System does not boot without console

[Eugene Grosbein]

Hi!

I have ASUS P7H55 (no integrated video) motherboard that boots
FreeBSD 8.2-PRERELEASE just fine even when I do not plug any video card
in its PCIEx16 slot. System boots and works just fine without video
and keyboard but with default /boot/device.hints only.

It does NOT boot if I make the change:

--- /boot/device.hints.orig   2011-02-15 15:58:11.000000000 +0600
+++ /boot/device.hints        2011-02-15 15:58:17.000000000 +0600
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
 hint.apm.0.flags="0x20"
 hint.uart.0.at="isa"
 hint.uart.0.port="0x3F8"
-hint.uart.0.flags="0x10"
+hint.uart.0.flags="0x0"
 hint.uart.0.irq="4"
 hint.uart.1.at="isa"
 hint.uart.1.port="0x2F8"

If I power the box down thereafter, insert video card and boot it again,
it boots and I see it did not mount root file system, it's clean.
Normally it takes a munute to boot this system and I waited for hours to test.

It does not boot without video card if I additionally write
"-m" (without quotes) to /boot.config and "console=nullconsole" to /boot/loader.conf

Is it supposed behavour?

Motivation: I need the only PCIEx16 slot for Intel dualport gigabit ethernet network adapter
and want to have common NanoBSD image for boxes like this and other boxes having IPMI card
and want to have hint.uart.2.flags="0x10" in /boot/loader.conf

Eugene Grosbein