Cannot boot from USB devices on hardware with VIA chipset

[FreeBSD Mailing List]

Hi.

I'm trying to install FreeBSD on a machine with a Jetway NF76 motherboard,
which is using the VIA Nano processor and VX800 chipset.
No matter which USB device type I try (memory stick, CDROM drive, hard drive
masquerading as CDROM drive), the boot process hangs before reaching the
installation screen, with what looks to me like a USB problem.

This is the last text shown on the screen:

    ugen3.1: <VIA> at usbus3
    uhub3: <VIA EHCI root HUB, class 9/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 1> on usbus3
    uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
    uhub1: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
    uhub2: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
    Timecounter "TSC" frequency 997522552 Hz quality 1000
    Root mount waiting for: usbus3
    uhub3: 6 ports with 6 removable, self powered
    Root mount waiting for: usbus3

Disabling USB 2.0 in the BIOS produces this:

    Timecounter "TSC" frequency 997522552 Hz quality 1000
    Root mount waiting for: usbus2
    ugen2.2: <www.zalman.com> at usbus2
    umass0: <iODD2511> on usbus2
    umass0: SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x0000
    umass0:2:0:-1: Attached to scbus2
    Trying to mount root from cd9660:/dev/iso9660/FREEBSD_INSTALL [ro]...
    mountroot: waiting for device /dev/iso9660/FREEBSD_INSTALL
    cd0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus2 target 0 lun 0
    cd0: <ZMVE Virtual CDRom 1.00> Removable CD-ROM SCSI-0 device
    cd0: 1.000MB/s transfers
    cd0: cd present [204533 x 2048 byte records]
    cd0: quirks=0x10<10_BYTE_ONLY>

and then nothing else happens.

Release 8.4 is the first release to show this problem. 7.4 and 8.1-3 works
fine, while 8.4 and all 9.x and 10.0 beta fails.

I've asked about it on the forums, and one of the replies reported similar
problems on another motherboard using a VIA chipset.
The thread is available here:
http://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=43600

Any ideas?

Per