on the internet before the lockup/reboot happens, only 
minutes. It happens over and over and over. I can't stay on the internet long 
enough to even use it.

Now, I've been using Slackware Linux without issue for a long time, same with 
Ubuntu & Kubuntu & Windows prior to that. This isn't a hardware failure, 
because it doesn't occur with these other OSs at all. Linux was what I was 
using before I wiped the drive and installed FreeBSD. I've tested the RAM and 
HDD and they are OK. I repeat, there are no problems like this with the other 
OS's, only when FreeBSD is put on the system. I've only tried FBSD 
6.1-release & FBSD 6.2-release, nothing prior to that.

Since I wasn't even able to use the internet because of the freeze/reboot, I 
reinstalled Slackware and, as always, it is running without a hitch. But, I 
want to use FreeBSD, so I got a copy of FreeBSD 6.2 CDs, thinking maybe it 
was a fixed in the new release. FreeBSD 6.2 gives me the same behavior. After 
a few minutes of browsing, the system just froze up and required a hard 
restart.

I REALLY like FreeBSD, the features and ease of use. If I could get it working 
on this computer as smoothly as Slackware does, I'd use it exclusively. This 
is the only computer I have, so in order to even send this message, I had to 
put Slackware back on the computer. That's what I'm using now.

If anyone can help me figure out what the problem is here, I'd really 
appreciate it.

Remember, the spontaneous reboots and hangs only happen when I dial up the 
internet and start browsing or sending email or such, basically start 
sending/receiving packets. It doesn't happen when no packets are moving over 
the modem, only when its busy. It isn't the modem failing either, obviously, 
since the modem works flawlessly under Linux and windows.

Keep in mind that this is my only computer. I will have to wipe the HDD and 
reinstall FBSD in order to try any suggestions, so please give as much info 
as possible, since when I'm back to FBSD, I may not be able to get back on 
the net for further communication if I can't fix the problem first. At least, 
not until I go through the process of reinstalling Slackware.

I'm hoping that someone has run into this problem before and knows a way to 
fix it.

One more thing that may or may not be important. I remember seeing a message 
at boot up about "IRQ 3 not in the list of probed ports" or something to that 
effect. But, KPPP recognized my external modem without a problem. Its 
on /dev/ttyS0 in KPPP. My computer came with an internal "winmodem" piece of 
@#!$, but I removed that when I plugged in the Zoom external. The internal 
modem is no longer present. The external is plugged in to the serial port. 
Could this be an IRQ conflict or something like that? I'm assuming that the 
message was about the absent internal modem. "Interrupts" in KInfoCenter 
reports that "serial" is using interrupt 4. Please help. I don't mind going 
through the reinstall if I can get FreeBSD working.

One last question. How do I get FBSD to completely power off my computer when 
I shut down, both from KDE and from console? When I shutdown, it just gets to 
the "system halted, press any key to reboot" prompt and doesn't completely 
power off. In slackware, all I have to do is uncomment the "modprobe apm" 
line in rc.modules.

Sorry for such a long email, but I wanted to be as thourough as possible with 
the little I have to go on.

Joe